What Does ‘White Supremacist’ Mean?

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America, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, racism, trump, white supremacy

White supremacy is an indeterminate but vital concept in modern political discourse, particularly in Britain and America, where it is most commonly used. As a tool of political assassination it is often successful, so feared are its present and past associations; but what does it actually mean? 

Trump, we are told, is a ‘white supremacist’, or at least has a taint of the ideology in him, or at least knows people who have. He ‘dog-whistles’ to openly white supremacist groups. His very platform is based in white supremacist doctrine, and appeals, implicitly or directly, to those who understand certain words and gestures.

But still, and alas, few if any of the media figures making these charges appear willing to spell out what white supremacists actually want, or why Trump sympathises with them, or even why it would be a bad thing if he did.

Just because something is elementary doesn’t mean it can go without saying. We need to be told what something means if we are to condemn it, and no-one at present is bothering to do this. The dull public is supposed to recoil from the term itself, shocked into skipping any effort at private reasoning.

But we won’t do that here. What is this thing and why is it bad?

According to dictionary definitions, white supremacism is any system of belief holding that white people (Europeans) are superior to other races, and that political arrangements, whether in individual countries or internationally, should reflect that. 

Some white supremacists are relatively gentle, others absurdly hard-line. Proposed courses of action range from simply acknowledging the preferability of white people in existing policy areas (such as immigration), to wiping non-whites from the face of the earth through systematic mass murder. 

Where are we supposed to believe Trump sits on this spectrum? Where are the Proud Boys? Where was Hitler? Most interestingly, where is the average person today?

Superiority can be objective or subjective depending on the aspect being considered. Beauty, for example, is more the latter, while intelligence is more the former.

Though IQ tests are imperfect, we can note by their evidence that European people are not the most intelligent race around, apparently inferior to both northeast Asians and Ashkenazi Jews. Northeast Asians are also healthier, with longer life expectancies, and more numerous, more hardworking and less violent. Black Africans are faster and more fertile, etcetera.

These facts could easily be cited as evidence against white supremacy as a ‘theory’, but that would not likely diminish its popularity. This is because what is called ‘white supremacy’ is not a theory at all. It is a tradition.

Rather than a simple and vulgar “better than you” calculation, European supremacy (and we will switch from the meaningless ‘white’ label here) is the default and historical condition of all European or European-founded countries. 

The United States, despite the declared values of its founders, was created as a European nation. It was designed to function as one, and no doubt expected to remain one as a matter of common sense and intuitive self-interest. And indeed, that supremacy would last as a quite explicit policy until about the midpoint of the 20th century, when the logic underpinning the founders’ attitudes became subject to critical analysis. The 1965 Immigration Act permitted a flow of non-Europeans into the country. European supremacy, once a banal fact, transmuted gradually into a question.

Skipping to the present, America is due to become a European-minority nation in just a couple of decades. (We are working here with ideas of purity traditional to America when counting Europeans. right or wrongly).

In anticipation of this Gotterdammerung, the cultural primacy of Europeans in America is already being actively challenged, and even where usefully extant, lamented.

To have an opinion worth hearing on this matter means choosing from three options: it’s good, it’s bad, or it makes no difference. (This is true also in Europe, Australia, Canada, and anywhere else Europeans have been a majority; all such places are facing the same challenges.)

If you think it might be bad that European primacy is fading in the West, you can expect to be accused at some point of white supremacism. And that’s OK. You are not necessarily a lunatic, a bigot, an ideologue, or even a European. You just happen to believe European countries are better with a European character. 

And why might you believe that?

Well, you might be an art-hound and understand that the most richly creative nations have European majorities. You might be gay or lesbian and understand that your enemies are most comfortable in non-European company. You might be an anti-racist and understand that European racism, though real, is at least less open and acceptable than elsewhere (try being Indian in Turkey or African in China). You might be a romantic and understand that the third world, with its caste barriers and tribal character, all but prohibits romance. And so on.

Perhaps some form of liberal white supremacy, though in need of a new name, will become more popular as the demographic transition approaches.

To close, Donald Trump may well believe that America should remain a European-majority country. I am quite sure a lot of his supporters do.

But perhaps a greater diversity of people agree with them than are willing, at present, to say so.

David

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Some Thoughts on Donald Trump

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America, Ann Coulter, Defend the modern world, Donald Trump, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Twitter, United States, us election

Donald Trump lies. A lot. Media commentators complain about this, not because they’re corrupt, though they are that, but because he lies. A lot. I didn’t think hard enough about this when I wrote in support of his candidacy in 2016, or at least not hard enough about how much it might annoy me.

Truth is the most important concept in human thought, in life itself. Without it fixed securely in view, we are ever heading in the wrong direction. I hate dishonesty more than any political figure or doctrine; and so to advise the reader to vote for Trump again would need to be justified differently.

Most of Trump’s lies are entirely unnecessary. He has a fanatically devoted base, as well as a functioning cult of personality. He has no need to lie. He knows what his base want, and he wants it too. The feelings of the opposition should be of secondary importance.

But that isn’t the way Trump works. Those who warned previously of his narcissism and insecurity were not exaggerating. He wants praise from everyone. He would like as much to be regarded as a great feminist as a great conservative. The ‘great’ part is all that matters. As the exasperated Trump advocate Ann Coulter pointed out recently, “It’s all about him.”

Lying as a public figure makes it difficult for friend and foe alike. To speak in defence of a Trump pronouncement too often proves a wasted effort. As soon as you have finished agreeing with him, he retracts the point, or even denies saying it at all. There is comedy in this. And it’s not always funny.

Trump ultra-loyalists, who find nothing degrading in tidying up his babble into coherence it doesn’t merit, embarrass themselves rather too much. When there is no Trump regime to speak of, or to defend, their reputations will be in tatters – and quite rightly.

So what to do with the ‘mad king’ who nonetheless faces the right way on most of the vital issues facing a great country? I am not American, so this is not my responsibility, but I feel compelled to say what I think I would do.

A few points:

I do not believe any resident of Honduras has a God-given right to American hospitality. Immigration law should be enforced. A wall would help, but doesn’t seem likely to come.

America has too many problems within its borders to go on military adventures without good reason.

Europe, which is my responsibility, can ultimately benefit from Trump’s isolationism. It is high time European powers set about building a military force capable of defending our beautiful continent. We cannot rely – and should never have relied – on American military charity. While we should be as friendly as possible with our natural ally, we must be our own guarantor.

Kamala Harris, who is obviously more dynamic than her senior running mate, is the personification of money politics. She offers a return to a corrupt norm, never desirable in the first place.

Finally, though Trump’s lies are infuriating and demonstrate a real lack of respect for his supporters, old media forces are ultimately more damaging to truth than he is.

Only Trump’s most intoxicated supporters believe he tells the truth all the time. But the slippery and clever deceptions of the mainstream press are held as credible by the majority of educated people. They do not lie outright, as Trump does, but they do evade certain topics, keep attention off uncomfortable but important realities, de-platform dissident men, and drive at untruth, even if not all the way.

In conclusion, Trump may well be the best option on the ballot this time around, but that should depress, not enliven. I look forward to a time when someone more professional and straightforward promises the same renewal.

David

America’s Black Neurosis (part one)

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America, Black people, Defend the modern world, mutt's law, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, racism, slavery

The presence of sub-Saharan Africans in the United States has never not been a subject of controversy, and will likely never cease to be one. No-one is indifferent to them, or of the kind of calm opinion about them as about any other group. The left cannot help seeing them not as ordinary citizens, but as a cause to be fought for, or as children to be adopted, guided or used.  The right cannot fully relax while they are granted the privileges of equality, allowed the freedom to wander delinquently into their suburban dreams. The very far-right appear sadistically happy about racial inequality. They wish to see black people on the other side of a wall from themselves, and doubtless to be able to see over that wall, to watch with a grin as the formerly uppity savages attempt to reconstruct what they once took for granted. Even the centrists, for all their professed stillness of mind, enjoy the racial controversy in other ways.

Indeed, the very humanity of black Africans is up for private dispute, even around the loveliest dinner tables. The ‘racism of low expectations’ prevails almost everywhere (if you doubt this, ask your most educated liberal friends for their opinion on the excremental poetry of Maya Angelou, say, or on the violence in Chicago. Anything short of disdain for the first and horrified condemnation of the second can be taken as evidence of a lower standard.)

Despite centuries of discord and moral debate, European-Americans have still to find a way of dealing with the presence of Africans within their society. And so much greater is the severity of this issue in the US that it seems to stem from nationally peculiar causes. Though problems exist everywhere with race and difference, there is simply no comparison between the anti-black racism of Europeans and that of non-black Americans. Something there has become unique.

Go even to 4chan, a bubbling pot of crude tribalism, and you will find Europeans tiring of the anti-black emphasis of those with American flags atop their posts. Reference is made on the Politically Incorrect forum to ‘Mutt’s Law’, a satirical principle holding that the longer a thread, on any topic, grows, the likelier it becomes that a Mutt (American) will refer to black men or interracial sex.

Almost everything that arouses intense dispute in American politics can be sourced back to the presence and status of black people. Universal healthcare, for example, might be accepted as commonsensical by white Americans were the racial profile of their country like that of Iceland. Put another way, if a white American conservative moved to Iceland permanently, it is unlikely they would end up criticising the island’s health system as ‘communism’ and seek to tear it down in the name of ‘liberty’. They would probably prefer it, regarding it simply as kindred people taking care of each other. But America is not Iceland; its taxpayers are far from equal, and so universal healthcare is conceived of as a massive transfer of wealth from whites to non-whites, in particular (and particularly offensively) from whites to blacks.

The gun debate in America, likewise, has a rather obvious racial undertone. Who can really call it a coincidence that gun sales shot up after the election of the first black president in 2008, or that such sales respond more dramatically to BLM protests than to real world overreaches of government authority? Obama was not a radical president. Nothing so interesting. But he wasn’t white. He enjoyed the support of a large non-white coalition. And thus the response.

But why is there such an intense obsession with black people in the US to begin with? Racism is diverse. The US hosts every type imaginable. So why are black Africans still the priority of its unique racial complex?

Part of the explanation derives, as might be anticipated, from the institution of slavery.

When thought about lucidly, there is something odd about loathing a people you have victimised. If a person considers slavery, with its flagellation and branding and rape and coerced reproduction, a natural sympathy should arise for the victim, and nothing but sympathy. Black people were treated horribly by many slave-owners (though by no means all), and the institution is loudly condemned in light of modern ethical standards.

But though there is sympathy for the victims of slavery, a great many Americans, including some of the most sympathetic, nonetheless hold black people in contempt for having submitted to it.

Slavery in the United States shouldn’t have worked. Its unwieldy scale, primitive means of enforcement, extremely lax security and obvious violation of declared national values, should have led swiftly to glorious insurrection. But that didn’t happen. It worked. For four hundred years.

This produced an instinctive disgust for black weakness. The obedience and fearful submission of slaves created a confused hatred of whatever in their nature allowed for such degradation. What is it about them, wondered many, that makes them so submissive? Why aren’t they fighting back?

It is possible to trace from this sentiment much of the later paranoia over blood purity. Who knew just how much of the dreaded blood was required to be remove a man’s will to resist, to nullify his self-respect. One could not be too cautious.

This contempt has survived into the present day. I have seen innumerable online comments angrily chastising modern day black people for their ancestors’ obsequiousness. This would explain a little of why anti-black racism is so different to anti-Asian or anti-Arab or anti-native racism. Unlike in those cases, there is a perverse kind of remorse in the hatred of black people in America.

(to be continued)

David

Against Malala Yousafzai

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• First published on this blog in October, 2013

On today’s BBC News ‘magazine’ webpage, there’s a lengthy tribute to the heroism of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. Under the title ‘Malala: The girl who was shot for going to school’, the piece goes on to say things like the following:

“She is the teenager who marked her 16th birthday with a live address from UN headquarters, is known around the world by her first name alone, and has been lauded by a former British prime minister as ‘an icon of courage and hope’…She is an extraordinary young woman, wise beyond her years, sensible, sensitive and focused….The voice of the girl whom the Taliban tried to silence a year ago has been amplified beyond what anyone could have thought possible.”

Great tributes indeed, not wholly unlike those paid to Indian spiritual gurus and Western cult leaders. More generally, the piece (by Mishal Hussein) is watery-eyed drivel, and its subject remains a truly unremarkable, very wealthy sockpuppet.

Malala Yousafzai’s only qualification for the praises demanded from us lies in her being shot by the Taliban. Their reasoning for doing this – I concede – was certainly vile. She was one of numerous young girls in the Swat Valley to defend their right to attend school. To this (naturally), the Taliban are resolutely opposed and so – in a manner befitting their cowardice – they chose to silence Ms Yousafzai by bullet, shooting her on a crowded bus.

The Hussein piece ruminates that the Taliban ‘must regret doing this now’. To be honest, they can’t regret it more than me.

I am frankly sick of seeing her pinched little face grinning inside every newspaper I open. Her vacuous and unhelpful words (her latest suggestion is for us to negotiate with the Taliban) are also something we could do without. And why on earth is she living in Birmingham?

The guru known simply as ‘Malala’ is supposed to be a fearless warrior for Pakistani women’s liberties. I can understand that she left Pakistan initially to receive surgery, but despite many local troubles, the women of the English West Midlands are still allowed to go to school. Is her work really required there.

There are literally millions of brave women across the Islamic world who face down similar odds to Her Excellency, but who do not – like her – end-up in five-star New York hotel rooms. Some of them are even hunted in the West for becoming apostates from Islam. One thinks of the names’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan.

But we won’t have either of these speaking at the UN. There’s a reason for that.

Ms Yousafzai has another value, alongside her chocolate-box ‘heroism’ story, for our political elites. She is the ‘Moderate Muslim’ par excellence. A visionary reformer of a culture unable to be reformed. She will doubtlessly also be held up as a ‘unifying’ figure, around which we can gather to bang tambourines and forget our differences, despite those ‘differences’ being the reason Yousefzai’s family scurried on a plane to Britain in the first place (there are many other hospitals she could have attended).

According to the Guardian, Malala has recently sold the rights to her life story for 2 million pounds. This heart-warming entrepreneurialism will provide great comfort to those women the newly minted hero has left behind in Pakistan.

Yousafzai is only 16. The BBC piece wonders excitedly where she can go from here. My suggestion and my hope is Heathrow Airport.

D, LDN.

Does It Have to Get Worse to Get Better?

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• First published on this blog in June, 2015

An argument beloved by the extremes of the right-left spectrum proposes that the short-term success of the opposing side is ultimately good for their own; in other words, that the dystopia they intend (ultimately) to make impossible has first to occur before it can be permanently forbidden.

In our case, this would be to say that the Islamisation of Europe has to quicken, the terror attacks multiply and the general abuse of our population intensify if we are to prevent a future in which such events cannot be opposed at all.

I suppose as arguments go, this one has a whispering, seductive quality to it. To a youthful and excitable temperament especially, easily thrilled by the idea of civil unrest and bad news, it will seem an obviously fine idea, since it guarantees (in fact requires) action and blood, broken glass and the rumble of boots.

But does it really hold water?

Well, today, following a Ramadan sermon by the shaggy beatnik “Caliph” Al-Baghdadi, terrorists have attacked civilians in three different countries. In Tunisia, Gunmen massacred at least 37 tourists relaxing at a beach resort. In France, some poor soul has been murdered, his head left – covered in Arabic script – on a spike. And in Kuwait, the perennially despised Shia have been blown up while praying in a Mosque.

All of the attacks are thought to be the actions of the Islamic State.

This triptych of evil certainly says something about the expansion of IS’s reach. And I think we can all agree that it qualifies as things ‘getting worse’. But have we been empowered by this day of carnage? Are we in a stronger position now than yesterday? I’m not so sure.

Most of the people intelligent enough to understand the reality of Islam already understand it. Faced with the daily progress of Jihad, you would have to be blind, deaf, mute and stupid to resist the conclusion that Islam is violent. And once that main point is understood, further outrages become progressively less shocking.

For this reason I doubt today’s events will have changed anybody’s mind. At least in the West…

In the nation of Tunisia, I think some progress will be made in the coming weeks. Although the point is often exaggerated by eager multi-culturalists, the Tunisians really are a more liberal, relaxed, ‘European’ people than their neighbours. Images of the city afflicted by today’s massacre (Sousse) remind me of destinations in Sicily and Greece. Only the captions below reveal their African location.

As one would expect, this reputation is jealously guarded by Tunisian liberals for whom an event like today’s must be infuriating. While they are in this mood, and should they stumble across this site, I would like say the following – The elimination of Islam from your country is the only failsafe cure for the misery that oppresses you. You have a beautiful Mediterranean homeland, one that many Westerners could be made jealous of. Be bold and change your allegiance while you still have a culture worthy of the name.

As for us in the West, the ‘things have to get worse before they get better’ argument is contradicted (repeatedly) by reality. Van Gogh’s stabbing didn’t bring us any closer to a solution. Lee Rigby didn’t. Rotherham didn’t. Charlie Hebdo didn’t. Today’s events won’t either. The attention span of the average Westerner is diminishing with every fresh atrocity, just as one would logically expect it to.

To rouse people into direct and decisive action will take initiative. It is no use waiting around for things to reach rock-bottom, and then like a phoenix, bounce back to a previous vitality. That is simply not realistic.

If you have the gift of organisation, organise a protest. If you have the gift of eloquence, write letters, start a blog or compose a petition. And when it is asked of you to state your grievance and preferred solution, be open and unafraid about it. Tell them you wish to preserve the Britain of comedy, poetry and freedom, and resist a Britain of Salat, Sawm and Jihad.

Keep the faith in victory too. When the future exerts its terrible pressures, our house shall stand. Theirs shall fall.  

D, LDN.

Challenging the Islamic Mind-Trap

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• First published on this blog in February 2016 

In terms of its reputation among non-believers, the past 15 years must rank as some of Islam’s worst. Every since the planes of 9/11 carved into New York glass, the international media has barely missed a beat in making known the faults of Islamic theology, tradition and social policy. The UK Daily Mail, once the grumpy advocate of small government and Victorian morals, is now better defined as The Daily Islamophobe. The Telegraph, Sun, WSJ, NYT and Star have likewise reshuffled their priorities to place a greater and more critical eye on the Islamic World. The result of this is that every Muslim wrong-doing the world over is reported as international news. Every honour killing, beheading, murder-by-explosion, corrective rape or stoning (though all common enough before 9/11) is now given headline treatment. One can only wonder what this has done to the average Muslim mindset.

It is fair to say that most Muslims sincerely believe Islam is the best religion for mankind to universally adopt; that Islam is a better recipe for peace, progress and happiness than its rivals. Indeed, one cannot be an authentic believer unless one believes this. And yet nobody paying any attention to the contemporary situation can possibly come to this conclusion – or indeed sustain this conclusion – without unimaginable contortions of logic and tricks of the mind. The most visible of these tricks has been to blame the ills of Islam on other forces, whether economic, racial or political. ‘True, Saudi Arabia is a barbaric, undeveloped desert, but it would have been very different were it not for the Zionists’. ‘True, illiteracy and incest are Pakistani specialities, but this would not be the case were it not for the wicked Indians’. And so on.

This self-deception, though ludicrously fake, has held out remarkably well. Apostasy rates from Islam are no higher than in the 1990s. Minority faiths (LDS, Scientology etc…) excepted, Islam remains the fastest growing religion in the world. The impression given is that Islam is the perfectly designed mind-trap; that it has inbuilt defences against criticism and failure that cannot be overcome by reason or reality. But this is unduly pessimistic, I believe. Though strong on the outside, Islamic psychology is substantially weaker in its design that its current reputation might suggest. Inflexibility is being mistaken for strength, disorder for complexity.

The psychology of Islamic belief is best understood as a simple loop of deterrence, aversion and reward. When someone criticises Islam (its truth value, historicity or moral nature), a functioning Muslim will at first rationally process and understand the criticism, perhaps even to the point of agreeing with it. After this, in a state of profound unease, the Muslim will think of the Qur’anic verses drummed into his consciousness since infancy. He will think especially of those passages admonishing the ‘unbelievers’ – those who are bound for hellfire and who stray habitually from the ‘right path’. This then creates a feeling of terror and a desperation to obey Allah (who can perceive thoughts, reasoning, and even inclinations). To get rid of this discomfort, the believer admonishes the critic with harsh and even violent words. How dare he question the perfection of the Qur’an! He must have no soul! The aggression towards the critic is for the eyes of Allah and not the critic himself. The greater the aggression, the more relief will be felt by the believer. He is angry at you because you derailed his circular thoughts. You convinced him of something forbidden, something he tries with every fibre of his being not to think about. The force of aggression you unleash in him is proportionate to how convincing he (almost) found your argument; to how close you pushed him to the edge of reason.

Circular thinking is central to Islamic belief

This process also governs how Muslims integrate (or fail to integrate) the contemporary realities of the world. When viewing the chaos of Quranic rule in Syria, the loop described above prevents the processing of the stimuli into moral judgement and understanding. The believer is not ignorant. He knows everything we know. He just has a disorder of thought which allows him to dispose of un-Islamic stimuli as fast as he imbibes it.

How could one disrupt the loop? This is question best answered by those who have been raised in Islam only to discard it at a later stage. Since I am not from a Muslim background, I will have to go from the accounts of others.

As you’ll be aware, testimonies by ex-Muslims are notable among apostatatic statements by their emphasis on the aspect of ‘fear’; fear of Allah, of hellfire, of divine retribution awaiting them should they fail to live a morally perfect life. To understand why this is so characteristic of Islam, one must first appreciate the system by which human beings are said to be judged in Islamic theology.

According to Islamic tradition, a Muslim has two angels beside him at all times – one to the left, another to the right. One of these keeps a record of the good deeds and thoughts the believer performs and has during his earthly tenure, and the other keeps record of the bad. At the day of judgement, the two records are ‘weighed’ to see which is more reflective of the human in question, greatly influencing (but not deciding) whether he is to go to hell or paradise.

In a comparative sense, this is one of the more endearing and just-seeming of Islamic concepts. But a side effect of it is that the believer becomes subject to the divine equivalent of thought policing. As I say, the Kiraman Katibin do not only record your deeds, but your inner reflections. They make note of your intentions, temptations, lusts and transgressions, preserving all of them down to the finest detail. A bad deed is never forgotten or forgiven. There is no equivalent of Catholic confession in which one may wipe the slate clean. You sin and you are stained. Black marks last forever.

Try to imagine the effect this concept would have on your psychology were you to believe in it. You would be unable to enjoy a single private emotion without the fear of upsetting an omniscient authority. And since even temptations are recorded, you would be compelled to avoid any environment or stimuli which might lead you astray. This explains why Muslims are so seemingly afraid of female flesh. A girl in a mini-skirt prompts ‘impure’ thoughts in the believer, which in turn upsets Allah. The recorded acts of aggression against such women (Cologne, Rotherham etc…) are attempts to impress Allah, to make up with him for brief deficiencies of thought control. The believer might have been weak-minded for a moment, but he can still be a soldier of Islam by punishing the kafir in question.

You would also avoid un-Islamic knowledge as a matter of course. This explains why Muslims read little other than Islamic texts, and why they remain ignorant of scientific concepts like evolution and cosmology. The Muslims themselves might be intelligent and academically gifted, but their fear of wrong-thinking deters them from building on these gifts. One might posit this anxiety as the reason for the un-development of the Muslim world as a whole.

Islam, as a mindset, is a permanent state of anxiety, never-ending panic attack, perpetual psychosis. This must be understood by anyone who wishes to break through Islamic psychology to where the captive human is being held. One must treat a Muslim in the same way one would treat a victim of OCD or any comparable neurotic illness. Muslim fanaticism is based in fear. Muslim confidence is fake. Muslims do not like their God. They are afraid of him.

Convincing (or trying to convince) a Muslim that their religion is axiomatically false must necessarily be a perilous operation. If you do not succeed, he will kill you for trying. But it is not impossible. The best approach is not to impose conclusions on the believer, but rather to ask questions. The most developed, rich and powerful parts of the world are those in which Muslim believers are few. Are these enemies of God blessed by something else? Why are so many Muslims killed by other believers? Why are non-Muslim women happier and more secure from domestic violence and rape than Muslim women? Why are so many claims in the Quran provably false? Why do Muslims seem naturally drawn to non-Muslim societies over Muslim ones? Why do Muslim countries fail at science and technological development? Why are non-Muslims so petrified of Muslims in particular (and not, say, Hindus and Sikhs)? Why do Muslim armies fail to win battles against non-Islamic armies? Why are non-Muslims more plentiful than Muslims? And so on.

The more questions one leaves with a Muslim, the more effort he will have to put into diverting them from his rational mind. True, some believers are superhumanly stubborn, but these are far from typical. Many have never been presented with un-Islamic arguments before. A missile shower of reasonable doubts can severely degrade the conviction of a semi-committed believer.

While Islamic psychology cannot be broken in a society which prohibits un-Islamic concepts from being entertained, it can at least be attempted in the Western world, where no form of speech is (officially at least) off-limits. Muslims shouldn’t be written off as hopeless. It costs nothing to try and liberate their minds. You may be surprised by your success.

D, LDN

The Future and the Western World

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• First published on this blog in October, 2015

Whatever one’s political orientations are, and no matter what the individual context is, the sight of human suffering is always traumatic. As human beings, we are naturally upset when presented with photographs of starving African children, shrapnel-wounded Syrian schoolgirls, Burka’d Afghan women and brainwashed North Korean families. It is the way we were designed to be. Few things are more innate.

Given this predisposition, the arguments of ‘humanitarianism’ will usually find a public audience, and typically (from there) a political majority. For example, the view that it isn’t ‘fair’ for Americans to have ipads and super-sized milkshakes, while Malians have only bottle tops and sewer puddles is not one most people would feel comfortable disputing. Who would ever wish to be regarded as an elitist or social Darwinist? No-one, I would venture.

However, in the interest of truth, we must consider that at some point the privileged will have to draw a line around their advantages and prevent their being usurped. For if they fail to do so, the advantages will be watered down, or stolen outright, to be shared among the swelling masses until all have as much as each other, and very little alike.

It is a good time to reflect on this difficult issue. For if we think that the West enjoys obscene advantages at the moment, the developments of the near future will leave us bewildered.

We are living on the brink of a scientific revolution unlike any in history. The confluence of emerging competences in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, life-extension and genetic manipulation will make the gap between America and Mali today seem insignificant. Part of the world is about to accelerate through time into a dazzling future, and all other parts will be left languishing in a primitive angry, resentful past.

Most ordinary folk have no idea of what is about to be unleashed on the Western market. Misinformed by experience, they naively presume that technology will progress at the same rate as it did in the past. They do not realise that with every advance, technological development is speeding up.

To a 20 year old in 1980, military drones were science-fiction, as were iPhones, ipads, anti-satellite weapons and hypersonic vehicles. And yet all are now with us. It takes a healthy and imaginative mind to realise how much has been achieved in such a short period of time, and to appreciate that this kind of 35 year leap will soon take 5 years, then 4, then 3…

We would be fools to believe this scientific revolution will not have geopolitical consequences as large as its spectacle.

Right now, you can buy a PlayStation in Karachi, and perhaps even in Mali. This won’t be the case with the operating systems of the future. New technologies will be so overwhelming and expensive (and dependent on other technologies and infrastructures) that first-world lifestyles will fall entirely into their orbit, adapted to fit and absorb their possibilities. The first-world will begin to speak a language that the rest of the world cannot relate to, using concepts, humour, references and symbolism only applicable to the age the West (and the West alone) has arrived at. In time, technology will create a new cultural divide far greater than any created by religion or politics.

And as that divide grows, the West will have to make a choice. Let the rest of the world in on the future, and risk having our hard-won wealth and military advantages destroyed or turned against us by destructive and primitive beliefs; or else simply declare ourselves the winners of human history; the winners of the global lottery, and be happy and secure in our good fortune, willing to defend it from our competitors. Triumphalism, that is, and not humanitarianism.

While this sounds morally outrageous, recall that many of us indulge in this attitude already, even if only semi-consciously. When you’re out using your laptop in Starbucks, for example, you are doing so fully in the knowledge that you are part of the exclusive 20% of the world population who can afford to live so extravagantly. Though we might feel privately guilty about this, none of us make any great effort to change it. If a popular figure (Russell Brand, perhaps) called upon us to donate 90% of our wages each month so that the third and second worlds can lead a Western standard of life, we would all refuse. In fact, we would likely be indignant about it. Our civilisation has figured out the best way to live, to produce and to thrive. Theirs has not done so. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most fertile regions in the world. The Islamic world is flush with resources. The reason for our success is our creativity; the things we have done with our hands and minds. Therefore, only we have a right to the fruits of our achievements. Perhaps this is the correct attitude…

‘Humanitarianism’ and its much vaunted idea of ‘international development’ certainly has a future. But I don’t believe its arguments are as future-proof as some believe. I’m interested in your views.

D, LDN

Normalising Muslim Britain

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• First published on this blog in January, 2016

The presence of Islam in 21st century Britain is no more natural or inevitable than the presence of Sikhism in Chile. It’s worth repeating this fact whenever possible or appropriate. This is because many fake liberals continue to push the argument that Islamophobes such as you or I are somehow unworldly, retrograde, or unrealistic for opposing Muslim settlement in the contemporary West.

Some commentators go even further, saying that far from being a new and foreign element in our society, Islam is a traditional part of Europe, citing irrelevant factors like the antique conurbations of Muslim Sicily, Malta or Andalucía. Islamic influence, they claim, can be found in Europe’s system of law, code of social ethics, philosophy, medicine, architecture and geography. Given that this is so, why shouldn’t Muslim Pakistanis, Turks or Arabs live in present-day Leeds or Stockholm? They are as responsible for the greatness of these places as the natives…right?

No. Not right at all. It is certainly true that Islam’s Andalusian Golden age imparted a great number of ideas to European elites, many of which are now claimed as entirely and originally European. However, such contributions were mostly limited to disciplines of what we would now call ‘academia’ and in-any-case are dwarfed many times over by the influence of European ideas on Muslim civilisation. Do Europeans have the moral right to settle in Muslim countries on that basis? No, of course they don’t. And vice versa.

Leftists like to push the myth of European-Islamic co-development for one reason above all; they think it will normalise the presence of Islam in Europe and erase the memory of a Europe without Islam. For if the Muslim presence in Europe can be made to seem normal, traditional or ancient, objections to it will naturally seem irrational, unreasonable and unrealistic.

Another way the same effect can be achieved is via the media, and especially the screen media. Over Christmas, like most Britons, I found myself slouched in front of the television for extended periods of time. During that time I witnessed an astonishing barrage of British Islamic subject matter. There was the Citizen Khan Christmas special on BBC One (Note: CK is a woefully unfunny Muslim sitcom). There were the quiz shows with a disproportionate number of Muslim contestants, many of whom wore Hijabs or prayer caps. There was Eastenders – perhaps the most popular show in Britain today – with gripping plotlines involving characters called Shabnam, Kush, Tamwar, Masood, Fatima, Kamil and Ali. National (and even more so) local newsreaders and weathermen/girls were disproportionately Muslim. And so on. Over time, this normalises something abnormal; the slow bleed of east into west; the merging of two contraries into a single untenable consensus.

This is new. This is unnatural. And this is not something we should be tolerating.

D, LDN

Letter to the Muslims of Europe

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*Originally published on this blog in July, 2015

If you (reader) are one of the twenty million devout Muslims currently resident in Europe, I’d like to try explain to you why I believe your beliefs are incompatible with the culture of your adopted home. But more than this, I hope also to persuade you that this view (shared by a growing majority of Europeans) does not emanate from ignorance or racism, and why it may not be a defeat or a humiliation for you to agree with it.

You or your parents probably came to Europe initially for economic reasons, seeking a better life and a more secure future. There is nothing dishonourable or unusual about that. Most non-Muslim migrants make the journey with the same ambitions. The West is very wealthy and safe relative to the rest of the world and so it is only rational to want to join it.

Once here, you or your parents probably planned to exist in a peaceful but separate state to the majority, maintaining your beliefs and traditions quietly in the same way that Orthodox Jews and Eastern Orthodox migrants have done in the past. Increasingly, this doesn’t seem to be possible, if it ever was. And in my view, the reasons for that directly relate to the nature of Islamic belief and the sense of mission that is so inseparable from it.

Unlike Christianity or Judaism, yours is a conquering faith, not a persuading one. Relatively little importance is given to peaceful proselytization in Islam. While there are occasionally stalls set out in front of tube stations or elsewhere in city centres to preach Islamic doctrine, this is an imitation of Christian practice and not something organically ‘Muslim’. Rather, Muslims have historically sought to attain dominion over society by violence, sometimes later permitting religious diversity within that society, but never allowing any symbol to enjoy precedence over the crescent. Their hope, indeed their announced intention, has always been to exalt Islam to a position of cultural dominance and authority. While Christians and Jews have peacefully resided as minorities in many different parts of the world, Muslims have always struggled with the very concept of minority life. Since Allah is supposed to be the only authority to which submission is made, it is seen by most Muslims (and perhaps by you specifically) to be incongruous that a divine authority is subordinate to any non-Islamic regime, whether secular or religious. Minarets are built to tower above all other buildings for grander reasons than amplification. They proclaim symbolically the primacy and authority of Islam over the territory Muslims inhabit. It will simply not do that cathedrals or government buildings are larger or invested with more power and importance. Indeed, it is blasphemous and idolatrous. As Islamists never forget to proclaim before they demolish some priceless artefact – “Nothing and no-one is worthy of veneration except Allah”.

This sense of mission, inherent within Islamic theory, has radically altered human history. The nations of Lebanon, Libya and Syria were once Christian. The territory of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan was once Buddhist. Persia was once Zoroastrian. That these places are now Muslim is testament to Islam’s conquering urge and military spirit. Islam seeks not only to convert, but to dominate and subdue. It is expansionist by its very nature. It was not designed to be one faith out of many, but to be the one and only faith of all humankind. The Quran itself is not shy of stating this. I would quote the passages urging the subjugation of unbelievers here but this would be so long as to be disruptive to my argument.

Your faith is antagonistic to everything but itself. And since you began settling in Europe back in the 1960s, members of your community have behaved in a way harmonious with that analysis. Just recently in Britain, there has been a wave of serious sexual assault committed by Muslims against exclusively non-Muslim children. Some estimates put the number of girls assaulted by British Pakistanis as high as 200,000. In the town of Rotherham alone, at least 1400 girls are known to have been forced into sexual slavery by Muslim gangs.

And even when it doesn’t lead to assault, your behaviour around women (if you are a man) is infantile and tactless. It would appear customary that upon meeting a woman (Muslim or otherwise, online or in real life) your first words either involve sex or invite a personal relationship that can lead to sex. It might surprise you – it probably has surprised you – but non-Muslim women do not enjoy being asked for their phone number or address by a complete stranger without any preceding conversation. Your lack of charm – indeed, your failure to even understand the idea and purpose of charm – is absolute. To you, women are merely sexual animals, possessing no greater value or agency than cats and dogs. For this reason, perhaps more than any other, I find it difficult to breathe the same air as you.

Then there are the acts of extreme violence. Members of your community blew up the train network in Madrid, Spain and the subway in London, England. Members of your community massacred the staff of a cartoon tabloid in Paris. Members of your community have beheaded European citizens, the most recent case occurring only a month ago. You even hunt your own kind! Hundreds of Muslim women have now been killed in Europe in the name of ‘honour’ – and usually by members of their own family. Every year, thousands of Muslim girls are taken abroad to have their vagina mutilated by a shaving razor and then brought back to lead a miserable, painful existence with the perpetrators.

How could we possibly put up with this? What kind of people would we be if we did?

Face the facts, a growing proportion of the native population of Europe actively despises you, and does so without allowing any distinction for your race, Islamic school or individual contribution to European society. After decades of aggressive dysfunction and sickening crime, people simply hate you. They hate you and they fear you. And it is becoming difficult for even the most committed liberal to propose a reason why they shouldn’t.

There is an obvious – some would say cartoonish – contrast between the Islamic conception of society and the hopes and opinions of the Europeans. We value things you view as Satanic. You value things we regard as barbaric. You put faith before reason. We put reason before faith. You regard women as second-class human beings. We regard the sexes as equal. You view freedom of speech as being limited to secular matters. We believe it should permeate every corner of life and thought.

Even if this weren’t the case, your religious tradition is not the one that we are used to and which has inspired and characterised our manners and rituals over centuries. No European books are dedicated to your God. No statues of your Prophet (even if this were allowed) grace the Piazzas of our cities. Few if any Qur’anic phrases have entered our common parlance. We don’t celebrate your holy days, and have no regard for your heroes and saints.

You might reply that Hindu and Sikh mythologies do not inform our ways either, but then Hindus and Sikhs have proven themselves to be comfortable with that. I have never heard of an act of Hindu terrorism, nor any religiously-motivated outrage committed by a Sikh, Buddhist, Scientologist or Jain organisation. Islam has actively distinguished itself in violence, in readiness to fight and to make war where there is peace.

You are wrong if you take us for fools. We know well enough what the phrases Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam mean. We recognise the desire on your part to transfer us from one to the other and by what means. You must have known from the start that a project of this historical magnitude would be resisted with passion and fire. And, please believe me, that passion and fire is already generated in sufficient quantity should we ever be given the excuse to unleash it.

There are people on this (uniquely civilised) continent who would gladly slaughter you like dogs. It is not fantastical anymore to foresee a new Nazi movement emerging in Europe and going on to behave in a Hitlerian fashion. Nobody (save a few lunatics) wishes to go back there. Peace in Europe has been a blessing. Democracy is deserving of all the celebration dedicated to it. But your behaviour is testing the hold of democracy to its white-knuckled limits.

How then can we defuse this bomb? How might we organise a solution that forbids the need for mass violence and the self-destruction of democratic liberalism? This of course is the great question of my generation, and the most important task of the Western World, ahead of the environment, Russia, or any other exaggerated diversion.

That there is – or rather, that you are – an issue in need of resolution can no longer be sensibly denied. We are obliged by everything we hold dear to guarantee that the Islamisation of Europe ceases and that what progress it has already made is reversed. The Western way of life is not just ‘different’ to your own, but a million times superior. We are behaving very rationally by seeking to protect it.

Incidentally, you can deny this last fact as much as you want. It makes no difference to me. Deep down, beneath all the evasions and the layers of self-hypnosis, I’m sure you accept it as much as I do. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be here.

And that is the real, embarrassing truth, no? Whatever your friends have scrawled on placards in the past, you don’t ‘hate our way of life’ at all. You are simply jealous of it, and angry that your ancestral lands have failed – and are still failing – to develop in a like fashion.

For an effective and rapid solution to this problem, I propose the following measures – If you are brave, honest and intelligent enough to rid your mind of the numbing circularities of Islamic thinking, a space in the European future can and should be found for you. If not, and if you continue to display the toxic side effects of Islamic belief, then no more kid glove treatment should be forthcoming. If you espouse anti-Semitic, anti-Democratic and anti-Western ideas, you should be arrested and receive criminal records, with all the implications that has for finding employment, pursuing political office and securing tenancy and accommodation. The wearing of the Niqab must be outlawed and repeat offenders deported to a country where it is still the prevailing fashion. All Muslims involved in the mass-rape of British children must hang. Any Mosque preaching violence against Jews, Christians or Homosexuals must be shut down and demolished, and the same with colleges and Islamic faith schools. There must be an end to all immigration from Muslim countries, including from those cultures touted as exceptional (like Tunisia, Turkey or Iran). The culture of the West must be openly celebrated as the supreme culture of the world, and no ‘noble’ savagery must ever be taught as a desirable alternative to our children.

Our foreign policy must also be redesigned to reflect our desire to survive. Turkey should be expelled from NATO and replaced by Armenia. Any sanctions lifted from Iran must be reimposed. Investment in alternatives to Middle Eastern oil, including fracking (in lightly populated areas), fusion technology, nuclear and renewable energy must be radically increased. Western arms should only be exported to regimes which ruthlessly suppress Islamist activity (like Egypt and Jordan) and never to theocratic countries, whether ‘allies’ or not (Saudi, UAE, Kuwait etc…). Needless to say, our support for Israel must be great and unconditional.

In all these efforts, our motivating principle (and final goal) must be that Islam is forever segregated from the Western World.

Finally, reader, I promised at the beginning to tell you why it isn’t a humiliation for you to agree with my arguments… This is for the simple reason that you were a human being long before you were a Muslim, and this will always be the most salient fact about you. You are no more biologically predestined to ignorance and poverty than a Swede or a German. If you wish to become free, you can become free! And if you prefer slavery, well, then there is no defeat in relocating to pursue it, if that is your dream. There can no ‘shame’ in wanting to be where you belong. Nothing is more human.

Whichever condition you choose (and we will make you choose), understand that the West is the homeland of the free, the creative and the happy. A slave will always be foreign here.

D, LDN.

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