Qur’an-Denial: The Foundational Error of the Appeasers

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*Originally published on this blog in May, 2016

The terror attacks in Brussels, Ivory Coast and Nigeria this past week were (if you’ll tolerate a well-worn paradox) notable for being completely unremarkable. The murders were generic, run-of-the-mill, classical and exactly in step with the history and character of the Islamic religion. As I have said previously, such violence is best understood simply as the Qur’an in action, or Applied Islam, if you prefer. This is what all those elegant Arabic characters materialize into. This is their effect.

There is no ingenious metaphor behind Quranic verses imploring Muslims to kill “unbelievers.” and “strike of their heads”. It isn’t an allegorical way of saying “Try your best in life and be proud of your heritage”. It means exactly what you think it means. Mutilate and murder people if they derive from a different religious tradition.

The Qur’an murdered those people in Belgium, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Without it’s message, they would still be alive.

But despite that terrible reality, this notorious book of death will remain readily available at your local Waterstones or Walmart for the foreseeable future. Your children, if you have any, will be able to purchase it, read it, learn from it, perhaps even act on it. This is because, for all the chaos and bloodshed at the hands of Muslims the world over, our cultural elite still refuse to recognise that it is the text itself which inspires the carnage. Rejecting this idea as essentially ‘racist’, they offer instead tortuous sociological, economic, psychological explanations more palatable to the liberal mindset and harmonious with liberal, multi-cultural doctrine. The Muslims are killing people because they are ‘disenfranchised’, ‘outcast from the cultural mainstream’, ‘oppressed’, ‘economically deprived’ and so on. They will stick stubbornly to these explanations right up to the point a Salafist knife rests upon their throats.

Prime Minister Cameron has repeatedly claimed that Islam is peaceful

Through this prism of misinterpretation, individual terror attacks are not understood as a call to banish Islam forever from the shores of the free world, but as an opportunity to understand better the mistakes WE have made in our diplomacy with the Muslim world. Simon Jenkins, the eccentric libertarian sore thumb over at the Guardian, argued just a few days ago that the reaction of the West (to Brussels and other comparable acts of terrorism) should be to “alleviate” the “rage that gives rise to acts of terror…”, including by instigating a “wiser foreign policy than most western nations have shown towards the Muslim world over the past decade.”

The cretinous Socialist Worker newspaper struck a similar tone: “Wars launched by the leaders of the US, Britain and France” read this week’s opinion column “have created huge resentment and created the space in which groups such as Isis can grow. These same leaders back the brutal governments that have turned back the tide of the Arab Spring—which offered hope…There is nothing remotely anti-imperialist about the bombings. But the reality is that more repression will mean more attacks.”

This bewildering ignorance is the natural result of Quran-Denial. Without reference to the text demanding violence, Islamic violence inevitably seems free-floating, reactive and mysterious. It is only with reference to the text itself that such violence becomes understandable. Denial of the link between violence and the Qur’an is thus the foundational error of the Western appeasers of Islam.

It is worth noting that we rarely fail to trace the origins of other religious practices. One of the key pillars of Christian practice, for example, is the injunction to loves one’s neighbour, the poor and even one’s enemies. Christian charities are acting upon this sentiment when they do charitable work, launch missions in the third world, or stage interfaith dialogues. Only a very eccentric man indeed would try to claim that such people were not directly motivated by the text of their Holy Book. It stands to reason that they are.

Christians are directly inspired by the New Testament

When critics of Christianity and Judaism, such as Bill Maher, reference the textual origins of what they perceive as Abrahamic ‘homophobia’, Christians and Jews are never allowed to claim the verses in question are metaphors or that they discriminate only against ancient homosexuals.

Only Islam is allowed to stand apart from its own Holy Book. And yet Islam is also the faith most fanatical about the literal inerrancy of its Holy Book.

Let’s look at some of the passages which may have influenced the murders this past week. A Hat-tip is due here to the staff at the invaluable websites ‘Gates of Vienna’ and ‘Religion of Peace’ which compiled some of the following excerpts (as well as many others):

Quran (5:33) “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”

Quran (8:59-60) “And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah’s Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy.”

Qur’an

Quran (9:5) “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.”

Quran (9:14) “Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people.”

That should be enough to prove my point. We need only use Occam’s Razor (AKA Ockham’s Razor: the formula that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) to discover the root cause of the carnage afflicting the civilised and developing world. Muslims are killing because their Holy Text implores them to kill. No further discussion is needed.

Dear political elite – Islam is violent because the Qur’an is violent. The Qur’an itself is Europe’s mortal enemy. Drop the mystification and start working on a fightback.

What else is there to say about the Brussels attack? Well, for one thing, it happened in a very beautiful city. I went on holiday to Brussels as a teenager with my family and remember enjoying every minute of the two weeks I spent there. If you haven’t been yourself, please consider it (especially now). The famous cobbled streets, superior booze, laid back mood and architectural grandeur repay the price of travel with generous interest.

Watching the news come in after the explosions this week, I recognised with real sadness parts of the city I had strolled through during that halcyon fortnight. One of the massed news correspondents even stood in front of a complex of buildings I once happily photographed, her sad, elongated face starkly out of sync with the pleasant memories I will try – in spite of everything – to nurture and keep pure and intact.

Brussels

Of course, as well as being a charming city in itself, Brussels is also – for now – the Capital of the European Union. Sadly, even if also inevitably, this fact has discoloured some reactions to the bombings. One couldn’t help but detect a mood of political schadenfreude on the part of the British right-wing press last Tuesday evening. From a propaganda point of view, it must have seemed too good to be true. The EU capital, machine-heart of a despised and oppressive bureaucracy, shattered by the fruit of its own myopic agenda. The heat of the explosions had yet to fade from the air when EU-haters excitedly set about refitting the tragedy to add weight to their case for Brexit. This tasteless enthusiasm, understandable but deeply regrettable, says a lot about how badly the European experiment has poisoned continental relations.

Let’s be clear: Those unlucky souls vanquished in Brussels a few days ago did not die entirely in vain. They are (and should always be remembered as) martyrs in a just war of good vs. evil, modernity vs. darkness. My heart goes out to them, their families and their friends. In their memory, I will conclude by restating my motive in writing this blog: I detest Islam. I detest it with all my soul.

D, LDN

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There Are No Noble Savages

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If the reader is a user of facebook or any comparable website, he or she may be familiar with the following viral post:

“An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run, they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the treats for himself, they said: “Ubunto. How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”. ‘Ubunto’ in Xhosa culture means ‘I am because we are'”

Though the authenticity of the Ubunto story is uncertain, the word appears to be real and to have roughly the same meaning attributed to it. If this is the case, the concept is surely pleasant, even admirable. But is it really so original or sophisticated?

If the adoring Westerners cooing over this story could stop crying with happiness for one moment, they might recall the similar Western phrase ‘all for one, one for all’ – or indeed many hundreds of other equivalents around the world.

Human solidarity, yet another way of describing ‘Ubunto’, is an innate quality invested in the human condition by the legacy of biological evolution. It is not something one needs to give a name to. It just exists – ineradicably, albeit in differing endowments from person to person.

As many cynics have noted, the only reason Western audiences are so enamoured of the Ubunto story in particular is because it appears to align with a very old and sentimental fallacy; that of the ‘Noble savage’.

The Noble Savage has been part of Western art – particularly literature – for centuries. Put simply, the idea is that undeveloped cultures (especially African, Amerindian, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures), though on the surface less sophisticated and morally developed than those of Europe, nevertheless retain valuable ancient wisdom the West may profit by relearning.

You can see the cultural effects of this notion everywhere you look; from fridge magnets emblazoned with Confucian and Native American spiritual maxims, to the kind of the meme mentioned above. The West cannot seem to get enough of ancient non-European ‘wisdom’. It is substantially more popular even than Western philosophy, including the immortal works of Nietzsche, Kant and the ancient Greeks – (when was the last time you saw a Plato fridge magnet?).

Of course, being the cultural bigot that I am, I do not believe that Crazy Horse is the equal of Nietzsche. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think they even belong in the same category. Nietzsche was the greatest philosopher of the last 500 years. Crazy Horse, though undoubtedly noble in the military sense, made only commonsensical remarks about his own life and about a political struggle he ended up losing (to Europeans).

Historic Third World philosophers, like historic Third World mathematicians, physicists and inventors, are extremely thin on the ground. The vast majority of celebrated non-European thinkers are products of the past 100 years, a century marked by non-European adaptation to European domination and cultural hegemony.

This is not a coincidence. When European civilisation – now de-racialised as  ‘The West’ – made the first breakthrough from localism to worldliness, the broader world was still filled with savage darkness. And long after the enlightenment began, Asians (including those dwelling in the now impressive Japanese and Korean cultures), Africans and Amerindians continued to exist in a twilight condition of subsistence agriculture and mind-numbing ritual.

In India, now home to internet entrepreneurs and industrialist billionaires, widowed women hurled themselves onto burning funeral pyres to satisfy perverse notions of marital duty. In Japan, now the epicentre of global technological innovation, Samurai (normal people in strange clothes) cut their stomachs open to amend for ‘dishonourable’ failures in martial etiquette. There is evidence of cannibalism in Southern Africa as late as the Victorian era. And so on…

The European explosion – the multinational enlightenment – was the beginning of true civilisation. Though periods of greatness in North Africa, the Middle East, Mexico and China had been observed centuries before this point, it is only after this seismic event that civilisation in its contemporarily recognisable form began.

So why do Westerners, those to whom the most credit belongs,  now look back at pre-civilisation with such a powerful nostalgia? Why do Brits and Americans, looking at memes on Apple Mackintosh computers, interpret the word ‘umbunto’ as a proof of Third World superiority? And why are non-Europeans, Asians especially, increasingly more cognizant of Western superiority than Westerners?

Since these questions are interconnected, a single answer may suffice for all of them. The West, unlike the rest of the planet, is infected with a virus of civilizational exhaustion; a crisis of civilizational confidence. We Westerners have grown so used to the blessings of modernity that we have come to take them for granted. It takes real mental exertion for us to imagine (honestly and accurately) a world without the internet, refrigerators and Starbucks restaurants. And with a thick fog of relativism further obscuring our vision we are inevitably tempted by the idea that such a condition is more ‘wholesome’, ‘substantial’ or culturally complex than that in which we now live.

Westerners have become bored of affluence and modernity

But it isn’t more wholesome, of course, nor more substantial, complex, romantic… It is inferior by almost every measure. And if anyone needs evidence of this contention, one can experience pre-civilisation for a very paltry sum these days. One can fly over to Ghana, Chad, North Korea or Afghanistan and live cheaply for whole years at a time. The reason we don’t want to dwell in such places, would not even dream of doing so, is because anti-Western sentiment is based on lies, illusions and errors of logic.

The West (including the Western-inspired cultures of Japan and Korea) is the only true civilisation on Earth. The further you go away from it, the further you go away from all that is valuable, good and worth living for.

The Noble Savage myth is the first step down a very slippery slope. It is best not to take it, even if that means not sharing a heart-warming post on social media.

D, LDN.

In Defence of… Christian Movies

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When I feel low, I often cheer myself up by watching US-made Christian movies. I’m not proud of this. Very few are well made or intellectually complex. I’m drawn to them for other, perhaps less respectable reasons, some of which I will share here today.

First, you should understand that the Christian movie industry is a very much booming trade. After the injection of pace with Mel Gibson’s (slightly dodgy) ‘Passion of the Christ’, even the most atheistic Hollywood producer has come to recognise the massive profit-potential in religious film-making. Most ordinary Americans are devoutly attached to their faith, and of these a great number feel alienated by the over-worldly content churned out by conventional L.A productions. It seems only logical then that faith-based productions enter the void left over.

And they have done. They really have. Christian films now reliably bring in millions of dollars, usually despite a paltry budget and so creating a gaping profit margin for the makers.

What are they like? As I perceive the matter, Christian films are usually small variations on the following plot structure: Good Christian girl/boy living a wholesome American life – falls into temptation (drugs, fame, sex, wealth etc…) – gets burnt by the sin they fall into – are saved by their old friends or family from their former wholesome life.

Sounds stupid? I suppose it is. But then there is something weirdly magnetic and comforting in the uncomplicated innocence these films advertise. If the idea of the movies is to tempt you into a different, more wholesome way of life, they are successful to the extent that they make that way of life seem joyful and safe. You come away from one of these films with a desire to avoid falling into life-traps, perhaps even to get out of life-traps you are already in. The feeling doesn’t last long enough for you to do anything about it, of course, but it certainly stays in your mind longer than the messages of Taken 3 or the latest sci-fi abomination.

Christian movies are also appealing to me because of their all-American feel. The characters at the beginning of each film (before the temptations and fall from grace) are living the American dream; a suburban house, a nice car, and a tight family with one beautiful cheer-leading daughter and one athletic and good-mannered son. I’ve always been drawn to idyllic caricatures like that. It matters nothing that this isn’t the reality for 90% of real American families. As shtick goes, it works for me – like a social watercolour painting.

A list of Christian cinema’s flaws would be as long as the list of its virtues. Christian movies are often anti-Semitic (the temptation villain trope character in a film usually looks Jewish). They are homophobic as a matter of course. And though the lead character in each production is usually female, she is also passive, secondary and naïve. These films are anything but politically correct, and this explains sufficiently why they will never break through into the mainstream.

By any religion’s standards I’m a sinner. I like anything that brings me pleasure and have indulged more than I should in uncountable vices. Perhaps it is for that reason that the morals of Christian cinema strike me as exotic and fascinating. They are foreign, but in a way I can’t easily belittle or reject.

D, LDN

Trump, Kelly and the Corporate Right.

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They say you know you’re onto something when your opponents begin to lie. Donald Trump will be more keenly aware of this than anyone right now.

As you’ll be aware, during the first Republican debate, the Billionaire became embroiled in a battle of emotions with the aggressive Fox anchor Megyn Kelly (who was co-hosting the debate). After Kelly asked Trump a stupidly personal, off-topic question about the candidate’s views on women, Trump responded with a witty one-liner which sent the audience into hysterics. To this, Kelly’s reaction was one of visible annoyance, if not rage. Later in the day, when asked about the exchange, Trump mentioned the anger apparent on Kelly’s face, adding that he could see “blood coming out of her eyes, out of her ears, out of her wherever…” before moving quickly onto a different point. Having nothing better to beat Trump with, the media then collectively agreed to a fraud of deliberate misunderstanding. The “wherever” in Trump’s statement was portrayed as “obviously” referring to Megyn Kelly’s vagina, making the otherwise innocent comment a lewd reference to the presenter’s menstruating cycle.

This is old news for America now. The public was not fooled at the time, and they are not fooled now. But it is worth dwelling on in order to take the temperature of the American mood regarding Mr Trump, and also to reflect on what the scandal says about the American right-wing.

Fox News (with the possible exception of Sean Hannity) would appear determined to end Trump’s campaign. It is obvious who they prefer and wish to succeed, and that is Ted Cruz (not a bad choice, but inferior, in my opinion, to Trump). Never prone to subtlety, the behaviour of the Fox hosts during the debate was childish, manipulative and insulting to the independence of their audience. They went for Trump with a naked bloodlust, a rabid determination and yes, with blood (metaphorically) pouring from their eyes.

It is an obvious but frequently overlooked fact that the corporate right-wing is very different to the intellectual right wing. While the latter operates for primarily ideological motivations, the former does so for money and ratings. This could be the reason why the Fox News gang went for Trump, a man who is so confidently right-wing that the corporate right-wing can only lose by his success.

Fox News thrives best during Democratic administrations. That’s when the conservative population is most angry and in search of a voice sympathetic to their mood. When a Republican is in office, the Fox Network can prosper only by moving to the right of the President (a relatively easy manoeuvre in the Bush eras).

But if we take Donald at his word, a Trump administration would follow through on every policy the Fox audience endorses.

What would Fox do then?

D, LDN

Could Islamic State Kill Islam?

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For the first time in a blue moon, Anglo-American liberals are telling the truth. Islamic State (or ISIS) are increasingly unpopular with ordinary Muslims. Although few can doubt that the actions of the terror regime are explicitly rooted in Quranic text, the exotic barbarism and random flashes of violence employed by its fighters are rarely endorsed by anyone outside of its own ranks. A swelling number of Muslim regimes (themselves backward and detestable in separate ways) are calling for the annihilation of the Caliphate, with some even looking to the infidel West for help in doing so.

The bigger picture here is fascinating. I’m starting to wonder if the very public cruelties of ISIS are causing a quiet crisis of identity for hundreds of millions of mildly devout believers. Magnifying the most extreme implication of this, I’m starting to wonder if ISIS may prove to be Islam’s fatal wound.

Islamic State is the Quran in action. That point is very important to understand. When you read the Quran, you are reading the basis for the blood-soaked terror currently engulfing Syria and Iraq. If you believe the text is endorsed by heaven, you are silently condoning the same slaughter. Now, I don’t believe that the majority of Muslims are stupid or lacking in humanity. Most of them are ordinary people, often very good-natured people, who have simply been brought up in a climate of ritualised stupidity. Given the deep roots of their cultural heritage, it was always going to take something frightful and extreme to make them question it. Has that ‘something’ now entered the stage of history?

Recall that Communism, as a philosophy and as an aspiration, declined greatly in the latter half of the Twentieth century. Most scholars agree that this process had something to do with the discovery (by historians and statisticians) of the Biblical-scale famines and state genocides of the first half of that century – events that were previously only rumors (deniable rumors). When faced with the realities of the Gulag even the most hard-hearted card-carrier began to wonder if his system of thought stood on faulty ground.

As ISIS continues to expose the consequences of applied Islam, even Saudi Arabia (the ideological source of many ISIS doctrines) finds itself swerving into panicked hypocrisy. Last month it was announced by Saudi officials that the Kingdom will be building a multi-million dollar wall spanning the entirety of its northern border to lessen the threat of an ISIS invasion.

The state of Jordan, after one of its pilots was murdered in the most bestial manner, has sworn to mobilise its military to crush the Islamic State. Egypt, having witnessed the spread of ISIS to neighbouring Libya, has brutally crushed Islamist forces within its own territory. In Tunisia, after Islamic State blew up a tourist destination in the capital city, the local population exploded in horrified shame and patriotic anger. Even Iran is warming to the West (and vice versa) as both powers seek to contain the same barbarism.

As someone who monitors these things, I have personally seen the membership of atheist groups rooted in Muslim countries swell in recent months. The citizenry of countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Qatar, Bahrain and Algeria are increasingly aware of how fragile Islam makes their prized social peace and growing economic fortunes.

Has Islamic State – organised to promote and expand the domain of Islam – sent the religion into its death-spiral?

Food for thought.

D, LDN.

4 Things Britain Can Learn from Spain.

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I’ve been working in Northern Spain for more than 4 months now. I shall be returning to England very shortly and so in the past weeks I’ve been thinking about how this country compares to my own. There are many things the UK gets right that Spain gets wrong, but to list these would be impolite to my hosts. Here instead are four things Spain does that Britain should do too…

1. Build Real Cities.

One of the greatest failures of modern British planning is the way the capital city has been allowed to dwarf the rest of the country economically, culturally and politically. The 2nd city of Britain is a glorified housing estate. The 3rd city (Manchester) is merely a scaled down version of London. Below that, most English cities are simply large towns.

Compare this to Spain, where at least 5 cities – Bilbao, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Seville – qualify as ‘major’. This gives Spain a wonderful balance, something sorely lacking the UK.

2. Cook Real Food.

British cuisine is an international punchline. To deny this only makes the laughter more emphatic. Spanish cuisine is simple, yet wonderfully varied. Let’s add more seafood to our diet. It extends your lifespan and is immeasurably more delicious than chips.

3. Don’t Fight High-Speed Railways.

There is currently a very silly controversy raging in Britain regarding the construction of a high-speed rail link between Birmingham and London. While I don’t know of many reasons why a Londoner would wish to go to Birmingham, high speed trains are an essential part of a modern national infrastructure. Don’t fight the future. It always wins.

4. Lift the 5pm Shutters.

There is no reason for society to shut down at 5pm. It is depressing, anti-social and economically destructive. If you want young Brits to stop getting drunk in parks, put pressure on businesses to stay open longer. In Spain, the happy part of the day begins when ours finishes.

D, LDN.

The Horror-Comedy of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws.

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It is outrageously easy to blaspheme in Pakistan. To be sure, a citizen may do so without even realising it; sometimes without having done so at all. The accusation is all that counts. As one journalist put it: “All you need to do to condemn someone for life is to switch on a mosque loudspeaker and make the allegation.”

Blasphemy laws in the Islamic Republic are now routinely used to settle disputes. A man whose car has been dented by the car parked in front (for example), need only inform the secret police that its owner has doubted the moral excellence of Mohammad, and his life will be ruined; a sentence of death placed on his head.

No-one is free or ‘above’ this suffocating atmosphere. A couple of months ago, a successful Pakistani actress (she had found fame in Bollywood) was declared guilty of blaspheming Islam. At the time of the accusation, the actress was in Dubai. Bewilderingly, she then declared a willingness to return to Pakistan to clear her name.

Politicians too can be brought down by this kind of mischief. As can lawyers, doctors and (of course) free-thinkers. What Pakistan appears to have perfected is a religious Stalinism, with the religious authorities replacing the KGB.

As Salman Hameed wrote in the Guardian: “(The) blasphemy law is devouring Pakistani society from within. It is an all-purpose tool in the service of intolerance. It has often been used against religious minorities, but Muslims are paying the price as well. The repeal of the law, unfortunately, is unlikely. Some voices critical of the law have already been silenced by intimidation and violence…”

If Saudi Arabia is the worst country in the world – as I have previously alleged – then Pakistan is working at breakneck pace to overtake it.

D, LDN.

Book Review: Mein Kampf.

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Following someone else’s lead, I decided to spend this week reading my (barely touched) copy of Adolf Hitler’s bestselling autobiography ‘Mein Kampf’.

Firstly, I can tell you that reading this book in Starbucks attracts a lot of unwanted attention. Secondly, I don’t think I’ve ever read a more poorly written book in my life.

I expected nothing else, of course, and in the introduction (I was reading the Picarus edition), the translator even forewarns the reader that the book is quite laborious and difficult to finish. Hitler’s sentences ‘lack rhythm and poetry’. He stresses the wrong words, leads with the wrong phrases and finishes without conclusions.

The attempts at scientific comment in particular, amount to ranting ignorance.

Here is a representative paragraph:

“Whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of an inferior race the result has been the downfall of the people who were the standard-bearers of a higher culture. In North America, where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilization which are different from those of Central and South America. In these latter countries the immigrants – who mainly belonged to the Latin races – mated with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed. In this case we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the mixture of races. But in North America the Teutonic element, which has kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit of adulterating its blood.”

This kind of rambling pub philosophy takes up a good third of the book. The other two thirds are tedious (and often phoney) recollections of childhood and youth.

Still, as with any book of this length, there are occasional flashes of truth, and occasionally, insight. One such moment of clarity is when the Austrian talks about the transient convictions of the general public. About halfway through, the budding despot complains that after a rally in which the audience seemingly accepted his arguments, it would take only a few days for that same crowd to applaud an opposing thesis.

This is (sadly) all too accurate and the process can be observed in any democratic society. Just watch an episode of Question Time to see how fickle the modern crowd can be.

As regards this volume in general, it’s an agonising shame that Europe was once in such a low mood that it accepted this drivel as profound.

D, LDN.

Germany: Our Sword and Shield.

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English people (for obvious and well-understood historic reasons) are often averse to acknowledging the virtues of the German people, in many ways their most ancient and significant continental rivals. After two world wars in which the ‘Hun’ emerged as nightmarishly cruel and ultimately self-destructive, the English archetype of cool-headed analysis seemed naturally superior to the violent romance of Teutonic ambition.

The Germans have too much hunger; their imagination is too wild; their sense of history is too acute. They succumb too easily to mass-euphoria.

All of these accusations are valid and not just in the context of Nazi Germany.

Nevertheless, deeper down than the part of their nature they expose, the English secretly adore and envy German success. In fact, Germans are probably the most secretly envied (and publicly condemned) racial group in the world.

Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schiller, Goethe, Max Planck, Schopenhauer, Humboldt, Mann, Hegel, Kant, Stirner, Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss, Bach, Bismarck, Adenauer, Rocket Science, BMW, Mercedes, Maybach, Adidas, Audi, Bayer, Volkswagen, Porsche, Heroin, Aspirin, IG Farben, Daimler, Bosch, Hugo Boss, Deutsche Bank…

The history of the recent past is dominated by German energy, German initiative and German genius. The German economy is unreachably superior in form and output than any other economy (adjusted for size) outside Japan. If there was a country the size of America populated solely by Germans, it would likely rule the world for a millennium. Indeed, the tragedy of the European Union is that it assumed Europe to be populated by peoples equal in industrial capability to the Germans.

How do we account for German success? Common stereotype has the Germans as more ‘efficient’ than other peoples, but this is not really an explanation for anything. Why are they more efficient, more productive, more inventive and disciplined than the rest of Europe?

The answer is likely a biological and evolutionary one. Germans are naturally better at certain things than French, Italian, English and Spanish people are. The same applies vice versa of course. There are innumerable things that Germans cannot do well that the countries aforementioned can. The English are better writers and shipbuilders than Germans for example.

But we must acknowledge the importance of Germany and its relation to our common security. The German military is now the strongest in Europe, having overtaken the UK and France many years ago. Its population (despite the demographic malaise being as strong there as anywhere else) is still the largest.

European strength is to a large degree dependent on German strength, and history must not force us to disarm ourselves of our strongest shield and sharpest sword.

D, LDN.