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

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Thank You & Goodbye

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I began this blog in January, 2013, largely on a whim. I can still remember coming up with the idea as I waited in the rain for a bus in Wimbledon, London (the bus, as is London tradition, was absurdly late.). Since then, ‘Defend the Modern World’ has been visited over half a million times, chiefly by Brits and Americans, but also by thousands of Australians, Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners, too. I am immensely proud of the work that I have done. I hope that it has done some good.

Last week, I received an offer of a teaching position in Europe. When I taught English in northern Spain last year, mainly to small groups of infants, I managed to carry on the blog simultaneously. However, I have come to the conclusion that it will be difficult for me to do the same this time around.

In light of this, and with regret, I am suspending DTMW from this week forward.

The blog will remain online – I have no intentions of deleting it – and I have scheduled a selection of the old posts I am most proud of to be published over the next few Mondays.

To those who have been loyal readers of this blog, I want to say a heartfelt and sincere thank you. Though the quality of my writing has been greatly uneven, you have always been too kind to point out my failings. I do appreciate that.

It is possible I may pick up the blog again sometime in the future, but this is uncertain. I will try to post on occasion – when the news compels me to say something; say, after a terror attack in the UK or US – but the weekly format is just not something I can keep up.

It would, of course, be impossible to adequately sum up the work of three years in a few paragraphs, so I’ll just say this; my sole motivation in writing DTMW has been an uncomplicated loyalty to Western civilisation. It is, to me, the only culture on Earth worth a penny. Nothing else has inspired me. I have not hated anything. I have sought to help protect something I love.

The contest with Islam is not going away any time soon. I do, however, have faith that we will triumph in the end. Even the most fanatical Muslim knows in his heart that the modern world is superior to the mud-huts and mutilations of the Dar-al-Salaam. We need only be loud and proud about this and eventually even the most stubborn will come around.

I wish you all the greatest possible happiness. Thank you once again for your generosity and encouragement.

David (Defend the Modern World)

Could a Country De-Islamise Itself?

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Iconoclastic commentator Ann Coulter once made headlines by suggesting that “(America) should invade (Islamic) countries, kill their leaders and convert the people to Christianity.”

Her idea – if it was really an idea – was promptly laughed out of court, as well as being branded an example of a corresponding American ‘fundamentalism’ by the apologist Left. I can’t really argue with that response. If an operation such as Coulter proposed were in any way feasible (or affordable) it would surely be the most worthwhile and benevolent action by a nation in human history. Sadly, it isn’t feasible, nor is it affordable.

Despite that, the idea that a Muslim country can be de-Islamised is not political science-fiction. There are isolated examples which may allow for it, owing to unique historic factors and local ethnic aspirations. I am frequently presented with the idea that Iran (Persia), Egypt, and Syria all have ancient identities which precede the Islamisation of their territories by Abu Bakr and his marauding armies, and for which they might be willing (if presented with the right amount of Western encouragement) to trade their rotten Islamic present. How might this be achieved?

The most notable case of a country attempting to rid itself of the strictures of Islamic doctrine is that of Turkey in the time of Ataturk. Although rarely explicit, Ataturk had little affection for the Islamic religion (or at least its social application) and his bold, sweeping reforms severely curtailed the faith in Turkish society. Ataturk (and his supporters) wanted a secular, Westernised Turkey; one that would bare little to no resemblance to the Ottoman Empire – with all its fanaticism and slovenly Eastern habits. The reforms so implemented were successful and would go on to secularise and partially Europeanise the Republic for over 60 years, before being rapidly reversed by the AKP party of Tacip Erdogan, a self-confessed Islamist and dedicated Sunni.

Turkey’s experiment with modernity was destined to fail all along. Despite their genuine desire to Westernise, the Turks remained overwhelmingly Muslim in allegiance, having Islamic funerals for the dead, Islamic rituals for the young and a large Crescent despoiling the national flag. Turkey did not de-Islamise because there was never an intention of de-Islamising.

A comparable experiment in Westernisation took place in Iran before the revolution. Backed by American and British leaders and inspired by the example of Ataturk, the authoritarian ‘Shah’ Reza Pahlavi enacted massive social reforms aimed at liberalising and modernising Persian society. In the urban elites this was a roaring success. Young middle and upper class urbanites fully adopted the freedoms of the modern world, celebrating the diminishment of Islamic authority. The descendants of these people are now largely living in the West, having fled the country after the Islamic uprising of 1979.

Why did that uprising occur? For many reasons, but one of the most essential is that a nation is not its elite. Working and lower-middle class Iranians (especially those from impoverished backgrounds) were not ready for such rapid change. When the rabble-rousing populists of revolution appeared, they thus found a sizable number of henchmen willing to topple the ‘arrogant’ pro-Western elite. The rest is history.

These days, the Iranian diaspora (descendants of the Iranian upper classes) assures the West that the next attempt at Westernisation will succeed. They may be right, they may be wrong. It will be a while before we can know one way or the other.

In Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Syria and Algeria, the middle and upper classes are also secular. They too dream of civilising their respective countries; that is, bring the general population up to their own level of personal development. Yet as with Iran, the majority of Egyptians (excepting Christians), Lebanese (excepting Christians), Tunisians and Syrians are uneducated, jobless, illiterate, and supremely devout in their attachment to Islamic consolations. The elite can wish away the days and months, but nothing will change without a long, difficult and expensive process of public education and social reform.

De-Islamisation (of countries, societies, races) is not an impossible prospect. It may happen at some point in the future. But at the moment it is simply utopian, and as likely as the elimination of tradition from any nation, Islamic or otherwise.

D, LDN

Is It Crazy To Back Trump?

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The developing support for Donald Trump’s nomination for the 2016 Presidential election is seen by many intelligent people (at first consideration) to be a joke, a strange kind of satirical protest, a sigh of ideological exasperation. It can’t possibly be serious, they reason, for Trump is little more than a clown, a jumped-up celebrity, no more suitable for office than Paris Hilton or Honey Boo Boo.

On the rare occasion such people are persuaded the support is actually serious, they reflexively attempt to put out the flames of madness with a barrage of warnings, three of which I will try to answer here…

1. Warning No. 1: “Trump would destroy the economy”.

This objection seems to be largely based on the charge that Trump is an economic protectionist – and on the fact that protectionism has proven highly disruptive to the world economy when previously attempted by the countries of Europe. This can be answered simply with a correction: Trump is no more a protectionist than any other candidate. All Republican candidates (‘mainstream’ or otherwise) promise during election season that their administration will ‘bring back American jobs’ and transform the trade situation with China to one more favourable to American companies. This is not ‘eccentric’, as currently alleged, but entirely, almost boringly orthodox. The real question is whether Trump is more sincere in his electioneering than his rivals. And that, I suppose, can only be answered by the future.

2. Warning No.2: “Trump is a loose-cannon. He will crumble under the spotlight of an extended campaign, eventually saying the ‘N’ word or insulting the poor etc…”

This is not a groundless observation. Mr Trump is as straight-talking as human-beings come, and though that is an advantageous trait in the world of business, it can certainly be ruinous in politics. Thankfully, I do not believe Trump is the psychopath so eagerly portrayed by the left-leaning (and centre-standing) media. The glitches in his personality are not set in concrete, but can be tamed, altered and reformed by advisors, of which Trump will already have hired a sufficient number. Finally, it should be remembered that the charge of being a ‘loose-cannon’ was used (unsuccessfully) to stunt the ascendance of many great historical figures, perhaps most notably of all Winston Churchill, with all his loose, rash and reckless talk of a re-arming and nefariously-inclined Germany…

3. Warning No.3: “Trump’s nomination will guarantee a Hilary victory”.

This is nonsense. Despite all the hype, it seems increasingly likely that Hilary Clinton’s campaign will not be the bloodless coronation her supporters had hoped for. Bernie Sanders, a renegade, post-American socialist, is the new darling of the liberal establishment and will tear strips out of Clinton every bit as viciously as Obama did in 2008. The final outcome is uncertain, but whether the Democrats eventually field a confident and radical Leftist, or a brutalised and diminished centrist, a Trump vote will only get more attractive as the clocks tick down to 2016.

Conclusion:

If you wish to see the final defeat of the Islamic State, the re-isolation of Iran, the strengthening of Israel, action to halt illegal immigration into the United States, the resurrection of the United States military and its global vision, then please do not write off Trump too soon. Have confidence in the ability of a great and iconic dreamer and embrace the possibility of connecting his passion to the potential still inherent within the material of America.

D, LDN.