WarSclerotic

Buenos Aires Herald.

By
James Neilson

As I See It
In the almost twenty years have gone by since the late Samuel Huntington warned us that the coming decades would in all likelihood see a “clash of civilizations” and we would be well advised to remember that “Islam has bloody borders,” Western political and cultural elites have been doing their best to persuade themselves that he was completely wrong. What we need, they said, was a “dialogue between civilizations.” As for Islam, it was outrageous to suggest it was particularly aggressive. When reminded that its adherents were duty-bound to wage “jihad” against unbelievers, they happily accepted the assurance that the word referred chiefly to an “inner struggle” like wrestling with one’s conscience or, perhaps, “waging war on poverty.” For a short while, the demolition of the Twin Towers in New York by a mainly Saudi bunch of holy warriors forced some to take a less benevolent view of what was going on, but even so few proved willing to take seriously the proposition that Islam, whether “hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists” or the genuine article, posed a serious threat to the rest of humanity.

Though most politicians and litterateurs still seem determined to believe that every single manifestation of Islamic belligerence can be traced back to some Western misdeed, attitudes are changing fast. The Belgian Parliament has just voted to ban the burqa, a sack-like garment that as well as allegedly protecting women against masculine lust allows the wearer to make an in-your-face political statement; the uncharitable compare it to dressing up in full Nazi regalia. France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to do the same in his country, where there are so many Muslims that large areas of major cities are off-limits to infidels. Not so long ago, the Swiss chose to ban the construction of more minarets. In Holland , Geert Wilders, a man who makes no bones about his dislike of what an influx of Muslims has done to his country, could well become prime minister in the not too distant future. Even in the United Kingdom, people associated with the Labour government have come to the conclusion that funding the operations of groups holding extremist view in the bizarre belief that it would help turn them against terrorism.

In response to all this, Muslim spokesmen are doing the best to make out that “Islamophobia” — a coinage they translate as “hatred for Islam” though as everybody knows “phobia” simply means fear — is the biggest danger confronting the planet. Not too long ago, most Western leaders were inclined to agree with them, but a growing number have come to appreciate that given the circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to be afraid of Islam. Hardly a day goes by without some terrorist atrocity being committed in its name, as happened this week in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, or in Nigeria, where the week before that five hundred Nigerian Christians were butchered, or in Thailand, where jihadis are fond of beheading Buddhists, or in India, the Philippines, Western China, and just about every place close to Islam’s “bloody borders.” In predominately Muslim countries religious minorities, especially the Christian ones, are the target of brutal campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” designed to remove all trace of their presence.

On “connecting the dots,” it is hard not to see a picture in which a huge religious community is flexing its muscles. There may not be that many killers and fiery clerical propagandists, but there are enough to cause a great deal of bloodshed. Opinion polls tell us that hundreds of millions of Muslims think they are doing the right thing. They themselves may be kindly souls, but it can be assumed they feel much as did “ordinary” Germans, people who later would become model democrats, in the early 1940s when their country’s armies conquered their neighbours with astonishing ease.

Russia’s leaders have promised to exterminate terrorists like rats, hunting them down “from the bottom of the sewers.” The Chinese have been equally forthright. For his part, Barack Obama has no qualms when it comes to ordering the assassination of jihadis, though unlike the Israelis, who are careful not to hit bystanders when they are at it, he uses unmanned drones that kill or maim anyone in the vicinity of his selected targets. The way things are going, the next stages of the “war on terror” will be far more brutal, and far less discriminating, than when George W. Bush was in charge and insisted that he had nothing against “the religion of peace.”

What we have seen so far has been on the whole low-intensity warfare, with contained spasms of high-intensity warfare in the Caucasus, Iraq, Afghanistan and places bordering Israel. That could soon change. Iran seems hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, a nightmare the Israelis have no desire to live with. If India suffers a new attack organized by Pakistanis she would find it hard put not to strike back. And in Europe there is always the risk that measures taken to prevent Muslims from making their presence, and the intentions of many, even more visible, produce a violent backlash. In the campus in the sky to which he has withdrawn, Huntington will have the satisfaction of knowing that his predictions are coming true, though he would probably have preferred it if his many critics had been right.

This entry was posted on April 1, 2010 at 2:18 PM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.