The Neo-Conservative Tragedy

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America, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Coffee, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Democracy, Facebook, Iraq War, Islamisation of London, Islamism, Israel, jordan, Liberalism, Multiculturalism, neo, neo con, neo con iraq, neo conservative, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Twitter, United States, Zionism

I used to consider myself something of a neo-conservative (pejoratively abbreviated ‘neo-con’ by the left, often with an anti-Semitic edge to it). I was genuinely enlivened by the prospect of the West enforcing its moral and political standards on the rest of the world, believing for some time that the project was a simple yet complete fix for the problems of our time; most importantly, the problems of terrorism and Islamic anti-development.

Like many, I now know better. Neo-conservatism has failed, and failed badly, in practice. The use of the doctrine to liberate and improve the condition of Iraq has barely succeeded. While the country is now technically democratic, it remains crippled by religious tradition, unable and unwilling to develop beyond the limitations of that tradition. This should really have been predicted from the get-go. The fact that it wasn’t exposes the fundamental naivety at the heart of the neo-conservative experiment.

Put at its most basic, neo-conservatism pushes the idea that democracy has a positive value. Neo-cons (if there still are neo-cons) believe that democracies are less likely to go to war, less likely to collapse into chaos, tolerate corruption and extremism or shelter terrorists than are dictatorships and autocracies. On the surface this sounds reasonable enough. The Western democracies of today are certainly more averse to these evils than the third world; as are the remodelled nations of the far-east. Why wouldn’t the same be true for the rest of the world?

The answer in the case of the middle east is Islam. As political equations go, Islam plus democracy equals regression is one of the most reliable. The evidence for this can be found in modern ‘liberated’ Afghanistan – a country which has gone from a tribal theocracy controlled by the Taliban, to a democratic theocracy policed by the Taliban. One can also point to ‘liberated’ Iraq, which itself has gone from a secular Baathist dictatorship to a democratic Shia theocracy. Looked at from this vantage point, was either project worth thousands of free Western lives lost in the course their completion?

I was a fool to have ever thought so.

As well as Iraq and Afghanistan, neo-conservatism has also destroyed the nation of Libya, a country that previously had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. Post-liberation, the country is a sharia-ridden desert, robbed of its infrastructure, foreign investment and political coherence. As to whether Syria falls to the neo-con wave remains to be decided. One can justifiably presume that if democracy does strike the country, it will swiftly go the same way as Iraq and Afghanistan have.

If neo-conservatism was – as its detractors have always maintained – merely an ideological cover for destroying the Muslim world, then it has been remarkably successful. But I don’t believe in that conspiracy. Neo-conservatism – I think – was simply an embarrassing misfire of the Western intellect. We will be living with the consequences for a very long time.

D, LDN

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Anti-Semitism: Real and Imagined.

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anti-Semitism, BBC, Britain, Daily Mail, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Family Guy Jews, Family Guy racism, Hatred, Immigration, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jews, Kevin Macdonald, Multiculturalism, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, United States, War, Zionism

Ever since the rather hysterical reaction to Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to congress and later re-election as Prime Minster of Israel, I’ve been thinking at length about anti-Semitism in the modern world, how intense it is, and where it might ultimately lead. I’ve also tried to properly define ‘anti-Semitism’ – that is, of the most serious kind, as opposed to the ethnic banter that occurs (between all groups and cultures) on a daily basis.

After all, not all anti-Semitism leads to Auschwitz. Some of it is simply laziness. I remember, many years ago, passing a London Synagogue with a friend. As we were directly outside of it, he pointed at the building and sighed “Look at that” in a low, defeated tone of voice.

“What?” I asked, adding “It’s a Synagogue.”

Frowning at my reply, my friend shifted his fingertip to the parking lot outside. “Those cars, I mean… Jags, BMWs, Mercs. You know what I mean?”

And the conversation (if it can be called that) ended there. The insinuation was obvious and was duly taken on board.

Now, is this Anti-Semitism, or just plain envy? Many people readily confuse the two, and this, I think, detracts from our ability to face down anti-Jewish hatred of the most serious kind. (My friend incidentally is a working-class, apolitical Irishman, with whom I used to bunk off school and who more or less belongs to the ‘salt of the earth’ type.)

If that is ‘casual’ anti-Semitism, another modern type is comical or ‘ironic’ anti-Semitism. In an episode of Family Guy, a Jewish high school pupil objects to being asked to dissect a pig, to which the teacher drily replies, “Believe me Neil, it’s no thrill for the pig to touch a Jew either.”

This is clearly near to the bone, but nobody upon hearing it would think of joining the KKK or ANP. This is sub-political thinking and doesn’t treat Jews with the seriousness preferred by genuine fascists.

Of course, even I have at one time or another been accused of anti-Semitism, as has anyone who forwards arguments of the political kind. I once noted for example that American Jews enjoy a dominant position in the American film industry. I found (and find) it bizarre and unnecessary to deny something so obvious. For this, I received emails of mockery and hateful accusations.

The use of the ‘Anti-Semite’ label in cases like that is irresponsible, especially as anti-Semitism of the most lethal kind appears to be enjoying a secretive renaissance. Let’s break some more taboos…

Jews have vastly superior verbal intelligence scores than Gentiles. Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent on average than any other division of the human population. Jewish representation in the scientific, political and cultural elites of the West is massively disproportionate to their numbers. Jews have taken pains in their history (for religious reasons) to prevent integration with non-Jewish communities. The Jewish religious belief that they are a chosen tribe favoured by God has often contributed to the hostile attitudes of those who live alongside them.

Not one of these observations is powerful or scurrilous enough to unleash a new Holocaust and should not be treated like that. The ideas motivating real hostility to Jews in the modern world have nothing to do with widely known, if publically denied, facts. Rather they are the product of a uniquely complex style of conspiratorial thinking.

Kevin Macdonald, a Canadian professor of Evolutionary Psychology, should be considered the grand wizard of modern anti-Jewish feeling. His trilogy of books – The Culture of Critique, A People Who Shall Dwell Alone and Separation and Its Discontents – have encouraged millions to sign up to a hatred that had been in a period of terminal decline.

Macdonald’s basic theorem is that Jews have organised in such a way as to degrade the spirit of kinship in their ‘host’ societies, thereby preventing an ethno-nationalism that could exclude or threaten them from coming into existence. They are said to achieve this by organising cultural, political and intellectual movements that complicate or oppose White ethnic interests. Examples of this include Bolshevism, Psychoanalysis, interracial pornography and open-door immigration.

Macdonald backs up his assertions with a heavy weight of evidence and quotation, giving the ideas expressed a veneer of scientific detachment and legitimacy. Despite this, no respected figure in Macdonald’s field of evolutionary psychology takes his contentions seriously, and luminaries from other fields – including Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond – treat them with lofty ridicule.

They are wrong to be so dismissive. Macdonald’s thesis is spreading like wildfire. The explanatory promise of his ideas makes them irresistible in an age as distrustful and anti-political as ours.  On websites like 4chan, Stormfront, reddit and on innumerable blogs, the idea that Jews have damaged the prospects of White civilisation is omnipresent. I spend a lot of time on these sites (to attune myself to the popular zeitgeist) and come across arguments traceable back to Macdonald on a daily basis.

Part of what makes Macdonald’s theories so strong is the inbuilt defences he has implanted in them. His family of theories are designed in such a way as to make Jewish counter-arguments seem like a confirmation of their validity. In ‘Separation and its Discontents’, Macdonald argues that the charge of ‘anti-Semitism’ is an integral part of the Jewish project to stop Whites finding an independent voice.

I don’t know how this shadowy renaissance will pan out, but the fact these ideas remain plausible should teach us all a vital lesson: that Anti-Semitism remains a dangerously toxic and regressive element in the global system, and that if it ever reaches 20th century proportions again, it will not be due to comical or political asides, but to the semi-scientific theories of the intellectual fringe.

D, LDN.

The Cynical Genius of Hamas.

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American Liberty, anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Bombing, Civilisation, Coffee, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas Charter, Israel Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, War, Zionism

Anyone who values civilisation – from its music and museums, to its cinemas and nightclubs – will have been sympathetic to Israel’s plight over the past two weeks. It is being attacked by another century, and cannot respond except by striking (as surgically as possible) one of the most densely populated territories in the world.

Faced with these odds, Israel has inevitably lost. As I said a fortnight ago, the only way Operation Protective Edge could succeed (or be worth the ocean of negative publicity arising from the project) is if Hamas was knocked conclusively out of history. I’m far from alone in holding this view. Many a patriot in Israel has been exasperated by this war and its apparent lack of direction.

Hamas – in contrast to Netanyahu’s ambiguity – is working with a clear and intelligent strategy:

1. Provoke Israel into bombarding Gaza.

2. Fire missiles from hospitals, schools and (for added propaganda effect) UN-affiliated buildings in order to maximise foreign and civilian casualties – human lives being cheaply expendable given the local birth-rate.

3. Mobilise Left-wing and Pro-Palestinian media around the world with photos of dead women and children. Gain as many young and naïve adherents to the Palestinian cause as possible.

4. Allow the war to die down. Re-arm and await next operation.

As you can see, there is little room for failure here. One can also see how Israel’s response has fed directly into it. The intensity of Pro-Palestinian information-flow since the start of the war has been staggering. And it hasn’t been limited to the closed world of the political Left either. Here are some of the hundreds of anti-Zionist comments left on the centre-right Daily Mail website (all of which were given hundreds of ‘green arrows’ by its readership) –

“Israel would like nothing more than to destroy all Palestinian settlements. The ‘excuse’ of defending its people is a smokescreen. If this campaign somehow stops they’ll find another excuse to attack and kill thousands of innocent people. Israel are mass murderers.”

“Israel is an apartheid state gone wild and it’s unfair to expect their neighbours to sit there defenceless without the weapons and military to defend themselves.”

“Israel wants the land for its natural gas, it’s as simple as that. It won’t stop and is behaving in an appalling manner.”

“The whole world knows what a terrorist state Israel is-you can sit here all day trying to defend it-it won’t work.”

Elsewhere, the Telegraph (arguably the most reliably pro-Israel news source in the UK) has run numerous reports on the bombings of Hamas targets near schools and hospitals with the (rather important) Hamas element unmentioned anywhere in the text. It used to be the case that only the BBC was capable of this wilful propaganda. This time around, were it not for the middle-ground politeness of the BBC, the Israeli side would have no media voice in the UK outside the Jewish Chronicle.

Its inherent evil aside, Hamas is reaping the crop from a well-thought out and devilishly clever tactic. Now let’s look at what a comparably clear Israeli response would have looked like:

1. Delay retaliation to Gaza rocket fire. Instead make clear to Hamas and international community that living next to a terrorist group has become intolerable (i.e. make the case for the action before the action). Issue final warning to Hamas and make clear that it will be removed if rocket fire continues. The longer the period between the ultimatum and military action, the less the power of criticism will be when the latter is underway.

2. If rocket fire continues, launch air and ground strikes against all known Hamas sites. Occupy Gaza for as long as it takes to arrest or kill Hamas leadership and its supporters. After the occupation, make clear that the same routine will be repeated if any comparable terrorist group emerges there.

By way of conclusion, Protective Edge has been a disaster for Israel, a windfall for the Palestinian cause, and it raises serious questions about Israel’s long term planning. Let’s hope lessons have been learned.

D, LDN.

‘Islam Versus Europe’, Immigration and the Jews.

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Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Holocaust, Jew, Karl Marx, Kevin Macdonald, Multiculturalism, Nationalism, Nazi, No to Turkey in the EU, Pamela Geller, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Tommy Robinson, United States, Zionism

A friend once asked me why Neo-Nazis hate ‘Zionism’ so much. ‘Surely…’ he said ‘…they don’t care about the Arabs.’.

I explained as best I could that ‘Zionism’ to a Nazi means something very different than it does to a Western Liberal. For the former, ‘Zionism’ is a shorthand for any organised Jewish Political force, real or imagined.  The kind of political force usually intended is a conspiracy to promote (or enforce) multi-racialism on the European world, with the ultimate goal of wiping out the White race via miscegenation (encouraged by a Jewish media and pornography industry).

It’s easy to dismiss such ideas as crackpot, if not borderline psychotic. They are not comfortably distinct from black helicopters behind the clouds, or brain-rotting chemicals in the water supply.

But it would be unfair to dismiss them so completely.

Back in July (hat-tip Enza Ferreri), the respected CounterJihad blogger IslamversusEurope  (‘Cheradenine’) published a lengthy post reviewing the book ‘Culture of Critique’ by Canadian author Kevin Macdonald. To my surprise, Cheradenine, a great foe of Islamisation and terrorism, said the following:  ‘

“Having now read MacDonald’s books A culture of critique and A people that shall dwell alone…. I have to say they have made an unexpectedly strong impression on me. I now understand antisemitism. I wouldn’t say I now share the feeling but I am at least much further along that spectrum of sentiment that I was before.”

He goes on to explain his reasoning:

“MacDonald documents, in excruciating detail, the overwhelmingly disproportionate Jewish involvement in intellectual movements that have worked to delegitimise and denigrate the traditional forms of cohesiveness characteristic of European societies, including patriotism, church and family structures…..Communism blighted eastern Europe; multiculturalism is destroying western Europe. Although Jews are clearly not solely responsible for either, it’s reasonable to ask whether either ideology would have achieved such “success” as it did achieve, establishing doctrinal dominance in the minds of policy-making elites, had Jews never immigrated to Europe. In my opinion, the answer is no. Without Jewish political and intellectual activism, without the Holocaust, without the Hitler stick ready to beat down any manifestation of European pride or patriotism, Europeans would not now be losing their countries to Islam.”

OK. Let’s address these points.

I do not personally find the idea that Jews instinctively promote societies which are not repressively homogenous unlikely, but nor do I find it disturbing. It is perfectly natural for Jews to desire a Nationalism they can be part of, and to combat a Nationalism which excludes or threatens them. The cultural totalitarianism of the Middle Ages offered no comfort for the Jews, despite their eschatological importance to the Christian faith itself, and post-enlightenment liberalisation was strongly desired by Christian minorities (Catholics in Protestant countries and vice versa) too. This was (at least initially) nothing like a conspiracy, but merely the fight for a better society.

The modern blight of Communism too is not something to lay solely at the door of the Jews. Communism precedes Karl Marx (who merely provided its most eloquent expression). Class interests and the desire to correct economic ‘injustices’ arose organically among the gentile working classes, and may never have required the assistance of Jews to enact a political effect.

Similarly, modern ‘Multiculturalism’ is as much a class movement as it is an ideology. Multiculturalism is favoured by the business elite and the liberals of the middle class, both of whom associate the objections of the working class with ignorance and inferiority. A desire to not be seen as ‘racist’ is not motivated by Holocaust guilt alone, but by an arrogant wish to prove oneself superior to the uneducated.

As for the author of ‘Culture of Critique’, one must be honest and call him at minimum a suspect character. Professor Macdonald is a sometime associate of David Irving, and a venerated hero of the Ethno-Nationalist fringe. His work typically attracts the dregs of sub-political society and is animated by a science (‘Evolutionary Psychology’) that is rarely accepted as mainstream. As John Derbyshire pointed out in his evaluation of Macdonald, the very idea of a ‘group evolutionary strategy’ (vital to Macdonald’s argument) is open to doubt:

‘The Jewish over-representation in important power centers of Gentile host societies became possible only after Jewish emancipation—which, like abolition of the slave trade, was an entirely white-Gentile project! Did the genes of 12th-century Jews “know” emancipation was going to happen 700 years on? How? If they did not, what was the point of their “evolutionary strategy”? There is a whiff of teleology about this whole business.’

I agree. Perhaps even more than a whiff.

In sum, Jews have long been at the forefront of the struggle against Islamism and I truly hope that Cheradenine’s unfortunate fascination for Mr Macdonald’s work doesn’t precede a split in the CounterJihad movement. I have always subscribed to the ‘Big Tent’ ideal when it comes to this issue. It will take Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Ba’hai, Christians and nonbelievers working in agreement for any kind of successful resistance to be formed. A defensive phalanx; not a gabble of factions divided by race.

D, LDN

Appreciating Mark Steyn.

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America Alone, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Caldwell, Christopher Hitchens, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, English Defence League, Eurabia, Mark Steyn, Oriana Fallaci, Pamela Geller, Paul Berman, Sam Harris, United States, Zionism

The Counter-Jihad movement (and its underlying intellectual tendency) originated in different places, depending on who you ask. 

For some, ‘Counter-Jihad’ sentiment is merely the delayed reaction to 9/11 by the Western moral majority, with the delay usually attributed to political correctness and a lack of organization in the years following the attack. 

For others, it was the work of the ‘New Atheists’ which first prepared the ground for popular ‘Islamophobia’, and by this they usually intend the work of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

For me though, the real turning point, and the one which has enabled the loud, confident voice now afforded to us, was the publication in 2006, of a polemic entitled ‘America Alone: The End of the World as We Know it’, by Canadian author Mark Steyn.

Outside of actual events (like 9/11, 7/7 etc..), this slim volume ranks as one of the most commonly cited reasons for independent conversions to the anti-Islamist cause both in Britain and America. Time and time again, I read or hear people say something like the following –

“I was absolutely convinced by the whole Left-wing argument. I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought the West was evil and trying to steal the oil and that terrorists were just reasonably angry people fighting back…. But then I read this book called ‘America Alone’, and I switched sides overnight.” 

That’s quite something. Great polemical books are known to make you question your beliefs, but it usually take a few of them to spin you exactly around.

There are, of course, a great many other talented authors within this tendency. I’ve mentioned elsewhere the work of Oriana Fallaci, Fjordman, and Paul Berman. Steyn’s book however, unlike the work of these authors, does something more than convince you of a certain position; it makes you pity those who aren’t convinced, embarrassed that you were ever aligned differently, and desperate to go out and persuade others …

The explanation for the book’s quasi-religious power is simple: Mr Steyn is a very funny man indeed.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the other authors mentioned immensely, but they all – to varying degrees – neglect the resource of humour as a means of potentiating their arguments, and this is a shame. One can read their books (the content of which addresses precisely the same topic as Steyn’s) and be nothing but depressed, shocked and occasionally stirred to action. By contrast, one can guiltlessly relish reading about pretty much any subject – terrorism, mass-murder, Fascism, American decline etc… so long as it is Mr Steyn describing it.

I am currently reading the follow-up to ‘America Alone’, which is called ‘After America: Get Ready for Armageddon’. In this volume, the author turns away from Europe to consider the prognosis of the American economy should it continue with the Socialist experiment initiated by President Obama. As with the previous book, there is much ‘laughter in the dark’ to be had here, as well as some substantial arguments worth pondering further. Also as in ‘America Alone’, Mr Steyn slips regularly in and out of the comedic voice in order to perfectly frame each argument. The resulting narrative hits the target perfectly.

It might sound like an insult, but Steyn is not just an involving writer, but a very skilled propagandist; his writing is instructive for anyone wanting to learn the art of persuasion, whether for an ideological or personal cause. Consider this nicely phrased and gently stirring excerpt:

“Micro-regulation is micro-tyranny, a slithering, serpentine network of insinuating Ceaucescu and Kim Jong-Il mini-me’s. It’s time for the mass rejection of their diktats. A political order that subjects you to the caprices of faceless bureaucrats or crusading “judges” merits no respect. To counter the Bureau of Compliance, we need an Alliance of Non-Compliance to help once free people roll back the regulatory state.”

That’s so much better than the dry, mechanical, graduate language of the modern press, don’t you think?

On his website, Mr Steyn is not advertised as a strictly comic voice, but more as an independent journalist, similar in kind to those popular on the American radio circuit. I suppose this is accurate enough; the author can be drab and serious when it serves his argument to be so. 

But it’s the ability to make people laugh when they should rightfully be crying that has won Steyn global acclaim. 

His work provides valuable evidence of the power of comedy to carry a political message to greater distances than sobriety and exactness alone.

D, LDN.

Modernity or Barbarism? : The strongest argument for Israel is the most simple.

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anti-Semitism, Case for Israel, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Eurabia, Fateful Triangle, Islamisation of London, Israel, Jewish State, Multiculturalism, No to Turkey in the EU, Rihanna Muslim, Zionism

I wanted to write a post this week defending the legitimacy of the Zionist project but I quickly realised that with this conflict, most of the arguments have already been made.

Just as some people are right-handed and some left, everybody seems to have an inbuilt bias on the Middle East dispute.

People with no interest in politics whatsoever nevertheless reserve a space in their hearts for either the Jews or the Arabs of the near-east, rarely both. They may have never met a Jew or an Arab in their lives, but they still fight for ‘their’ side with all the determination of a brother coming to the aid of a brother.

If you think about it, this is actually quite strange. It certainly isn’t the case with other conflicts. When the Sinhalese and the Tamils fight each other in Sri Lanka, a majority of people require an explanation as to who the Sinhalese and Tamils are before the reasons behind the conflict themselves are elucidated. Some might even need an index finger on a map to show them where Sri Lanka is.

Why is Israel and Palestine different? One reason could be religion.

I grew up in a religious household and remember going to Sunday-school each week where I read the Bible with the teachers. The word ‘Israel’ was familiar to me long before I knew anything political, as were Jews, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese Cedar trees and the concept of the promised land. When I become politically aware and learned about Zionism, I already had a basic grasp of the actors and religious stakes involved.

Most Westerners (or at least Christian Westerners) therefore are bound to see the conflict as an interesting one. The same I imagine is true of Muslims, who are taught from an early age about Mohammads alleged journey to Jerusalem as well as more explicitly about the politics of Palestine.

Another reason of course is race. The Jews are a subject of unending fascination for Europeans, who can’t quite fathom whether to adore or despise them. In America too, the Jewish people are both liked and disliked but rarely ignored. 

Anything involving Jews therefore tends to attract scrutiny.

Reflecting this interest, the Middle East conflict has inspired passionate and important political books on both sides of the debate. On the Pro-Israel side there are volumes like “The Case for Israel”, “From Time Immemorial”, and “Shackled Warrior”. On the anti-Israel side, there is “Beyond Chutzpah”, “Fateful Triangle” and “The Gun and the Olive Branch”.

Some of these books have become classics of political writing and their authors are looked to as intellectual sages not just on the Middle East but World Politics more broadly.

But for me, the strongest political argument for Israel arises naturally from an examination of the realities on the ground.

Israel as a country can easily deceive people. It looks so Western and sophisticated, so calm and cosmopolitan that it’s scarcely believable to think that in a coastal strip just to its south, there is a nightmare territory of illiteracy, genital mutilation, veiling and stoning to death.

Just a mile from beachfront Israeli coffee shops, in which young Jewish women and young Jewish men drink Cappuccino and chat about sport, literature and fashion, there are other women, forbidden to leave the crumbling houses of men they were forced to marry as children, and whose children dance on the unpaved streets outside praising suicide bombing.

These are not, as if often claimed, ‘two different cultures’. These are two different stages of cultural development. One is in the 21st century, and the other in the 13th.

In Israeli cafes, a heated argument might break out over which marks the greater artistic leap forward, “The Bends” or “OK Computer” (the answer incidentally is the latter). In a Gaza shack, a brawl might ensue over whether music (of any kind) should be punishable by fine or amputation.

It pays to remind oneself every so often just how weird this contrast is. Imagine Denmark sharing a border with Afghanistan. Switzerland with Pakistan. Tokyo with Darfur.

And yet – knowing all this – how does the West, so comfortable in its own version of the 21st century, react?

It gathers both sides together and shouts “Make a deal!…”, and then reacts with feigned surprise when nothing comes of it.

I suppose this isn’t strictly-speaking ‘betrayal’. Israel is not in Europe. It’s more a simple kind of hypocrisy, as well as a motivated failure to comprehend an obvious truth; that the age of mutilation, dogma, and suicide bombing cannot be reconciled with the world of fashion, irony and relaxed society. They are not equal and – more importantly – they are not equally valuable. This simple, cartoonish contrast may prove to be the strongest argument for Israel, even after all the academic head-scratching and moral grandstanding has fallen away.

If you wish to defend the West from Islamisation, and modernity from barbarism, you must be a supporter of the Jewish State and defend what it represents. It is a border of the civilised world and an armed front against its darkest enemies. The Jews are a talented, humane and indispensable race and their state should reflect this in security, prosperity and size.

These are the vital arguments. So if you’re asked again to choose between modernity and barbarism, or whatever else you might wish to call the same choice, ‘Civilization or madness’, ‘Israel or Palestine’…. don’t think too deeply about it. Despite the weighty books, complicated theorems and wars of interpretation, honesty alone should lead you to the century you belong in.  

D, LDN

Conservatives have won the Islam-in-Europe debate…..But the young are already in a different world.

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America 911, anti-Semitism, Ayn Rand, Birmingham, BNP, Bravery, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Coffee, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, EDL, English Defence League, Eurabia, Generation War, homosexuality, Inter-Generational relations, internet freedom, Islam and the West, Judaism, Lil Wayne, London-centric, Mark Steyn, Multiculturalism, No to Turkey in the EU, Pamela Geller, Pat Condell, politics, Rihanna, Rihanna Muslim, sex, suicide, Zionism

We are almost 12 years on from the September the 11th attacks in America, and we are at last approaching the point where we can say the right has triumphed in the debate over Islamism in Europe.

This might sound a bit too optimistic to some, but I see the evidence all around. There are no serious, mainstream conservatives or liberals still arguing for the unconditional appeasement of Islam in Europe. A huge wave of European conservative and liberal intellectuals have converted almost wholesale to neo-conservative ideas, or at least those which involve the defence of Western culture. They still don’t want to be American of course, but at last they’re realising that it wouldn’t be a ball to be Iranian, Algerian or Turkish either. The ‘either-or’ fallacy has collapsed and while America bolts leftward, Europe has never been so united in ‘right-wing’ sentiment.

If you cast your mind back just a few years ago, you can appreciate the magnitude and speed of this shift. Think back as late as 2006 when the world was first mesmerised by the oratorical skills of Barack Obama, and consider the then fashionable opinions in Europe regarding the War on Terror. It was still broadly regarded as an idiotic cowboy initiative, and the reasons for it – the threat of radical Islam – was deemed to consist mostly of hype, bloated and promoted by arms manufacturers and straw-chewing Christian fundamentalists. George W. Bush, the great dumb American caricature, was still beloved by comedians and political cartoonists in London, Paris and Berlin. You could still get a laugh by pointing to the verbal errors of the out-going President, or by linking the uneducated twang of his accent to the foreign policy he initiated. The threat of Jihad was not just a lie, but an American lie, and it was patriotic not to believe it.

And look at things now.

With veiled faces multiplying, darkening the romance of Parisian streets, Pakistani paedophiles pimping orphan girls in Oxfordshire, kebab houses degentrifying great swathes of Birmingham, and terror alerts issued in Stockholm, Belgium and Denmark – no European can any longer think it patriotic to deny that this is a problem. One could call it fashionable, one could call it bold, and provocative, but no longer is it patriotism.

The right has won the debate….but only among people of a certain generation.

For the young, the debate is ongoing, and the anti-Islamist side has its work cut out.

One of the reasons it is still a challenge is the ongoing demographic shift among European youth. Not only are Muslims growing in number and influence with each new generation, but they are managing to integrate ‘sideways’ with other immigrant communities; in particular those of Christian black Africans. Islam is becoming respected on the street even by Christians, as a natural part of third-world identity. Islam, and even Islamism, is increasingly viewed as being as much a victim of ‘the system’ (and a cool enough means of rebelling against it) as hip-hop and gangsterism.

This is a cause for concern for anyone who understands where the real cultural power lies these days.

When a Counter-Jihad activist watches a good Mark Steyn or Pamela Geller video on YouTube, they might well feel a sense of relief that the “the message is getting out there.”, and that “People are waking up…”

But such a feeling can’t survive a glance at the view count for these clips. The figures are usually at best around the 10-15,000 mark.

Even videos of the late Christopher Hitchens, one of the most popular and media-friendly intellectuals of recent memory, rarely score views over 100,000. Pat Condell, the atheist commentator maxed out on less than 4 million views with a video that was uploaded more than 3 years ago. This is nowhere near sufficient.

Notice also that the ‘video demographics’ reveal a majority of viewers to be over the age of forty.

None of that data bodes well for the future.

Elsewhere on the cultural map, if Lil Wayne or Rihanna release a new music video, views can head toward 100,000,000 within weeks.

Who’s to say that in the future, there won’t be a Rihanna in a headscarf, or a Lil Wayne with a prayer-cap? Were that to occur, the number of people educated by the Counter-Jihad community over the last ten years, would be cancelled out by the number of younger citizens gained over period of hours. And then the offices at the Daily Telegraph could go as crazy as they like; it wouldn’t matter one jot to the younger generation. They would accept a Muslim Rihanna as perfectly natural – as well as historically and culturally consistent. The third-world in the White man’s world is one-world after all – all distinctions or divisions fall away, disappear…..

And who is to blame for this?

I, as a young person, would nominate the ethno-nationalists; people who maintain that there is no qualitative difference between foreign cultures, and that all are equally undesirable. Only European, White culture is acceptable. All else is an invasion or a surrender.

We cannot win against Islamism if we surrender to this kind of catch-all racism.

We should be glad that groups like the EDL and SION have made a start at unifying world cultures in a defensive phalanx, rather than, as the BNP would do, scattering us all like birdseed to be eaten separately.

D, LDN.

The Heroism of Pamela Geller.

Tags

America 911, Bravery, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, EDL, Feminism, homosexuality, Islam, Islam and the West, Islamism, Judaism, Muslims, No to Turkey in the EU, Pamela Geller, War, Zionism

The community of people threatened by Islam contains many colors and creeds. The intellectual luminaries of its activist community reflect this, in so far as they are as diverse as the swathe of humanity they represent. There are ex-Muslims (Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, Ibn Warraq), Hindus (VS Naipaul), Leftists (the late Christopher Hitchens, Nick Cohen, Paul Berman), homosexuals (Douglas Murray), feminists (Lionel Shriver, Fay Weldon) all grouped among that number, each bringing with them their own reasons for standing up to this nefarious global bully and their unique insights into how best to do it in the future. Homosexual defiance of Islam is roundly applauded even by sections of the left. Non-white ex-Muslim females, having escaped confinement in the third world, such as Ms. Hirsi Ali, are also – though they are sometimes controversial – accepted as having naturally come to their opinions. The same with feminists, atheist Marxists and Christian conservatives. Whether or not, people disagree with what these people have to say or with the way in which they say it, they are ‘trusted’ to have arrived at their views via an organic, understandable process; one that we can all relate to. Even the most doctrinaire leftist still has enough insight within him to imagine what it must be like to be gay in Pakistan, or a woman in Saudi Arabia, or a feminist locked in an abusive marriage in the West. The leftist would rather we don’t dwell on these things too much, but he is happy enough to allow these things to be opposed.

What cannot be tolerated however, is the opposition of an ordinary civilian; that is, someone who did not need to fight Islamism but chose to do so. This is a problem because choosing to fight for justice when one could have had an easy life is a heroic myth jealously guarded by the left. As such, it simply cannot happen on the right. There must always be another explanation. Nobody can come to right-wing views except by an unromantic or devious process. This belief is well represented by the case of Pamela Geller.

Ms. Geller is what we might call an extraordinary ordinary person. Brought up in the West rather than in the Middle East, Ms. Geller had no obvious reason to stand up for the millions of Muslim women whose path she never needed to cross. Educated in the relatively plush surrounds of American colleges, she had no obvious reason to stand up for those denied the right to learn to read. She chooses to do this. She stands up for her sex, her society and her civilization (and allows herself to be hated for it) simply because it is the right thing to do as a Woman, a Jew, and an American.

This kind of explanation, the Left simply will not stand for. It tramples over so much of what they hold dear. The presumptions which undergird their rationale – the imagined world of selfish, cigar-smoking bankers, facing off against a righteous world of hungry brown people, is at odds with the Geller story. In this story, one has a Jew (which as an innuendo is almost interchangeable with both ‘banker’ and ‘capitalist’), who is also an American (once again =’capitalist’), and a defender of Israel (interchangeable with both ‘Zionist’ and ‘racist’) – in other words, a racist, Zionist American Banker.

Even one of these charges is deemed sufficient for the Left to scream ‘evil!’, but having them ganged together in the same person is enough to make a liberal choke up Bran Flakes. And yet in the Geller story, this Zionist banker is working everyday not on behalf of Goldman Sachs, but on behalf of ravaged women in Afghan villages, acid-scarred schoolgirls in Pakistan, and illiterate Egyptian, Tunisian, and Iranian women – all of whom have been trained to see her as the enemy.

Not for the first time, the Left is here wholly wrong. Geller is not a monster but an icon of bravery, and a much underappreciated and abused one. Her heroic blog Atlasshrugs has done more to raise awareness of the  Islamist issue than any national newspaper. She goes further than most but never over-steps the line separating truth from falsehood. She is rarely sued (or at any rate successfully) despite being vehemently despised by many powerful (and wealthy) sections of society. In a more honest age she would be setting the standard for feminist activism and courage. In this age, she is ‘sowing hate’ and ‘division’, or she is a ‘Zionist’ aiming to launch an offensive alliance against Islam by manipulating evidence.

And there are various other theories.

But as with so many cases, the simplest answer here is the correct one. Ms. Geller is Jewish. Islamists have declared a war of annihilation against the Jewish State and on the Jews who live outside of it. Ms. Geller is offended by this and has decided to fight back.

Why should it be more conspiratorial or complicated than that?

Why is the left less keen to accuse homosexuals or atheists of self-interested conspiracy when they oppose Islamism. The answer should surprise no-one. There is a typical racist tendency to imagine that a Jew cannot react with natural, universally-understood instincts, but only with a devious slowness of forethought; a slowness suited to conspiracy and cunning.

But imagine for a moment if this was not the case, and that Ms. Geller was merely a ‘normal’ woman, belonging to an unexceptional social group marked out unjustifiably for destruction by one-in-five human beings…. What is such a woman to do then? How is she to talk of those who, were they ever victorious, would kill her family and loved ones, and then enslave her fellow women? If Geller’s is the unreasonable reaction, then the left must inform us of the reasonable one.

D, LDN.