Is Islam Growing More Militant?
Mark Steyn argues yes, sort of. Mostly he's concerned with Britain's wussy, censorious refusal to allow the Dutch parliamentarian/documentarian Geert Wilders to show his film about Islamic radicalism, "Fitna," in the U.K. Well, we can agree on this: the west should, under no circumstances, allow its freedom of speech to compromised by threats from the Muslim world.
And we can agree that Pakistan's government is losing--worse, it's conceding--the battle against radical Islamists in its northwest frontier regions...although that phenomenon is more attributable to the Pakistani military's anti-Indian strategy, and the Islamabad government's failure to provide basic services like a judicial system than it is to the philosophical appeal of the jihadis.
But here is where Steyn really goes off the rails:
Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the global population to just over 20 percent, while the Muslim world increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. And in 2030, it won't even be possible to re-take that survey, because by that point half the "developed world" will itself be Muslim: in Bradford as in London, Amsterdam, Brussels and almost every other western European city from Malmo to Marseilles the principal population growth comes from Islam.
Along with the demographic growth has come radicalization: It's not just that there are more Muslims, but that, within that growing population, moderate Islam is on the decline – in Singapore, in the Balkans, in northern England – and radicalized, Arabized, Wahhabized Islam is on the rise. So we have degrees of accommodation: surrender in Islamabad, appeasement in London, acceptance in Toronto and Buffalo.
This is not only crude religious bigotry, it also ignores recent indications that the jihadi tide is ebbing. The most exciting and hopeful example is in Iraq, where Sunnis thoroughly rejected Al-Qaeda style extremism, first via the Awakening Movement and more recently in elections (where secular parties made major gains). The more moderate Muslims are surging in strength in Indonesia--the world's largest Muslim country--and in India, where the jihadi extremism of the Mumbai Attacks has been vehemently, publicly, rejected by the local Muslim population. It's even possible that Iran will reject Ahmadinejad's extremism and replace him with a more moderate president in elections this June.
Pakistan is a real problem, demanding a real response before the jihadis get any closer to Islamabad. There are other fruitless but compelling manifestations of Islamic extremism in the world--Hamas, Hizballah. And there are places, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where Muslim Brotherhood groups are strengthened by the brutal autocracy of the dominant governments. But make no mistake: wherever they've been given the free choice, Muslims have rejected extremism more often than not in the past few years. Which is excellent news, indeed.
Update: Mark Steyn has responded to this post...by not responding to this post, but to a commenter, Park Dirks, who--appropriately--called Steyn a lazy thinker. Which, of course, is the nicest way to put it. Steyn cites that transcendent authority, the former Malaysian leader Mohatir Mohammed, as his source on Muslim backwardness. QED, I'm sure. Unquestionably, the Muslims have had a dreadful century or three. The past hundred years have been particularly awful. But I'm not so sure I'd go much farther back than the Enlightenment for evidence of relative depravity--especially when comparing Islam with Christianity. Spain, for example, traded down in civilization and tolerance when the Muslims were kicked out. As a Jew, I'm pretty sure I would have fared better in the Ottoman than the Holy Roman Empire. And I'm not sure I'd vouch for the civility of the British and Russians who played their Great Game in Central Asia over that of the local tribes they invaded and butchered.
Steyn is a certain editorial sort--the broadbrush mockingbird, a cynical satirist with not much interest in nuance or fact, an indirect descendent of H.L. Mencken. (Matt Taibi walks the same stony path from a different ideological direction.) This can provide a certain puerile entertainment. Mencken was no less intolerant of the American South than Steyn is of Muslims (read The Sahara of the Beaux Arts, if you haven't). But the mockery is laced with an absence of humanity that seems harsher when times turn tough: Mencken's work in the 1930s grew increasingly foolish and boring. And this sort of bitter satire is no fun at all when lives are at stake.
In Steyn's case, a fierce insistence on the obvious comes equipped with a hung-over neocolonialist sensibility. I'm actually reading Churchill's Malakand Field Force right now, which Steyn cites in his column...and I'm torn between curiosity and horror. Churchill was a fabulous stylist, but very much a man of his time--that is, a stone racist. He remained, to the end of his life, an unapologetic imperialist. You wonder what on earth the Brits were doing prancing about the Himalayan foothills, which had little possibility of economic exploitation, other than playing polo and slaughtering tribesmen. Indeed, we are paying the price for the British foolishness in the subcontinent to this day. Ask yourself why the Durand line, which divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, was drawn right down the middle of the Pashtun territorities? My guess is that if the Brits were a little more respectful of the locals, and drew lines that adhered to proper boundaries, the Pashtu wouldn't be so interested in rebellion--or such easy prey for those, like Al Qaeda, who facilitate such.
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At least our Brit cousins are being consistent in their wussy, censorious stands of late. They've also banned the Phelps Phamily Circus, the shame of Topeka, from bringing their congenital homophobic lunacy into Britain. Phred and Shirley and their zombie clan are foaming and fuming, evidently unaware their message is fast becoming "God hates humanity."
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Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the global population to just over 20 percent, while the Muslim world increased from 15 percent to 20 percent.
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Constructing a dichotomy bnetween "Developed" and "Muslim"?
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The language cop in me, needless to say, not only finds that offensive but utterly lazy as well.
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I'm reminded of a book I found among family heirlooms. It is a "Rand-McNally Geography textbook (Kansas edition) dated 1903. In it, there's a chapter describing the various "races of man" sorting them by their degree of "development." (It ranked the "Chinese" at the bottom due to their lack of a phonetic alphabet.) To my post-60's ear I found the language expressed astounding and was amazed that this was being taught to children in my Grandfather's lifetime. Little did I know that such thinking had not been rendered untenebale but had merely fallen breifly out of fashion. -
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Why do some men throw around the word"wussy" and use Gandhi as a pejorative? I have a guess.
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I hadn't heard that about the Phelps family. That's pretty great.
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[...] Publié dans Blogroll by hadyba le février 21st, 2009 et idéologie. « Sur [...]
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Again this is why I always search for the truth independently. Funny thing about this story, it assumes that the movie wasn't shown. At least thats what this line sounds like to me.
.Mostly he's concerned with Britain's wussy, censorious refusal to allow the Dutch parliamentarian/documentarian Geert Wilders to show his film about Islamic radicalism, "Fitna," in the U.K.
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There is only one problem. It WAS shown, at least at the very gathering that Steyn is complaining about.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7885918.stm
.The Lords screening went ahead as planned, despite Mr Wilder's non-attendance.
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BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said about 30 people had been at the screening and had given a round of applause, while calling for a debate on the issues raised..
Of course any time some lightweight journo who has probably lost every fight he engaged in and whose views on the world change with the prevailing political winds calls someone else "wussy" it always makes me chuckle a bit. Now you can read the whole BBC account to see why this man was denied entry into the country, mostly its because he is up on charges for inciting hate in a Dutch court. This is not in any the way shape or form abnormal, as people like Snoop, Martha Stewart, and Louis Farrakhan have all been denied entry also. Besides that, I doubt Geert Wilders is the type any of us would be leading a protest for so he could get into the UK. Now to say we don't censor in this country is to forget the sh*t storm a damn nipple at the Superbowl caused a couple years back. But I guess for some using macho words like "wussy" really makes them feel like a man lol.
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Now don't anybody hold Joe Klein accountable for this discrepancy. Remember, he doesn't think fact checking blog posts is a good use of his time. lol
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I can't wait for another snide strawman response that doesn't address why he was wrong about the UK censoring Wilders. -
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By the way, I thought many of you might like to read the account from Congress members Ellison and Baird about what they saw when they went into the Gaza Strip on Thursday. For once there wasn't any sugar coating.
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http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/wa03_baird/morenews1/GazaTrip.shtml
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“If this had happened in our own country, there would be national outrage and an appeal for urgent assistance. We are glad that the Obama administration acted quickly to send much needed funding for this effort but the arbitrary and unreasonable Israeli limitations on food and repair essentials is unacceptable and indefensible. People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in” said Baird and Ellison.
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Now lets be reminded that Congressman Ellison is a Muslim who knows full well that because of saying what he actually saw there will be a rush to charge him with anti semitism. Especially considering some of the rhetoric that has been thrown his way since taking office. However he still chose to call it like he saw it, politics be damned. Now thats what you call REAL courage. And him I could tolerate calling someone a wuss. -
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If anyone's interested, Mark Steyn has just responded to this post, weirdly going after Paul Dirks instead of Joe Klein. I haven't looked up the context of the quote he cites, but I have a strange feeling he's taking it out of context.
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oh, in case it wasn't clear, by 'he' I meant Mark Steyn. He's a bigot.
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Go Paul Dirks!
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Thanks for the Steyn link. That's a little... weird.
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And I didn't know that there are no Muslims in the developed world. I guess all my Muslims friends in developed countries are either illegal immigrants or lying about their faith. And even the President is a Mus- Oh, sorry I mixed up those two different types of bigoted paranoia.
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Also... the Gulf states. Can we really saw they're undeveloped? -
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Of the 46 Muslim majority nations in the world, only three were free.
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Well to be fair it doesn't help that many Muslim countries either have, or neighbor countries that have, massive oil resources. That hasn't always worked well for their political development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat -
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Oh sh*t FRESH MEAT
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Somebody better tell resident dumb ass Mark Steyn that Swamplanders not only stick together but we ALSO go to source links. Let's provide some context to the quote from Mahathir bin Mohammad who is the former prime minister of Malaysia.
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Here is what he went on to say in the article Steyn quotes and appropriately it pretty much addresses Steyn and other ass holes just like him.
.In addition to poverty, ignorance and instability have become such common features in the Muslim world that its detractors assume these afflictions are the natural consequences of following the teachings of Islam, Mahathir said.
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Yet it is a historical fact that Muslims were at one time the world's most advanced people in all fields of human endeavour. When European Christians were wallowing in the Dark Ages and Jews were wandering rootless all over the world, Muslims were the biggest traders, producers of goods, strategists, navigators and defenders of their faith, he said.
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Christians and Jews lived freely under the success of the Muslims; many people embraced Islam so that much of the world became Muslim, he said.Muslims were respected and no one dared to to desecrate the Qur'an or insult the Prophet and his teachings..
Now understand this is from the VERY SAME ARTICLE that Steyn uses for his justification. Now I wonder if he agrees with the rest of Mohammed's statements or does he instead just give weight to the parts of the story that HE wants to pervert. Well Mr. Steyn, your turn. Try to squirm your slimy ass out of this one. Are you agreeing that the world was at one time Muslim and that Christians and Jews didn't have a clue and we all were much inferior to the Muslims? Buehler?
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And remember, don't start nothing, won't BE nothing. Punk. -
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Congratulations to Paul Dirks who shot and scored. Me thinks Mark Steyn doth protest too much. You hit a nerve PD.
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Yeah, and speaking of Freedom House rankings, Mark Steyn might recall this report (summarized here) from Freedom House last year about freedom under Bush.
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PD, another thought-William Buckley would have given you one of those raised eyebrow smug smiles he did so well.
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sg, in my haste to congratulate PD, I overlooked your fine contribution. The discussion could go on to include the advance of wahabism. Thanks.
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"Why do some men throw around the word"wussy" and use Gandhi as a pejorative? I have a guess."
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I was taking Klein to task for just that thing a couple days ago. Klein still lives in a Reagan world where men are men and women are liberals and war is always the answer and always, regretfully, the only serious course of action. As far as censorship goes, we censor plenty in this country, namely the corporate owned media's censorious refusal to allow any viewpoints that do not further the corporate agenda or that threaten the interests of corporate America. So enough w/ the self righteousness already Mr. ke'Line.
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Someone posted here that now that this America isn't THEIR America anymore, the wingnuts really seem to hate it. I think this Steyn reaction, and the reaction of Glen BBeck is something we'll see more and more from white heartland America as they see hegemony slip away. They're scared. Maybe they feel a little guilty? -
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PD and SG, get some!!!
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Joe, maybe you should ignore NRO and Commentary.
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Wilders published his political manifesto in March 2005. Some of its key points included:
Banning Islamic headwear in public functions,
Ending all admittance of asylum seekers,
Creating a maximum limit of 5000 political refugees,
Creating a 5 year moratorium on bride taking from foreign countries,
Cutting taxes dramatically,
Decreasing the number of civil servants by half,
Stopping enlargement of the EU,
Changing prisoner laws to house 5 in one cell,
Building feeding camps and discipline schools,
Expanding the police while using the army within public zones,
Deporting criminals with a dual nationality,
Banning Islamic schools,
Test school children about the Dutch national identity,
Reorganizing the provinces and government system,
Closing the Dutch Senate,
Limiting public television to a single channelYes, I can see why Joe Klein finds him so compatible. What a perfect match of bigoted minds. Tell me, Joe, when do you plan to sign up for the feeding camp? Or will it be the discipline school for you?
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I'm not sure I'd vouch for the civility of the British and Russians who played their Great Game in Central
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This is a really good point. I think we're still paying for the damage caused by British imperialism and arbitrarily drawn maps.
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But don't forget the United States has played much the same game, albeit usually in a quasi-covert fashion. Who funded the mujahadeen, later to become Taliban? Who held hands with the Saudi royal family? Who staged the coup against Mossadeq and installed the Shah? -
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"Who funded the mujahadeen, later to become Taliban? Who held hands with the Saudi royal family? Who staged the coup against Mossadeq and installed the Shah?"
Well, Joe Klein, obviously!
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" ".. radicalization: It's not just that there
are more Muslims, but that, within that growing
population, moderate Islam is on the decline ..."..a real problem, demanding a real response before the jihadis get any closer to Islamabad."
Somehow, JK doesn't often use words like "moderate christians" or "radicalization" when referring to the likes of KKK and Aryan Nation.
Is the creeping presence of the various supremacist, Palestinian-hating, radical, ultra-orthodox jewish groups in Israel (call them the "the extremist judaists, since we are into name calling) a concern to you and the USA administration?
"jihadis"?
JK, you may be a crusading extremist..
Day 34 - - Without a declaration from the president that the radical extreme judeo-christianist KKK and "Aryan Nation" of "hateful ideologies" are TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS - to be dealt with as such.
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"a cynical satirist with not much interest in nuance or fact"
In other words, Jokeline himself! What sort of cretin asks meaningless, sensational questions like "Is Islam getting more militant"? Haven't you learned anything from the Bush fiasco? You don't remember the distinction between Sunni and Shia? You don't realize that Wahhabi and Salafi intepretations of Islam (both Sunni) are not the majority at this point? You can't be bothered to ask whether it would make sense to ask "Is Christianity growing more militant"? Can't you see any difference between Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, the Wassila Assembly of God? Your lazy, arrogant and fact-free reporting is one of the reasons why people followed Bush to war, and why we continue to be in this mess.
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