In response to a long exchange of thoughts commenting on two posts, one on the Oxford Union’s bizarre notion of serious debate, and one on the issues raised by that post by Sophia, Michael N. wrote the following set of reflections which I think worthy of a post all to itself on the problem of Europeans and moral envy.
It began with a brief remark by MN on the hostility of the Europeans to the USA:
I think that if America DID act more like a traditional empire-building superpower, we might even resent it less here; it would not then compare so favourably with our own record!
That caught my eye since one of the things I think is going on right now about Zionism is that with moral perfectionists like Michael Lerner and the extraordinary self-restraint and self-sacrifice exercised by the IDF (e.g., at Jenin), the Israelis are driving people crazy with their moral standards so far in excess of that of their neighbors. Therefore, one of the reasons why Israel gets demonized is to cut it down to size (i.e., the Jenin “Massacre”). So I responded by asking MN to elaborate:
rl: that’s an extremely interesting final remark. there’s no doubt in my mind that if israel were more brutal, there would be less verbal and physical aggression against them. they just don’t have it in them, and then they get attacked for being brutal.
your comment suggests that the real problem is moral envy, a particularly pernicious form of envy that thrives on some appalling moral “thinking” that includes the kind of moral hysteria we hear from people for whom abu ghraib is far worse then saddam’s (or any other arabs’) prisons, the crimes of israel far worse than, say, darfur.
do you really think this is the operative factor?
because if so, then there’s an inverse relationship between how badly (or well) the usa (and israel) behave, and how roundly the europeans (and the “left”) denounce them.
This is Michael N.’s response, which I think takes the discussion in very interesting directions:
Europe, America, and moral envy. The situation is so multi-layered it’s almost impossible to say that moral envy represents the primary operative factor.
It is perhaps something else closely related; a hatred of obligations. Europe owes America, and it knows it owes America. It is therefore rushing as quickly as it can to forget what and why it owes America.
Or, as I learned from trying to teach my kids, it’s almost as hard to say, “Thank you,” as it is to say, “i’m sorry.” Both involve the implication of obligation. (more…)
When discussing the dangers that Europe faces with colleagues, it’s very difficult to get them to take it seriously. Partly this comes from an almost narcissistic sense that Western culture (whose freedoms we academics enjoy to the fullest) is immortal and invulnerable, something like James Dean tooling down the highway on his hog at 120mph without a helmet. Partly this comes from their inability to imagine the Europeans behaving self-destructively, even though many of our own “progressive” values contribute to that behavior. In the asymmetrical warfare between Global Jihad and the West, the role of “progressive” values, aggressively asserted by dupes of demopaths plays a key role. Not only do “progressives” consistently attempt to silence any effort to expose the hate-mongering world of Islamism with cries of Islamophobia, but they aggressively attack anyone who objects. In this, the police seem to play an astonishingly central role.
Here’s a post from the Brussels Journal on the behavior of the police and other “progressives” concerning a protest of Islamism and its growing influence in Belgium that illustrates many of the suicidal dynamics at work in Europe today.
Council of Europe Backs Belgian Authorities: “Europe Is Threatened by Bigots – Not by Islam”
From the desk of Paul Belien on Thu, 2007-09-13 09:35
Last Tuesday the police authorities in Brussels, the “capital of Europe,” brutally attacked peaceful demonstrators protesting the Islamization of Europe. Even the European Commission was shocked at the appalling behaviour of the Brussels police, but the officers seem to have their fans as well.
This is a press release (590/2007) issued on Tuesday by Terry Davis, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Europe is threatened by bigots - not by Islam
Statement by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, on the march “Against the Islamisation of Europe” today in Brussels
Strasbourg, 11.09.2007 - European values are under threat, say the organisers of a protest march under the banner “Against the Islamisation of Europe” which was due to place today in Brussels in spite of the ban by the city Mayor. The fact is that Europe and its values are indeed under threat, but the danger is not coming from Islam. Our common European values are undermined by bigots and radicals, both islamists and islamophobes, who exploit fears and prejudice for their own political objectives.
The self-proclaimed defenders of European values say that the Mayor has violated their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. The freedom of assembly and the freedom of expression are indeed essential preconditions for democracy, but they should not be regarded as a licence to offend. I will not enter into the discussion about whether the march should have been allowed or not, but I note that the protesters’ reading of the Convention is selective to say the least. It is very important to remember that the freedom of assembly and expression can be restricted to protect the rights and freedoms of others, including the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This applies to everyone in Europe including the millions of Europeans of Islamic faith, who were the main target of today’s shameful display of bigotry and intolerance.
Need it be added that Terry Davis is a Socialist?
And need it be added that when we are dealing with people for whom the slightest criticism is taken as offensive, then following these guidelines — without applying them to Muslims — is a recipe for censorship. The difference between politeness and civility is that when one is polite one avoids saying things lest there be violence while when one is civil one can say what needs to be said, and there won’t be violence. European Muslims need lessons in civility.
Meanwhile the RTBF, the Belgian (French language) public television, reports that the demonstrators had staged the police violence. Showing a picture of Frank Vanhecke, a member of the European Parliament, lying on the ground after the police maltreated him, the RTBF reported: “These images are deceptive because he went to lie down on the ground himself.” Perhaps, Mr Vanhecke also pinched himself in the balls?
Note that when they want to, progressives are perfectly capable of calling into question the meaning of photographs and claiming that they are misleading.
Pictures from VTM, a private television network, clearly show that Mr Vanhecke was thrown down by police officers and that another Belgian politician, Filip Dewinter, was hauled away by police officers while he was giving an interview to the VTM journalist several yards away from the demonstration. The Belgian authorities intend to charge both Vanhecke and Dewinter for assaulting police officers.
[The video on YouTube to which they link is “No longer available.”]
Oh yes, before I forget: The Council of Europe is an organization of 47 European countries which has as its aim to safeguard human rights in Europe.
These are pictures taken in jail by a Dutch woman who was arrested at the demonstration in Brussels. She was kept in the cell for 7 hours. The detainees (aka the bigots) received one bottle of water and a… Brussels waffle.
If I were a Belgian reporter, I’d ask these police folks what they think they’re doing — is it a combination of fear of confronting Islamism so you bully the people you’re afraid will provoke them? Do they think they’re doing the “right thing,” or are (at least some of them) unhappy with what they’re ordered to do? What’s the justification given by their superiors? Are we looking at a new form of kapo mentality in which some of the oppressed join with their oppressors and do their dirty work? If I were an Islamist planning on taking over Europe, I’d be laughing out loud.
Baroness Caroline Cox has some sharp words for the socialism of fools that’s seized her countrymen. Just how bad does it have to get before people wake up?
‘Boycott reminiscent of totalitarianism’
Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 3, 2007
A proposal by British academics to enforce a boycott of Israel is an outrageous and blatant violation of the most fundamental freedom of democracy, reminiscent of totalitarian regimes that could not tolerate freedom of speech, a British baroness said Sunday.
“It is ironic and disturbing in the extreme that censorship is creeping back, and that it is being promoted by some representatives of academic staff who should be the guardians of academic freedom,” Baroness Caroline Cox said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
Cox noted that proponents of the Israel boycott tended to totally ignore any problem being caused by the other side of the equation, and, notwithstanding the questions of free speech, carried with them “the extra dimension of bias and partiality.”
This is, of course, the workings of the PCP, which insists that “they” are just like [the best] of “us,” and if “they” behave badly, it must be because the Israelis have treated them so badly.
“The law requires that the guardians of our academies ensure the protection of freedom of speech on our campuses, and it is upon the police to ensure the protection of the campuses,” she said.
“If our academic institutions do not have the most fundamental freedom of democracy - freedom of speech - as a result of overt or covert censorship, then who does?” she asked.
Her remarks came just days after Britain’s largest union of university and college teachers voted to hold talks on an academic boycott of Israel.
The University and College Union, which represents around 120,000 staff members, voted last week to allow local branches to make a final decision on imposing a boycott on cooperation with Israeli academics.
Britain’s largest union subsequently announced that it also planned to debate a similar motion at its annual meeting in a few weeks, in a sign that the movement to boycott Israel is mushrooming further in the UK.
Baroness Cox, who served as a former deputy speaker at the House of Lords, lampooned in the interview the disturbing alliance between the Left and Islamists in the UK.
“This very unnatural alliance is part of the present ethos and culture of political correctness which some of the media defer to and which shapes the emotions and understandings behind the proposals for such a boycott,” she said.
Cox conceded that years of asymmetric reporting on Israel have impacted the way the British public view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even as she noted a “growing malaise” about the BBC’s anti-Israel reporting.
“Emotions can often override the rational and balanced approach to the situation,” she said.
This is a critical dimension of the “Power of Photography” which has made the fourth estate such a key player in the fate of nations. It is at the core of Pallywood’s success, from al Durah to Gaza Beach to Kafr Qana.
Here’s Green Helmet Guy (not to be confused with LGF Guy) holding up a dead baby allegedly killed by Israelis at Qana. Note the pristine blue pacifier attached to his completely dust-covered body. The blatant manipulation of the viewers emotions — this is a Reuters photo by the notorious Adnan Hajj — could not be more obvious… but apparently not to most Brits.
I quote here from a paper by Tamar Liebes and Anat First on the impact of al Durah:
The Power of Distant Images
As in the case of the starving children in Somalia, or the refugees in Kosovo, television, as a medium, is in love with pictures of human suffering and human brutality (Boltanski, 1999). Boltanski, using Hanna Arendt’s terms, argues that seeing distant conflicts in the form of personal suffering relates to the “politics of pity/empathy” rather than to the “politics of justice.” The perception of justice demands to put the suffering of the two sides to the test in a shared world, so that the just could be recognized. Empathy, on the other hand (in spite of the need to point to specific disasters for it to be aroused), sees the sufferng as a mass. And the politics of empathy (especially when the sufferer is regarded as “victim”) can at most compromise with justice within the boundaries of rhetoric. Who would dream of saying that the residents of a certain hunger-stricken country got what they deserved? The answer is always negative. According to the politics of empathy, the urgency of the action to bring about an end to the suffering overcomes considerations of justice. Justice will enforce its rights only in a world that has driven out suffering.
From: Tamar Liebes and Anat First “Framing the Palestinian Israeli Conflict”, in P. Norris, M. Kern and M Just (eds.), Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the government and the Public (New York and London: Routledege. 2003), chap. 4.
And there, in a nutshell, is the problem of the media in asymmetrical warfare, the topic of our next conference.
The erudite Baroness of Queensbury, who co-authored the book The West, Islam and Islamism: Is Ideological Islam Compatible with Liberal Democracy? with John Marks, was in Israel for a conference on radical Islam at Bar-Ilan University, sponsored by conservative Israeli think tank The Jerusalem Summit.
Oops. She’s a right-winger. Can’t listen to her.
Cox, who has called Islamic extremism the greatest threat posed to the Western World, said that it was “time to draw a line in the sand” now that the UK’s fundamental freedoms and basic cultural heritage were at risk, and likened the current era to the infamous 1930’s period of appeasement.
“We have people in our midst who wish to use the freedoms of democracy to destroy our democracy and the very freedom it enshrines,” she said.
I.e., demopaths.
Cox cited British intelligence figures that 100,000 British Muslims believe that the July 7 bombings in London were justified, and that 1,600 identify with the bombers and are prepared to carry out such an attack again.
“We have a very critical mass in our midst who do not support our political system, and a significant number of those are prepared to use violence to overthrow it,” she said.
A recent British public opinion poll indicating that 40 percent of Muslims youths in the UK want to live under Islamic law rather than British law shows a growing state of malaise that threatens to destroy the country’s society and core values, she said.
Cox - who campaigned against government-sponsored legislation, backed by the Muslim Council of Britain, that would have deemed it a criminal offense to criticize or joke about Islam or promote another religion - revealed that the British government has already made arrangements in certain communities to enact Islamic Law on social matters - a move she called extraordinarily naive at best and hopelessly disingenuous at worst.
“There are elements of Sharia Law that are fundamentally incompatible with the universal declaration of human rights to which Great Britain is a signatory and whose values are enshrined in British law, particularly equality before the law and freedom to choose and change religion,” she said, cautioning that “no-go” ghettos similar to those in France were being established in Britain.
The baroness cited a “vacuum of values” and a decadent society devoid of role models that has failed to give the next generation the proper pride and appreciation for its political, cultural and spiritual heritage - cannon fodder for the Islamic alternative, she said.
Europeans need copies of Fiamma Nirenstein’s Israele Siamo Noi in whatever language they read best.
“Unless we realize that our fundamental freedoms are under threat, we could find ourseleves in an irreversible situation,” Cox said. “The question is, is it too late?”
Ruthie Blum, whose laser vision has skewered more than one unsuspecting victim, interviews Fiamma Nirenstein, the fiery Italian journalist who went from 60s radicalism to proud Zionism in her life of passionate integrity. Fiamma’s new book — Israele Siamo Noi — represents what I hope will be the beginning of a turn-around in European perceptions… from the sick (in the Nietzschean sense) self-hatred and dhimmi appeasement of the current anti-American, anti-Zionist “left” to a healthy respect for all that Western culture has achieved in the way of civic culture, freedom and tolerance, and the courage to defend it against global Jihadis. Her insights into why the Italians don’t want to think about the threat posed by Islam are at once illuminating and depressing.
One on One: Making the case for commonality
Ruthie Blum, THE JERUSALEM POST May. 9, 2007
Fiamma Nirenstein rushes into her kitchen to brew some Italian coffee before we sit down to discuss her latest best-seller, Israele Siamo Noi [Israel Is Us; Rizzoli Publishers], which sold out in its first week and is already on its second printing. On the table, amid a mound of newspapers - The Jerusalem Post prominent among them - is a laptop with at least three documents on which she is working simultaneously: one, an article she needs to finish by evening to meet her deadline for the Milan-based daily, Il Giornale; another, a lecture she is preparing for her upcoming trip to Rome; yet another an entry for her popular blog.
The music of the bubbling espresso pot is accompanied by the repeated Outlook Express jingle signalling she has new mail and the ring of her home and mobile phones.
“Pronto,” she answers each, practically simultaneously, talking to one caller in Italian and the other in Hebrew. This she does while ushering me into the salon and gesturing that I take a seat on the couch. The spacious, sunny living-and-dining room may as well be a multilingual Mideast studies library, for all the books on the subject lining the walls, and the dozens more piled high on other surfaces - a number of which she herself has either authored, co-authored or contributed to.
Given the room’s decor, it may as well be located in Florence, where Nirenstein was born and raised; in Rome, where she lives and works (and visits her 25-year-old son, Binyamin) half of every month; or in Tuscany, where she spends her summers. The panoramic view of the Holy City from the floor-to-ceiling windows is the only give-away to the location of Nirenstein’s home in Jerusalem - which she shares with her Israeli husband, Ofer Eshed, a TV news cameraman.
“Israel is a country of heroes,” Nirenstein says in Italian-accented English, now turning her undivided attention to our hour-long interview. “My book tries to destroy the vile myths perpetrated about its being ‘colonialist’ or an ‘apartheid state’ on the one hand, and about terrorists ‘being militiamen fighting for freedom’ on the other.”
Nirenstein does this, she explains, by dissecting what she calls the “sick words” that have infiltrated the language and consciousness of an increasingly anti-Semitic Europe - terms she and a group of Italian academics plan on collecting for a glossary, “because such word abuse prevents even the possibility of understanding what Israel is all about.”
She comes by her passion for Israel - and familiarity with the conceptual distortions characteristic of “autocratic ideologies” - honestly. The daughter of Holocaust historian and long-time Al Hamishmar correspondent Aharon “Nir” Nirenstein (who came to Palestine in 1936 from Poland, and went to Italy in 1945 with the Jewish Brigade) and Corriere della Sera journalist Wanda Lattes, Nirenstein was an ardent communist in her youth. And, just as Zionism was part and parcel of her upbringing, so too, she says, was she caught up in the “mental corruption” that caused her generation to look to the likes of Che Guevara for inspiration, while attributing the world’s ills to “capitalist imperialism.”
Nirenstein, who has been reporting from Israel for the Italian print and broadcast media for nearly two decades, after years of being an international columnist (recently, she moved from the Left-leaning La Stampa to the conservative Il Giornale), is a European version of a neocon. Her journey across the political spectrum - like that of her American counterparts - began as a response to the radical climate of the 1960s in her own country. Unlike theirs, however, Nirenstein’s was paved with an added complication: To side with anything resembling the right wing in post-World War II Italy meant aligning with the fascists.
Still, Nirenstein asserts, “You cannot run away from reality indefinitely. Ultimately, you have to know what’s right in terms of values, and be courageous about standing up for them.”
For her, this endeavor has taken the form of examining, reporting on and writing extensively about terrorism - and defending Israel in the face of it. “This costs something, of course,” she says, alluding to the bodyguards who pick her up from the airport every time she lands in Italy, and shuttle her from place to place throughout her stay there.
This is the tip of that iceberg of intimidation that permeates even Western countries (not to mention anyone in Arab lands) when it comes to reporting negative news about the Palestinians and Muslims. Anyone who does not appreciate the “price” one must pay to report accurately, does not understand why our news reporters — even the top echelon — do not serve us, their audience, well.
During her most recent stint to promote her book - an appeal to Europeans to emulate Israeli democracy - Nirenstein says she was pleased about the positive reception it received, but stops short of being optimistic. Shrugging and smiling wryly, she sighs: “I’m afraid Europe will only wake up if terrible things happen that none of us would wish on ourselves or on anybody else.”
Why is it significant that your book has received so much attention in the mainstream Italian press?
My previous [eight] books have also been given extensive coverage, but what’s significant in this case are the headlines. “Israel: A model for all of us,” and “Israel: A model for democracy.”
Even the newspaper Corriere della Sera - which isn’t known for its pro-Israel attitude - titled the review: “Israel - a laboratory of democracy for all of Europe.”
I got the sense that this book released a cork in European public opinion. Many people have approached me and whispered in my ear, “I am with you.”
I would like to think this is true, and anecdotal evidence I have culled from British and French friends and acquaintances suggests that it is. But like the “silent majority” of Palestinians that Rees assures us wants to be freed of the madness that rules them, they have enormous difficulty standing up and speaking out. As the Japanese saying goes, “The nail that sticks up is hammered down.”
(more…)
This piece, which appears at the Counterterrorism blog, strikes me as short on details and somewhat superficial. But it does address an issue of primary importance, well worth keeping on our radar screens. If anyone has references to further material on the subject, please cite it.
Left-wing Extremists and Salafi-Jihadists in Europe: Brothers in Arms?
By Assaf Moghadam, July 15, 2007
In recent months, a confluence of several events fueled speculation among some German officials that left-wing extremism in Germany is on the rise and may even turn to violence reminiscent of the terrorism practiced by the Red Army Faction (RAF) in decades past. Although Germany’s Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, today rejected rumors of a renewal of left-wing terrorism in Germany as baseless, one still wonders whether Europe may witness a reincarnation of left-wing terrorism in the near future. Is it possible that left-wing groups and Salafi-Jihadist networks in Europe may cooperate in the future? To that end, it is worthwhile to examine some of the similarities between left-wing extremism rampant in Germany during the late 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s on the one hand, and the Salafi-Jihadist movement on the other.
Several events provided impetus to the renewed debate surrounding left-wing extremism in Germany. On March 25, 57-year old Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a member of the “second generation” of the RAF, was released after spending the last 24 years in a German prison for her role in the killing of nine people. A former colleague of hers from the RAF, Christian Klar, asked for an early release, only to be rejected by President Horst Köhler after the latter found him to be unrepentant. German fear that left-wing extremists are planning major disruptions at the forthcoming summit of the G-8 in Heiligendamm heightened concerns of a left-wing terrorist resurgence. In early May, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz, VS) of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Johannes Schmalzl, noted that the “old spirit of the RAF” was wandering across the “leftist scene.”
(more…)
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Fania Oz-Salzberger, director of the Posen Research Forum for Political Thought and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law and School of History at the University of Haifa. It expresses concern about the suspicious Islamophobic “friends” Israel is suddenly finding in Europe. The piece has already been the object of several fairly scathing critiques, one the very day it appeared by Ruy Diaz of Western Resistance, another by Melanie Phillips, who is indirectly indicted, and yet another by Caroline Glick in her Jerusalem Post column.
I do a fisking here because I think that the sentiments expressed here encapsulate all the attitudes of the “bien-pensant” Israeli progressive from the romanticization of Islam to the demonization of those who fear Islam to the desire to remain morally immaculate. Fisking it then offers an opportunity to show just how profoundly misguided such an approach. I have never met the author, and I apologize if I am somewhat severe in my criticism. But when one presents oneself as a moral voice addressing one’s generation and one says ill-considered things, one should be prepared for criticism. After all, the ability to absorb criticism is part of the progressive credo. Please take my comments, therefore, in the spirit of this blog: “Opposition is True Friendship.” (Hat tip: Nidra Poller)
[Fania Oz-Salzberger in bold blockquote; me in regular; Glick in indent italics.]
With Friends Like These . . . Jews, beware of Islamophobes bearing gifts.
BY FANIA OZ-SALZBERGER
Sunday, January 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
An Israeli gal like me cannot afford to be too picky about her friends, certainly not in Europe. Recent European polls proclaimed Israel the single most dangerous country on earth, the guiltiest monger of global conflict, and, to crown it all, the least desirable place to live. Most Israelis, busy with their thriving economy under a warm Mediterranean sun, tend to forgive such pronouncements coming from dismal Düsseldorf and snowbound Stockholm. But a new challenge has now cropped up. We seem to have gained new European friends, and not quite for the right reasons.
(more…)
Here’s an article by the Boston Globe on opposition to a planned mosque in East Berlin.
Residents of Berlin’s Heinersdorf neighborhood protested the foundation laying ceremony last week. Residents have also filed legal complaints to block construction of the mosque. (Johannes Eisele/ Deutsche Press Agency)
As a mosque rises, a dispute flares in Berlin
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | January 9, 2007
BERLIN — A squabble over construction of the first mosque in formerly communist East Berlin is becoming the latest flash point between Muslims intent on asserting a strong identity in Europe and Europeans increasingly fearful that their secular societies are threatened by Islamic fundamentalism.
Last week, in a foundation laying ceremony that faced protests, members of the small, conservative Ahmadiyya Muslim group watched with pride as a patch of concrete was poured on the site of a razed sauerkraut factory in Heinersdorf, a neighborhood of modest businesses and tidy houses where no one is Islamic. The Ahmadiyyas picked the 5,200-square-foot lot because it was cheap. Members will commute to worship services from elsewhere in Berlin.
I don’t know the details here, but the idea that they picked it because it was cheap and they’ll commute to services — five times a day?!?! — strikes me as implausible to say the least.
Men wore turbans and flat top pakul hats to the ceremony. Women, wearing traditional scarves or covered head-to-toe by burkhas, were relegated to their own tent separate from the Muslim males and local government dignitaries, a segregation that did not endear them to their prospective neighbors. Even communism celebrated the equality of sexes.
“No mosque!” opponents chanted from the street.
Members of the Muslim congregation hope the soaring minaret of the planned mosque will become a local landmark. “People should not fear us,” Iman Abdul Basit Tariq, the Pakistan-born leader of a flock of 200, said in an interview. “They should open their hearts to the beauty of Islam.”
Instead, the neighborhood has fought the mosque with marches, candlelight vigils, and petitions. Residents have also filed legal complaints that could block construction.
The protests have been resolutely peaceful. But bureaucrats responsible for promoting integration have chided objectors for failing to embrace “cultural diversity,” while self-described “anti-racist” activists have staged noisy countermarches through Heinersdorf. Mosque opponents — who include teachers and tradesmen, pensioners and young professionals — are angered by the charges of bigotry.
“Ideas of suppressing women and hatred for democratic values will soon be disseminated in the heart of our community,” said Roland Henning, a musician who lives half a block from the planned mosque. “And those of us who ask, ‘Why?’ are the ones being called intolerant and xenophobic. Europe isn’t just surrendering its culture. It’s surrendering any sense of logic.“
Words many of us have been waiting a long time to hear.
The controversy over the mosque is in some ways purely local, involving arcane zoning issues.
But the fight also highlights a new willingness to confront Muslims emerging not only in Germany but across the continent. Spain and Italy have been the scene of similar attempts to block mosques. Mistrust of Islam, once the provenance of cranks, is becoming mainstream.
Note that this article appears in the Boston Globe, which as a newspaper whose coverage of the controversial Boston Mosque has mostly sided with the building of a large mosque and community center in Roxbury. Nary a mention here of the issue at home.
Even such strongholds of tolerance as the Netherlands and Sweden are seeking to ban some contentious Muslim garb, such as veils and scarves, in public schools and government buildings.
For decades, Europe largely ignored its fast-growing Islamic population. No one knows the precise numbers of Muslims of Middle Eastern, African, and Asian descent living in Western Europe, but some estimates put the figure at 20 million, including at least 3.2 million in Germany and about 6 million in France.
Aside from a few right-wing groups railing against the influx, however, Europeans have for decades proudly hoisted the banner of multiculturalism, even as fundamentalism spread in Muslim communities and Islamic zealots preached against core democratic values.
“Europeans have used tolerance as the excuse for not confronting intolerance,” said Bassam Tibi, a German political scientist who is a Muslim of Syrian heritage. “Europeans have stopped defending the values of their own civilization.”
But a series of events is causing a shift in sentiment among many Europeans.
Europeans were stunned by the Sept. 11 , 2001, attacks in the United States and the deadly bombings of public transit systems in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005 , respectively .
In some ways, however, they seemed more rattled by the bloody protests that exploded last year after a Danish newspaper published political cartoons that mocked the Prophet Mohammed. The cartoons, while offensive, fell within the bounds of commentary protected by free speech in the West. For Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered blasphemous.
European politicians and ordinary citizens in recent months have seemed willing to forgo political correctness in favor of a more hard-knuckled stance toward some Muslim practices and attitudes. “The time of cozy tea-drinking” with Muslim groups has passed, Rita Verdonk , the conservative Netherlands immigration minister, said in October.
Jack Straw, a prominent leader of the British Parliament, garnered international headlines last fall when he said he did not believe Muslim women should wear full-faced veils, calling such coverings “a visible statement of separation and difference.”
When Pope Benedict XVI made an address in September that criticized Islamic concepts of holy war as “evil and inhuman,” he was denounced across the Muslim world. But Europeans, generally, applauded the pontiff’s forceful words — or at least defended his right to utter them. Last month, Germany’s prestigious Tuebingen University honored his remarks with its “Speech of the Year” award.
At least eight of Germany’s 16 states, meanwhile, have forbidden female teachers from wearing headscarves in public schools, arguing that the attire imparts ideas of submission to girls.
In some ways, the dispute over the mosque in East Berlin is a similar sign of the new confrontational mood in Europe.
Opposition to the mosque comes not just from ultra-rightists, but from apolitical residents who see no reason why they should welcome a Muslim sect that preaches subservience of women and the supremacy of religious law.
Of the 6,500 registered voters in the Heinersdorf neighborhood, 6,000 have signed a petition opposing construction of the mosque, according to German media reports. That’s a surprising percentage even in Eastern Germany, where mistrust of outsiders is more pronounced than in the west, reflecting old communist paranoia.
Residents seem genuinely disturbed by the notion of embracing a religious congregation whose leaders vociferously oppose, for example, such ordinary aspects of German life as allowing girls to participate in school sports or field trips. They also dislike Muslim preaching against infidels.
“Why should we be giving welcome to a group that hates German values and considers Christianity to be its enemy?” asked Joachim Swietlik, spokesman for the group opposed to the mosque. “Our concern isn’t based on their skin color or their countries [of origin]. It’s based on their contempt for the ideals of our liberal-democratic society.”
The Ahmadiyya sect, although deeply conservative in social customs and theology, rejects holy war and other violence espoused by radical Islamists. Born in South Asia, it claims 30,000 members across Germany.
“We come in peace and hopes of acceptance,” said Tariq, the iman who will live at the mosque and hold prayer services five times each day. “I don’t think this conflict is really about our mosque. It’s about fear of Muslims.
“Germans, like so many Europeans, associate Islam with terrorism,” he said. “It will be decades, even generations, before we overcome such attitudes.”
I’m not sure why the Globe gave the last word to imam Tariq. Either he is a pure demopath — as if Europeans have no reason to fear Islam, and as if decades, even generations of Islam’s spread won’t contribute still further to the fear of Islam — or he is a naif of fairly astounding proportions. In either case, this comment begs for rebuttal from someone defending what the Globe itself thinks of itself as defending — progressive values. But I guess we can’t expect everything all at once. In any case, this is good news. Signs of awakening, and not too late.
Question: If Europeans begin to fight back, as these Germans have, with the weapons of civil society — peaceful protest, petitions, legal maneuvers — how will European Muslims, who until now had an unimpeded road of expansion before them, respond?
Chaim Shmuel left a long and challenging note in response to my post on the impact of the media on European Muslims. I got a similar complaint in a private email from one of my research assistants. It raises important questions and seems worthy of a separate post in response. (CS in blockquotes)
Comment:
the article by John Rosenthal is very, very interesting. however, i have a bone to pick with you. This seems to be your underlying motif, the core of every post you have at this site: “the only way the Arab world will ever achieve some semblance of democracy is in learning from the Israelis. But that would mean, of course, swallowing pride and learning some modesty”.
Actually, I never stated it quite as boldly as I did in this post, so I’m not sure it’s my underlying motif of every post, but I’ll own it nonetheless, even if I end up changing or clarifying substantially by the end of this discussion.
But what is the distinction that you always draw? ‘We’ bend over backwards for peace, for restraint, for international approval, while ‘they’ ruthlessly pursue jihad, manipulating us in the process. Therefore, ‘we’ are commendable, and ‘they’, despicable. But Israel, and more broadly, the Jews, always fail precisely when behave this way. They appear ridiculous and contemptible, and rightly so.
(more…)
This is the final installment of my response to Jostein Gaarder. I do hope he responds. For the full text, see here.
We do not recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the ruins of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert Schweitzer expressed it: “Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.”
The quote from Schweitzer seems like it needs a bit more context and detail, but if I can extract the meaning you wish to give it, it apparently means that humanism is treating human life as so sacred that one would never willingly sacrifice (another’s) life in order to achieve an instrumental goal. If this is the meaning, then few cultures on the planet can compete with Israel for its dedication to life, even another’s life.
But by the same token, there is no culture right now in the world more harshly non-humanist by Schweitzer’s definition than the Arab-Muslim world, where not only killing others is one of the first resorts for solving disputes, but now they even teach their own children to kill others for the sake of the “cause.” This is a cult of death.
So viewed impartially, this statement of principle in which “anti-humanist” states do not deserve recognition means two things:
1) all Arab states are illegitimate (not to mention Sri Lanka, North Korea, most Muslim nations, many African ones…)
2) if we want to hold up to these states an example of humanism despite the highly anti-humanist trend in the surrounding cultures, that would be Israel.
And yet, as obvious as these things might seem to me, they seem not just foreign but unthinkable to you. What is happening here?
It’s reminds me of the paradox of European thinking about the death penalty as a measure of humanistic achievement. The USA is inferior to Europe because they still have such an archaic and blood-vengeful practice. Europeans like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who go to the US and get involved in executing people by law should lose their citizenship. But when Europeans turn to the Middle East, they revile the only country that, with the exception of Adolf Eichmann, has never imposed the death penalty and they glorify cultures in which we find men killing daughters and sisters, executing accused collaborators in the streets, murdering rivals and enemies. How inconsistent can you get before you notice the problem?
Compassion and forgiveness
We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.
Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first Zionist terrorists were operating.
Now the supersessionism imbedded in the discussion comes out of the closet into full light of day. Apparently, Mr. Gaarder, you are still fighting shadow debates between Christian supersessionism and (projections of) Jewish beliefs designed to make the Christians feel superior. Are you aware, for example that as early as biblical times, the tradition held that David could not build the temple because his hands were bloodied by wars which were perhaps necessary, but not holy? Are you aware how pervasive the language of peace in Judaism and in Zionism? Do you care?
Typically your supersessionism works in zero-sum terms (”our inner kingdom is good and true, your external one is crude and wrong”), and typically it completely misunderstands what Judaism was about back then and what Zionism is about today. Where is your sense of history? Jesus may have humanized the rhetoric of war, but over centuries and millennia, Christians militarized the rhetoric of peace, and spilled much blood, especially Jewish blood in the process. You present Jesus’ teachings as if Christians caught on right away and Jews turned a deaf ear. Actually the more the Christians accused the Jews of being crude, belligerent distorters of God’s message of love, the more they did just that, with their Crusades, inquisitorial courts and pogroms. Are you not even a tiny bit afraid you might be doing the same thing again?
Israel does not listen
For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first of all — then Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi said: “And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we accept the deportation of whole populations or the abduction of legally elected parliamentarians and government ministers.
Now it’s impatient supersessionism!
“We’ve been trying to beat (our) sense into you Jews for 2000 years and you still won’t listen! Can you be surprised that we hate you?”
And that vaunted Christian unconditional love and forgiveness…?
Never mind that the story of the Samaritan represents a typically Jewish self-critical tale – Jesus tells his disciples that “we” Jews have neglected poor people in need, and this Samaritan’s kindness is a reproach to us Jews (or as they say in Yiddish, “a shanda lagoyim,” a shame before the gentiles). Never mind that such self-criticism plays a negligeable role (so far) in the Palestinian culture with which you try to make the link. (Imagine, if you will, a Palestinian saying, “you know, we talk about how bad the Israelis are, how about us?”) There may well be Palestinian good Samaritans. I even remember a story about a man who returned two lost Israeli kids. But when other Palestinians murder young hikers brutally in caves or tear Israelis apart in the streets of Palestinian cities before howling mobs, it seems a bit more than strange to frame one’s condemnation of Israel with praise of Palestinians.
Such, apparently, is the workings of supersessionism. The logic does not count; the zero-sum, I-am-right-you-are-wrong resolution counts.
We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It is the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with God’s assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians have so many other countries, certain Israeli politicians have argued; we have only one.
This is an especially nice formula that reveals the degree to which your analysis completely ignores the behavior and attitude of the Arab world. Between 1948-67, it was the Arabs (and Muslims) who refused to recognize the “internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948,” and that refusal produced the war of 1967, preceded as it was by a month of Arabs dancing in the streets of Cairo, Damascus, Amann, and Bagdad chanting “drive them into the sea.”
The vision here articulates the Post-Colonial Paradigm (PCP2) in which Israel plays the role of the ruthless expansionist aggressor that figures so prominently in Arab and Muslim conspiracy theory. Most Arabs believe that the two blue stripes of the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates, and signal Israeli imperial ambitions to establish dominion over the whole Arab world. Okay, Arabs who live in closed societies that brainwash them believe this think it’s true… but educated, intelligent Europeans with access to multiple sources?
The USA or the world?
Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: “May God continue to bless America.” A little child took note of that. She turned to her mother, saying: “Why does the President always end his speeches with ‘God bless America’? Why not, ‘God bless the world’?”
Aside from the fact that this is taken from a fairly cheesy American movie, few people in the world have as much desire for world peace than the Jews, and few as generous a view of the outside world than the Americans (who devised the Marshall Plan, an unprecedented act of generosity towards defeated enemies). Any school in Israel is filled with pictures and poems about world peace. Indeed, the very notion of Jewish chosenness — “through you all of the families of the world will be blessed” – is precisely about what you seem to think is a high moral plane — a dream about a time when everyone lives in peace. Not to get repetitive but… find me the anti-Zionist Muslim who believes he is Allah’s “chosen” who also wants to bless all mankind (unless his notion of blessing is making everyone a Muslim).
Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of the heart: “Why doth Humanity so slowly progress?” It was he that wrote so beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the notion of God’s chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a Muhammedan.
Sorry to be dense, but I don’t know to whom you refer. In the meantime, let me offer one small answer to his question about why mankind progresses so slowly. It’s partly because people pretend to achieve moral heights that they are not ready for, so when they inevitably fail, things can actually regress. For example Christianity began with the highest of moral demands (forgive seven times seventy, love your enemy) and developed some of the lowest moral standards (culture of hatred, scapegoating and inquisition, holy wars against both infidels and “heretics”). Similar (and more rapid) regression among Muslims who, in the life of the prophet, turned from warning people of God’s coming punishment, to inflicting God’s punishment with their own swords.
And behind these excessive claims to spiritual evolution and their regressions, lies the problem of spiritual envy. When people covet the sacred texts of others and try to seal their theft by annulling any claim of the original culture to its own sacred scriptures, one gets exegetical arrogance among the interlopers who claim to supersede. When people pretend to moral heights they have not achieved, and harshly condemn others not for what they have done, but in order to feel better about themselves, then they confound the moral progress of everyone, rewarding the undeserving and humiliating those who deserve recognition. That’s not a formula for moral evolution.
It is very difficult to overcome the desire to dominate, what Augustine called libido dominandi. It takes both trusting and being trustworthy, both generosity of heart and modesty. And when we fail, the warmongers and the oppressors win.
Much as you think you and your culture embody the best traits, your cruel judgments towards Jews and foolish credulity towards cruel Muslims does not speak well for your actual moral status, and they bode ill for the poor humanity, whose halting steps forward are constantly dogged by fools and tricksters. I know you think it’s because of Jewish stiff-neckedness that things go slowly, but if you had just a bit more modesty, you might begin to see that possibly their stiff-neckedness is a quiet reproach to you that you should seriously meditate on, rather than a sign of their obduracy and your moral perfection.
Calm and mercy
We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population have to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say: May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a crime without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless people.
Do you really think this will absolve you of the forces you unleash with your doomsday prophecy? When in history have Arabs been kind to refugees? And specifically to dhimmi who have revolted (like the Armenians in 1915)? Do you realize that, at best, you have recreated Augustine’s role for the Jew — stateless, homeless, barely protected in degradation? And at worst, you have served the forces of massacre and genocide. Don’t you want to get out of the Middle Ages?
Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells, vulnerable like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, defenseless like women and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra, and Chatilla. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!
In a short but profound book on Envy and the Greeks, Peter Walcott wrote that people who envy like to condescend, to show mercy and generosity to those who are far beneath them, but they hate and cannot abide people who are their competitors. Your extraordinary solution – let the Jews be defenseless and we will protect them with our prayers and give them milk and honey – literally recreates the conditions of envy he describes. Turn the only first rate economy in the Middle East, one flowing with milk and honey on its own, into a 23rd Arab Muslim state with another wretched economy deriving from an authoritarian (medieval) culture of impoverishment, and then put everyone on the dole. Does that n