At the risk of being seen as a Times Online Groupie, I find myself wanting to comment (and draw attention) to yet another excellent post there. In an excellent article titled “The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam,” Simon Jenkins examines some of the myths and stupid arguments being thrown around in international relations today.

In a nutshell, Mr Jenkins takes the current ideas about “Islam” being out to destroy the West to task and exposes some of the nonsense being thrown around the corridors of power (and regurgitated by people to stupid to know any better, and sadly by people who do know better but are too bad to do better). Mr Jenkins contrasts the recent letter to the Pope by 138 Muslim leaders with correspondence in the 9th century, before the fall of Byzantium. Quite rightly, he points out that this letter is not the ideal peace offering that some try to make it out to be, but in reality is an acceptance of the false war between Christianity and Islam – a war which only really exists in the minds of the insane fundamentalists on both sides trying to bring around the end of the world. For example, Mr Jenkins comments on the implication that if Islam and Christiantity do not stand together there will be war:

Such an implication is grandiose, dangerous and wrong. It implies that the Muslim world has a politico-military power that is in some sense equal and opposite to that of Christianity. This elevates the so-called jihadist tendency within Islam to a status that it does not have and should never think it has. It suggests Islam has sufficient power to confront and possibly undermine the West. It implies a balance of power parallel with a balance of theological interpretation.

Such an implication feeds a no less dangerous paranoia in the West. By stating that the “survival of the world” might turn on a struggle between Islam and Christianity, the letter reinforces the militarist fantasies of neoconservatives who see the world as just such a struggle. It is a paranoia which, since 9/11, has driven the “war on terror” and fomented the tension and antagonism to the West to which the scholars’ letter is so vacuous a response.

It is worrying that the idea there is an Islamic war against the “west” is so prevalent in modern society. People have, through fault or design, conflated the idea that buildings are western civilisation and that “our” society is so fragile the loss of lives and property will see the end of it. It defies any amount of understanding I possess, that people who are so wedded to western society they would happily bomb other nations back into the stone age to defend it are so unaware of what a society is that they will equally dismantle every positive aspect of it at the same time.

Unfortunately this is a collective madness which seems to have overcome the entire western world. The neocons and hawks in various administrations have successfully convinced the public that “Islam” is trying to destroy the west and make our “free, democratic nations” into scared, theocracies with no civil liberties. The real act of evil madness comes in the chosen method with which people defend said “free democracies.” We seem to defend our freedom by removing it. We protect our liberties by sacrificing them.

Madness.

Simon continues:

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation. Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it. The authors of this letter would be better employed vetting their own blood-curdling mullahs and madrasahs than in writing platitudes to the Pope.

Again, spot on. There is no denying the fact that there are evil, hate filled Islamic religious leaders who seek to destroy what they see as decadent western civilisation. The fact is, they can not destroy it. Freedom and democracy are stronger forces than hatred. People may die, but surely the concept and the liberty will live on. If killing people were enough to stifle a democracy, then the United States would still be part of the British Empire. Even if the minority of radical mullahs were able to kill a hundred people each, “western civilisation” would remain unscathed. The ideas born in the French and American revolutions, in the renaissance and in the subsequent years are robust enough to live on. They are attractive enough that people will gravitate towards them – to such an extent that it requires government oppression to prevent this happening.

Sadly, the extremists in the west are supplying that government oppression. Islam can never destroy the west, but the west can.

Simon Jenkins’ article is so well written and (IMHO) correct, I could end up quoting every paragraph here – and I dont want to do that, because I need to save space to savage some of the comments. I will restrain myself to one more quote from the original:

There may be young Muslims and their teachers with a vested interest in talking up such a war. There are those in the West with the same interest, such as the booming armaments and security industries with their think tanks and lobbyists.

Such vested interests need to be exposed as such. To portray Islam as a whole as a concerted threat to western security, and to imply that the West’s democratic institutions and freedoms are not proof against that threat, is absurd and close to treason. Then to demand that western freedoms be dismantled and stored away for the duration of a “war on terror” is to wave the flag of surrender.

This defeatism led the American Congress to allow its president to authorise torture and detention without trial in what Senator Robert Byrd called “the slow unravelling of the people’s liberties”. It enabled a British Home Office to curb free speech and habeas corpus. It arms police, fortifies buildings and impedes the free movement of citizens. It makes every Christian suspicious of every Muslim.

…

When Thomas Paine told America that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again”, he meant by example, not military conquest. His utopianism was a brave, confident and open-hearted one. That of his successors is sinking into the opposite, a fearful, besieged, security-obsessed wimpishness, in which Muslims rightly feel threatened by the arbitrary violence of the American right.

That, to me, sums it up perfectly. Now I can move on to the entertainment and the idiocy which lives in the comments (it is interesting how so many people in New Zealand or Australia feel qualified to pass comment on the effects of recent immigration policies in western Europe. Either they are recent expats which makes it very hypocritical or they are simply feeding off media lies and confusion…). I will begin with this bit of confused nonsense:

You ar wrong Mr Chui.[a previous commenter] Not conservative perversity, but liberal ineptitude of its perception of human rights. People of colour can do no wrong. Its the white man with their skills and their willingness to develop the world that are the monsters. The tragedy of Africa, notably Zimbabwe, is the product of its near non existent morals on human freedoms. Liberalism is so ensconced with its directionless policies on fundamental human rights to the point that it even denies the right of the parent to raise his/her family in the manner she/he deems fit.!! Same applies to religious bodies. The London Tube bombings are the direct result of this so called liberal ineptitude. There is no democracy . They pass laws dictating to me how to run and manage my tiny little country pub in the heart of the British country side. That’s Liberal democracy which we are forced to accept. Bruce B, Sutton, UK

This typifies “middle Englands” attitudes towards human rights – a term often spat out with hatred and the implication that it means the persons rights are being downtrodden. This is, of course, nonsense but it remains a popular idea. Sadly, few people spend more than a moment following their own ideas to their logical conclusions and, as a result, end up with (for example) the idea that a parent’s rights outweigh the rights of anyone else in their family. Bruce obviously has issues with legislation on how he can run his pub so I can only assume he wants to put his staff and customers health and safety at risk.

American readers are always a good source of religious nonsense:

Mr. Jenkins is half correct in a walking backwards sort of way. The threat to the West is twofold, first multiculturalism and run amok secularism has destroyed the nourishing root of Judeo-Christian morality from whence the West draws its strength. So once weakened Islam like an opportunistic infection can bring down this once mighty oak. It is delusional to look at the empty husk of our dying Democracies and think they are anything as robust as they were even 50 years ago. Too many writers like Oriana Fallacia, Robert Spencer and a host of others have been crying for the West to wake up, while men like Mr. Jenkins sing lullabies. Paul T, Phoenix, USA Arizona

It is sad that Paul T has such a poor understanding about what “democracy” means. It has nothing to do with Judeo-Christian morality and it certainly can not be “weakened” by secularism. The only threat to democracy in the west is the rampant violation of civil liberties and the massive growth of a “policed state.” Paul T obviously skipped what ever lessons Americans teach politics, philosophy and social studies in.

Next up is a lesson in logical fallacies. This is a comment which is nothing more than ad hominem attacks and a false appeal to ridicule:

There’s always some nitwit, some appeaser around to say “We’re not really involved in a global conflict.” We had Jimmie Carter to refer to the West’s “inordinate fear of Communism,” and now we have Simon Jenkins to pour his fatuous platitudes all over the Moslem jihad. That proves how cosmopolitan, how broadminded he is — he never takes offense when visiously attacked. I guess there’s no need to worry about Islam. “Jihad” is a peaceful word that just means “struggle” — just like “Mein Kampf.” Larry Eubank, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.

There isn’t any point in me addressing the points made here – because there aren’t any. Larry is simply wrong and poorly educated.

If you have the time, and can stand the idiocy, read the comments on Simon Jenkins’ post. They show how people can be very, very wrong. If you are short on time, just read Simon’s post – it shows how sometimes someone can get it very, very right.