Hilali, to me, is an interesting character because he points up the difficulty of dealing with "moderate" Muslims. I say that as someone who thinks that we ought to be dealing with them -- but you need to be clear-eyed on what the problems are. I will try to explain why I think that Hilali is exactly the kind of Muslim leader we need to win the war.
Here is Hilali stating that radical Islamic preachers should be deported from Australia. This followed 500 British imams declaring that the Koran forbids suicide bombing. Waleed Aly shows up as well, again on the right side.
On the other hand, there's Hilali's remarks as Joe cited below. It's clear he has a view of humanity and the world that is not in agreement with the Western model on key points.
Just as you have to be clear-eyed on the difficulties, though, you should try to see clearly in other matters. In the article linked above, one of the preachers that Hilali said should be deported was Mohammed Omran -- a genuine radical, Omran. Yet in in the AP report on the rape comments, Omran is described as "a supporter of Hilali."
That's not right. The two are, if anything, competitors. Both are speaking to the segment of the Islamic community in Australia that wants to live a life in accord with what they see as god's will -- the ones who want to live as 'true Muslims.' They are competing for influence with that segment.
Hilali is trying to find a way to make that life compatible with Australia, to declare a loyalty to Australia, and to thrust out of Australia Muslim leaders who won't do so. Omran, to put it mildly, isn't.
Hilali isn't our kind of guy. But he isn't the enemy either. If we're going to work with "moderates," well, this is what a moderate looks like. The Muslim leaders who are so "moderate" that they are willing to wink at drinking and women living Western lives are certainly welcome on their own terms -- they are the sort of people we can really like -- but they are not all that helpful in the narrow sphere of trying to win the war. To win the war, we need people who can pull the more fundamentalist Muslim away from violence.
Hilali is the kind of guy who can do that. You don't have to like him. You don't have to like what he says. In fact, you won't. I don't either.
Nevertheless, people like him are exactly the kind of Muslim leaders we need. We need more hardcore Muslims, who nevertheless oppose violence and demand that their flock make peace with the West. Those are the sort who can appeal to the kind of young men who become killers, and show them a way to live according to their beliefs without slaughtering others.
The imams who aren't hardcore don't appeal to the dangerous sort of young Muslim. Hilali can -- he can compete with Mohammed Omran and his ilk. To the degree that he wins that competition, all of us are better off.
I would be a bit leery of considering Hilali as a moderate.
When pressed to resign he said "I will step down when we clear the world of the Whitehouse" or words to that effect. I think his history is littered with words and deeds that could not in any objective sense be construed as those of a moderate. Not to mention imprisonment for smuggling in Egypt. Praise for suicide bombers, seething hatred for Westerners et al, anti Semitic diatribes. All the usual stuff.
Waleed Ali is a young lawyer that seems to have a much better grasp on the media relations angle, but there are some worrisome aspects to his history also. He can usually be counted upon to say the right thing though.
Sadly I do not share your optimisim with regards to these two individuals.
Part of what I'm trying to say is that "moderate" means something different from what we often assume. A "moderate" Muslim doesn't wink at alcohol and women walking around without veils -- that's a liberal Muslim, or even a secular one. If we set ourselves up to where those are the only Muslims we'll deal with, we're going to conceed the claims of the true radicals: that the West is opposed to Islam, as a system for ordering your life.
You may be personally opposed to it; I think it's a false religion myself. But we aren't, as a society, opposed to Islam: rather, we're in favor of people living according to their own conscience. That includes those who wish to order their lives according to Islam, though we personally may disagree.
A moderate Muslim thinks alcohol is evil and women should wear veils. He just doesn't think you should kill fellow citizens in the street over it. He favors the law instead of the bomb. That's good enough for me.
Hilali has no love for America, true enough. But he's not an American. He seems to have some love for Australia, enough that he feels Muslims who want to bring terror to her ought to be thrown out of the country. I think that's what "moderate" really means in the context of Islam. The other view is really wishful thinking. There are Muslims who feel more or less the same way we do about how to live; but they're not moderates, and they won't be convincing to the people we need to sway.
Hi, Grim. Nothing personal, but I disagree with your post as totally as I have ever disagreed with anything posted at Winds of Change.
That Hilali would be willing to have the state do his work for him by expelling a rival does not make him a good guy.
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Grim: "Hilali isn't our kind of guy. But he isn't the enemy either. If we're going to work with "moderates," well, this is what a moderate looks like. The Muslim leaders who are so "moderate" that they are willing to wink at drinking and women living Western lives are certainly welcome on their own terms -- they are the sort of people we can really like -- but they are not all that helpful in the narrow sphere of trying to win the war. To win the war, we need people who can pull the more fundamentalist Muslim away from violence."
Yes, Hilaly is a moderate, and this is exactly what dealing with Muslim moderates looks like.
That is exactly why I am done with the idea of winning this war by promoting the victory of Islamic moderates, and why I propose instead the goal of less Islam.
And whoever calls me a racist or a bigot or anything else for saying so, I will continue to point to the only goal that addresses the root of our troubles, which derive not just from a tiny radical fringe of suicide bombers and similar fanatics but from the main tendencies of Islam and from large congregations like Lakemba.
In talking about "the fire ants of Allah" and so on, it's Hilaly and men like him and his sympathetic listeners that I've had in mind all along.
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Grim: "Hilali is the kind of guy who can do that. You don't have to like him. You don't have to like what he says. In fact, you won't. I don't either."
The whole tendency of Hilaly's thought, his preaching and the Islamic system that he contributes to is to subjugate us, right here in Sydney and throughout the world.
So, fundamentally, and men like Hilaly are nothing if not fundamental, our submission is acceptable, or he is unacceptable.
Submission is unacceptable.
The women he sees as "uncovered meat" are my fellow Australians. Legally, he is too, but morally he is not. He is our enemy, regardless of who else may also be our enemy and how much more radical than he is they may be. This is our country, our land, and nothing would please me more than to see him expelled from it.
If the argument is that he would press forward with our subjugation less violently, for example by empowering pack rapists and standover merchants rather than suicide bombers and the organisers of grandiose terror strikes, my answer is that I require the victory of our culture over its enemy, without regarding a defeat that is less violent than it might have been as an acceptable alternative.
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Grim: "Nevertheless, people like him are exactly the kind of Muslim leaders we need. We need more hardcore Muslims, who nevertheless oppose violence and demand that their flock make peace with the West. Those are the sort who can appeal to the kind of young men who become killers, and show them a way to live according to their beliefs without slaughtering others."
No, we need less of Hilali and everyone who thinks and acts like Hilaly.
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Grim: "The imams who aren't hardcore don't appeal to the dangerous sort of young Muslim. Hilali can -- he can compete with Mohammed Omran and his ilk. To the degree that he wins that competition, all of us are better off."
No, he is better off. We are better off with less of men like him, and less of men like is more violent rivals, and less of the walking raw materials of jihad for which he and they compete, and less of the whole bloody system and the umma too.
Whenever, to beat the radicals, we favor the moderates, we empower them. And that doesn't work out very well for the uncovered meat, or the rest of us either.
I've had it with this. These compromises are counterproductive. Less of the enemy is a rational goal. More of the enemy, provided that it isn't the most violent fraction of the enemy, is a fundamentally wrong goal.
#2 from Grim: "Part of what I'm trying to say is that "moderate" means something different from what we often assume. A "moderate" Muslim doesn't wink at alcohol and women walking around without veils -- that's a liberal Muslim, or even a secular one. If we set ourselves up to where those are the only Muslims we'll deal with, we're going to conceed the claims of the true radicals: that the West is opposed to Islam, as a system for ordering your life."
I agree with all of that.
Except that Islam is our enemy, and we need less of it, but contrary to the self-pitying greivance seekers of Islam, we have not sought lately what we need.
We'd better not be bluffed out of doing so.
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#2 from Grim: "But we aren't, as a society, opposed to Islam: rather, we're in favor of people living according to their own conscience. That includes those who wish to order their lives according to Islam, though we personally may disagree."
So much the worse for us.
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#2 from Grim: "A moderate Muslim thinks alcohol is evil and women should wear veils. He just doesn't think you should kill fellow citizens in the street over it. He favors the law instead of the bomb."
Exactly, yes.
#2 from Grim: "That's good enough for me."
Exactly no. That's not good enough for me.
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#2 from Grim: "Hilali has no love for America, true enough. But he's not an American. He seems to have some love for Australia, enough that he feels Muslims who want to bring terror to her ought to be thrown out of the country."
We discussed something like this before, with the Muslim that Armed Liberal seemed to think was half in love with America because he wanted to go there and enrich himself, or alternately kill an American. I have no use for this kind of love.
#2 from Grim: "I think that's what "moderate" really means in the context of Islam. The other view is really wishful thinking. There are Muslims who feel more or less the same way we do about how to live; but they're not moderates, and they won't be convincing to the people we need to sway."
Again, we agree.
Fairly argued, David, and I certainly take no offense from disagreement -- but where does all that lead you? Deporting not only the radical Muslims, but all Muslims (or all non-liberal ones)? What do you do with your neighbor Indonesia, once you've defined Australia against a sort of Islam notably less fundamentalist than even their "moderate" versions? Nahdlatul Ulama is more fundamentalist than Hilali, and they have forty million members.
What about Malaysia, which controls the waters on which Australia depends for so much of its communication and trade?
What's it worth to have less Islam? It can be done, certainly: Australia can build a larger navy, control the waters, use gunboat diplomacy on her neighbors, etc. She can make deeper alliances with other non-Muslim nations, such as China and America, to keep the majority-Muslim states in line. I suspect Australia sees something like that in its future anyway: acting as a balancing point and go-between for the US and China.
If that's what you want, you're free to advocate it. Do you think, though, that it's worth the cost -- and, indeed, that Australians are willing to pay the cost?
#5 from Grim: on November 2, 2006 3:12 PM
#5 from Grim: "Fairly argued, David, and I certainly take no offense from disagreement -- but where does all that lead you?"
To a grim and dangerous world. Which is not what I wanted, but what events on and since 11 September, 2001 has revealed we must deal with.
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#5 from Grim: Deporting not only the radical Muslims, but all Muslims (or all non-liberal ones)? What do you do with your neighbor Indonesia, once you've defined Australia against a sort of Islam notably less fundamentalist than even their "moderate" versions? Nahdlatul Ulama is more fundamentalist than Hilali, and they have forty million members."
Trust me, it has not escaped me or anyone else's notice that we are a nation of 20 million next to an aggressive Muslim nation of 200 million, with East Timor under Indonesian occupation showing what fate a temptingly weak Christian neighbour next to the Javanese empire can expect. This is the "squirm of fear" on which Paul Keating built his pro-Indonesian "Asian Australia" Big Picture - they're unbeatable (and - the opposite to the Americans, we can't count on their goodwill), so we have to join them. But that policy didn't work.
John Howard's policy now seems fine. It amounts to very little - just as you would expect. A fox terrier doesn't need much of a policy in relation to a lion living nearby, except to avoid trouble with it, and to stay wary.
As for deporting all Muslims - whoah, step back. I find as soon as I point out the difficulty of the situation we are in, people try to foist on me some me some extreme action like nuking all Muslims.
I am trying to proceed steadily: here is the situation we are in and what we are up against; here are our top level goals and so on. (Including less Islam.)
If you have a serious argument that expelling all Muslims from Australia would (a) be possible and if so it would (b) reduce Islam globally, let's hear it, and we can discuss how it might or might not fit into my thinking. If you have no such argument or serious proposal, it has nothing to do with me.
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#5 from Grim: "What about Malaysia, which controls the waters on which Australia depends for so much of its communication and trade?"
That's a potential danger too.
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#5 from Grim: "What's it worth to have less Islam? It can be done, certainly: Australia can build a larger navy, control the waters, use gunboat diplomacy on her neighbors, etc. She can make deeper alliances with other non-Muslim nations, such as China and America, to keep the majority-Muslim states in line. I suspect Australia sees something like that in its future anyway: acting as a balancing point and go-between for the US and China."
You said it. It's John Howard's policy to strengthen the American relationship as much as possible while not alienation China, and we are investing in more intelligence and now quietly aiming at an increase in our armed forces. We have to. We're in a neighborhood that is becoming more, not less dangerous.
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#5 from Grim: "If that's what you want, you're free to advocate it. Do you think, though, that it's worth the cost -- and, indeed, that Australians are willing to pay the cost?"
A long and bad struggle is ahead of us, because Islam is implacable, and moderates and radicals alike have goals that imply our subjugation.
We won't always be willing to pay the cost to resist, and we won't always be unwilling to pay the cost.
The same is true of you, by the way.
I hope we are willing enough, often enough, because this is an existential struggle. If we lose, in the long run: no more us.
The religion of Islam, even fundamentalist Islam, when compared to other fundamentalisms, is just as good or bad as the rest.
However, Islamic criminal laws, when compared to other legal systems, are the most brutal, racist, misogynist and potentially genocidal set of laws on the planet. These laws are brutal when compared to the laws that governed Nazi germany.
There is no reason to 'side with' Muslims, whether they're fundamentalist or not. There is no reason to focus on relgious issues at all.
There is every reason in the world to oppose the brutal oppression that political Islam/Sharia represents. When we approve of these laws, when we enable the supporters of Sharia in the West, we're enabling the growth of a political fascist movement.
This article describes Hilali's mentor, Sayyid Qutb:
It is no coincidence that Qutb's views have more than an echo in the sermons of Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, for whom women are soldiers of Satan armed with "the weapon of seduction". As recently as last week, Hilali, a self-professed admirer of Qutb, described him as a great leader, a symbol of Islam and a model for Muslims.
The main tenets of Qutbism, which was later to feed the minds of the 9/11 terrorists, were outlined in his book Milestones, a call to arms that is to modern-day jihadist-Salafists what Lenin's writings were to the Bolsheviks. It has also been likened to a jihadist version of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf...
...He advocated sharia not just as sacred law but as a complete way of life and advocated violent jihad to remove godless false Muslims and their governments as well as the Western and non-Islamic world from the face of the earth.
Qutb's disgust for the degenerate West does not stop with its women or jazz music, which he claimed was "created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires". He described the West as a "rubbish heap" and claimed that because of its "enmity toward Islam" it planned to "demolish the structure of Muslim society". He claimed the Western world realised "that Western civilisation is unable to present any healthy values for the guidance of mankind" and that Americans blushed with shame at the immorality of their country compared with Islam's "logic, beauty, humanity andhappiness".
Qutb was also a mentor to bin Laden. Qutb's "Mein Kampf" is credited with the expansion of violent, political jihad.
Like the Third Reich, the current fascist movement also has its "non-violent" diplomatic branch. When nonviolent people demand respect for brutal, apartheid laws, it's hard to pretend that they're moderate.
There are comparatively "moderate" sharia advocates, just as there were comparatively moderate Nazis. If we'd allied with moderate Nazis, what would we have won? We certainly wouldn't have won a war.
Mary:
It seems like you're trying to draw a distinction between Islam as a religion and sharia. That's a distinction without a difference. Sharia does not have an existance independent of Islam. The religion defines the law. The law embodies the religion. They are one.
This is the hard thing for westerners to understand. We (generally) believe that religion and law are distinct spheres. That distinction doesn't exist in Islam.
To be fair, the distinction didn't always exist in the west either. We have the 30 Years War to thank for that...
Grim,
If Hilali is what moderate Islam looks like, David Blue is right and we need less Islam, period.
That does not mean deportation of all Muslims. It does mean a steady campaign of secularization, insistence that people within Western societies conform to its secular norms regardless of their private faith, and sharp criticism/vilification of those who (like Hilali) make comments excusing rape et. al. Basically, they need to be treated the way the Left treats Pat Robertson.
Much the same campaign has been waged over the past 80 years with respect to the Christian churches, which have been knocked off of their commanding position in the community and brought largely to heel even in places like Ireland and Quebec. It is a model, and a successful model, however much we may occasionally lament the milqetoast sorta-Christianity it has in some instances produced.
I am no longer interested in truckling to the fascists in the Islamic community by meeting them halfway - and if that means confrontation, so be it. I would much rather have a de-fanged Islam as the insisted-upon norm that does NOT offer its followers an incitement to rape and terrorism. Our societies and public are owed that as a basic minimum.
If some members of the Islamic community then choose to be violent, we can take measures like enacting laws to strip them of citizenship and deport them. If this violence has widespread support in their communities, we can enact laws that sharply restrict immigration from Islamic countries, with exceptions made explicitly for those claiming refugee status from Islamic persecution.
We have many tools at our disposal without groveling before the likes of Hilali - and using them will make it much more likely that Islamic communities will choose to keep such people away from positions of public leadership.
As for the global contest of ideas, what Malaysia, Indonesia, et. al. choose to do domestically is their internal affair. But those who wish to come to the West must conform to western norms. Otherwise they can stay in crap-holes like Jakarta, Peshawar, et. al. and enjoy life there under the heels of their failed civilization. More broadly, let the choice within Islam be our minimum acceptable values vs. theirs - and then if a larger war is required fight it to the finish and no apologies.
I am not interested in sacrificing 2000 years of a remarkable civilization to a bunch of uncivilized barbarians. Treating Hilali as some sort of important ally while he makes such statements does exactly that, and does so by compromising our existence as free men and women in our own socieities.
No way. No more.
It seems like you're trying to draw a distinction between Islam as a religion and sharia. That's a distinction without a difference. Sharia does not have an existance independent of Islam. The religion defines the law. The law embodies the religion. They are one.
Some protestants believe that there should be fewer seperations between church and state. Some protestants belong to political white supremacist groups, but that doesn't mean that all protestants would vote for David Duke.
If those (political) white supremacist groups were funded with billions of dollars in oil money, and if they used that money to influence local preachers, would Duke be a presidential candidate with hopes of winning? It's possible.
Qutbism or Salafism is a political movement that uses religion as a recruitment tool. All Muslims are not Salafists. Some Muslims want to live under sharia civil laws, some don't. All Muslims do not want to live under extremist Sharia criminal laws.
Salafism is similar to Deobandism and Wahhabism, which is why this movement has been so popular in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. A version of Salafism also influences Shi'ite Iran. But it doesn't influence Kurdish (Muslim) Iraq. As far as I know, the majority of Muslims in Indonesia or Australia are not Salafists.
A small group of extremists are using a large amount of money to politically influence a religious population. They're gaining more influence because we're not doing much to stop them.
The source of the problem isn't the religious population, it's the political extremists combined with the oil money. Those should be our targets in this war.
There certainly is no reason to ally with them.
David:
I only asked about deportation because Hilali had mentioned it. I wondered how your position would address the same question.
I wasn't trying to attribute a position to you. I just wondered how you would differ from him here. Do you agree that radicals should be deported? I assume so, because otherwise you're taking a position on radical Islam that is rhetorically stronger but practically weaker than the one Hilali himself advocates. Surely, Hilali's advocacy of the position would give your government rhetorical cover to do so if they felt they needed to do so.
David & Joe:
...which is, of course, the point. I'm hardly suggesting that Muslims be granted a separate law -- nor indeed have they, in Australia. A Muslim who rapes a woman will be treated as harshly by the law as anyone else -- indeed, Omran claims, more harshly than others. I assume that's a play for victim status on his part rather than a truth, but the point is that there is no danger of the spectre raised.
I'm also not advocating 'groveling' before Hilali, or anyone. I assume you realize that.
What I am advocating is a clear-eyed look at the situation, from the perspective of a warfighter. Hilali is useful. By all means make fun of him, as you do Robertson, if you feel so inclined. By all means combat his ideas in the public sphere, if you think it needs doing.
Look, though, at the effect of his actions as well.
I'm sure we'd rather he said, "Jihad should not ever be interpreted as to endorse terrorist acts." There are imams who do say that, but they aren't going to appeal to the people we need to fight. Those people believe (probably correctly) that Islam endorses violence against non-Muslims in at least some cases. They won't believe an interpretation that doesn't allow for it, but they do seem willing to believe one that restricts it to these few distant lands.
Hilali's position (which is also the NU's, as I understand it) is one that sends wannabe jihadists off to the battlegrounds that we ourselves have said we prefer. It's a useful position.
I think what we need to do is divide Islam into three cases:
1) Radicals (those who advocate violence within the West), who must be removed from the West either through arrest or deportation.
2) "Moderates," if you like, such as Hilali. These cases are the border between what is tolerable if unpleasant, and that which is in fact not tolerable. When we encounter them, we should use them as examples to show where the line is. What we shouldn't try to do is silence them, force them to resign, etc. This is for the reasons above: not because we agree or like what they say, but because they are useful in the larger GWOT.
3) Muslims we'd like to encourage, whose views are relatively relaxed and secular, to the degree that they have no problems with or in the West. These should be encouraged, and even funded.
I don't know that this leads to less Islam, but it does lead to a better quality of Islam. It endorses a line that I think we can live with: if we have to fight, let's fight on the flypaper; to the degree that you live here, you have to obey the law and not kill folks. Other than that, you can believe and order your life as you like, provided you understand that we're free to disagree with you.
Because that line is endorsed by people like Hilali and NU, it's one that has a chance of acceptance in the Muslim world. It might be a way of avoiding the civilizational clash that everyone is looking forward to with grim anticipation.
Grim,
This has been a good post and a great discussion. I think I understand your point that so-called "moderates" can be useful for us. It's a reasonable goal but I think that implementing that as a policy has far too much danger - and backfire capacity. It wouldn't take long or require very much confrontation for the "moderates" to move to the "radical" position. Given Hilali's words up to now, I don't think moving him away from a "moderate" position or convincing him that his words are wrong is even possible. I do agree that it appeals to the jihadist mind and that he can control them. He wants to be a big cheese in that world. But if he gets more impressed with himself, I see him flopping into violent advocation.
We might get into details of what Mary is saying versus what SG points out - that Islam and Sharia are tied at the hip. They are both right. Whether it's a political posture or religious belief, violent death follows Islam wherever it seems to go.
I will have to pick Joe's position - I think we have seen enough to know that Islam isn't an experiment - it's a lifestyle that I don't like - or want any part of.
The Pat Robertson analogy is interesting because I would say Pat remains with a sphere of influence that is probably increased by the fact that he is not taken seriously. I think Grim has laid out a convincing case that Hilali is a serious man with at least one repugnant message. I suggest a public debate on two questions:
Are women meat?
Are women at fault for rape?
I think women would find that revealing.
Grim,
You say you don't advocate cutting Hilali et. al. slack, and then you do when your fellow citizens' safety is on the line. Not acceptable.
Sorry, wrong. 180 degrees wrong. I don't give a damn how useful they may be.
What they say is preaching terrorism and rape, and is not acceptable. To preach that women are legitimate targets for rape unless they adopt a medieval and submissive style of dress is no different than preaching that blacks are legitimate targets for having their homes burned down et. al. if they act "uppity."
I have no interest in compromising with the Ku Klux Klan, not even if doing so would be useful in a war. Would you? Yet that is exactly where your stated position leads you.
Forcing people like Hilali to resign and directing the full force of public scorn at them is PRECISELY what we must do if you wish to avoid the proliferation of zones like the French banlieus, where failure to wear the veil is treated as a green light for rape.
That isn't acceptable - and people who preach it are not acceptable. And what starts with criticism will in time escalate to legal measures in a democracy, unless community leaders can be found who can conform to a basic standard of civilized behaviour. Ensuring that conformance through appropriate selection of leaders is the Muslim community's job. Ours as a society is to set that standard clearly and defend it - first with words, and if necessary with laws.
No. Tough luck. Sorry. People who believe this should be made actively unwelcome in Western lands, period, and steps should be taken to remove and otherwise punish people who advocate this. This is not speech, it is incitement to violence - and when that incitement is directed toward groups on the terror orgazinations list or their support arms, the penalties should be criminal/immigration related and severe.
People who believe such things and behave in such ways aren't people we want. Conform to a civilized standard, or get out.
In fact, the logic leads farther if "moderate Muslim" means people like Hilali. Note the immigration and visa patterns from Soviet Bloc countries during the Cold War - unless you were a refugee fleeing communist persecution, there weren't many granted. The same logic applies here. If Islam means the preaching of rape and terror then we need less of it - and should take steps to ensure that, until and unless we see responsible communities who will strictly control such activities on their own.
Right now, that is not in evidence.
Its not clear to me that placing responsibility for rape on women is necessarily the same as promoting rape. In fact, the implication of the quote was that its a bad outcome.
Is Ann Coulter promoting rape here:
I'm not comfortable with what Coulter is saying here, but I do think that on the whole she is talking about a woman's responsibility to herself to avoid risk-taking behavior, while keeping the blame for crimes on the criminal.
I would want to hear or read more than the clip that has circulated.
PD Shaw, reasonable objection. A couple of answers...
There's a difference between wearing normal western clothes and getting in a car with strange men. There's a bigger difference between not wearing a veil and not getting into cars with strange men.
People like Hilali would like to erase the difference, and make them equally unsafe. Not acceptable.
Coulter's comment about public drunkenness is minorly true on one level, and hugely stupid on another. Drunkenness is a risk factor for bad life-altering things (a bigger one for men, mind, but the bad things are different). But her statement... does she actually believe women shouldn't be in bars, or drink at parties?
Perhaps she really meant, "to not get drunk in public and especially not in foreign countries without friends to watch over you." That's intelligent advice for anyone - but that isn't what she said. What she said was stupid, and can legitimately be criticized as an attack on women's equality by trying to restrict women's participation in normal societal behaviours.
This is somewhat similar to Hilali's intent, albeit far less restrictive. But this also brings us to the other key difference between Coulter and Hilali.
I don't recall legions of Coulter fans making rape a prevalent and serious security risk in European cities (...if blonde Scandanavian female Coulter wannabes are doing that sort of thing over there, for the love of God somebody please tell me).
On the other hand, Islamic jurisprudence and culture's permissive approach to rape, including punishment of women for being raped but also including rape as a form of Islamist control (i.e. domestic terrorism), has created very serious public safety problems in a number of countries and ruined many thousands of lives.
When there is an organized religious system legitimating this kind of behaviour, the leaders of that religious system can legitimately be held up to more serious public scrutiny - and even legal consequences if they are seen to contribute to this problem. Deportation of immigrant imams, and loud, sustained pressure for offending imams to resign from positions of authority, strike me as reasonable consequences. It's critical to drive home the severity of society's disapproval in unmistakable terms, and the importance of a safe environment for our daughters, wives, cousins, et. al... and theirs, too.
This is the free West where women matter and are treated as equal persons, not some barbarian medieval backwater. It needs to stay that way - and I do NOT intend to make concessions to or seek alliance with some two bit theocrat who thinks otherwise.
While David Blue and I have had our disagreements (albeit polite ones) on this issue in the past, I agree with him here.
There is a strain (variety, stream, whichever term you prefer) of Islam which A) has values which are incompatible with Western values and B) is unwilling to change them. Hilali is a member of that stream, as most recently -- but not exclusively -- illustrated by his statements blaming women for rape. His non-apology, saying that his words were meant just for those in the mosque, only further reinforces it (along with highlighting the need to get rid of the multi culti nonsense). He may be more moderate than others. He is, however, not moderate enough.
I didn't mean to suggest that Coulter and Hilali are preaching the same gospel. Coulter is talking about personal responsibility in the way you would talk about defensive driving. She refers to rape as a crime and there's nothing to suggest she views the rape victim as the perpetrator of that crime. OTOH, Hilali simply talks about blaming the meat.
My point was that the subject potentially contains a mixture of different issues ranging from personal responsibility, moral culpability and criminal culpability. Where that line is crossed I am not sure. If Hilali crossed that line into advocating rape I would gladly join in calling for his imprisonment or deportation.
One thing that troubles me though is the possibility that Hilali was rationalizing a religious ban. One of the ways that religions moderate their views is by examining the reasons for an edict and slowly accommodating changes to the original edict consistent with the perceived purpose (e.g., veils become modest dress). Muslims have not always been good at this, often expressing the view that Islam is not subject to reason.
Grim, this is an interesting taxonomy:
I think I'd go a step further and label them, 1. Radicals, 2. Conservatives, and 3. Liberals.
The key is to get the conservatives and liberals talking and to validate them at the expense of the Radicals. Because as a liberal myself I note that the social trend has been inexorably liberal over the decades.
I empathize with the alarm over Hilali's views (and share them). However his views arent much different from mainstream attitudes prevalent in the United States as recently as a few decades ago. I think that the evolution towards liberalism is inevitable and is already accelerating due to the presence of Arab media like al-jazeera which is a massively liberalizing force.
A great blog to see the emergence of the Liberals eventual triumph over conservatives is John Burgess' blog, CrossRoads Arabia. And Abu Aardvark is the goto place for the impact of the arab media.
Joe,
I have had the honor of knowing a few Australian women. They have, so far, been ladies after my own heart. If you want to reduce their chances of being raped, their chief enemy isn't Hilali's attitudes. It's their government's attitude -- the one preventing them from carrying handguns for self defense. Give them that, and I think the Muslim rapist community will find them more of a challenge than they'd prefer to attempt.
You mention the KKK. That happens to have been the subject of the very first blog post I ever wrote. I grew up with them -- in Forsyth County, GA, they used to go about without bothering to put up the hoods. There was no shame associated with membership.
My own family's relationship with them was established by my great-great grandfather, who shot seven of them in one night to prevent a lynching. Those days of partisan warfare, which followed the American Civil War, led to a tension that has only in my lifetime appeared to subside. I've seen the Klan go from hoodless, to hooded, to gone.
How did we get rid of them? It wasn't through confrontation over their rhetoric. They are allowed to march, still today, wherever they like. We do in fact do exactly what you say we shouldn't -- we compromise with their rhetoric.
Rather, it was through a combination of physical defense and viral freedom.
Physical defense included what my grandfathers did, and what I remain prepared to do. They may say what they like, but they will harm none. We have the ability, the will, and the tools to prevent it.
Viral freedom? Well, their kids grew up in a culture that rubbed one part to another, until the attitudes of the younger generation just walked away.
In the meanwhile, the KKK likewise provides a useful service. Like Hilali, it gathers the potentially dangerous in one place where they may be surreptitiously watched. If you know anyone in the FBI, ask him about it.
These are methods of control, which allow us to contain and manage hostile people with bad attitudes. We could, I suppose, put an end to the KKK outright -- presumably, though like with Islamic religious attitudes it would be hard to legislate given our constitutional protections.
We'd be fools to put an end to the KKK, though. We're better off having them gather in the places we already know to watch. There's a reason white supremacist terror plots almost never work, and it isn't that they aren't trying.
Some of these people are dangerous. We ought to do what works, not what makes us feel good. It's not the rhetoric that is the real threat, neither to Australian women nor American blacks. Controlling and minimizing the real threat is what this is about.
#11 from Grim: "I only asked about deportation because Hilali had mentioned it. I wondered how your position would address the same question."
My attitude on deportation is purely instrumental and pragmatic. I don't have top level positions chosen to justify a predetermined policy. Rather I think we should experiment with any reasonable approach that may lead to less Islam (domestically and globally, and in terms of ferocity, numbers, legal sway and a variety of other measures); an Australia that is better consolidated (and better populated) internally, and more successful on our own terms; and in the best state of harmony and integration we can get with our permanent natural friends and allies, including and not limited to the United States and the United Kingdom.
I think the first thing to do is announce the proper attitudes, such as: if you want sharia, go elsewhere, Australia is not for you. That seems to have begun. (Jihad preaching, pack rape, riots and serious Muslim terror plots are getting people's attention.) Then put intense, public, sustained pressure on those who don't take the hint. Hilaly has in effect volunteered himself as an example to encourage others not to preach as he does. Next would come exemplary deportations: drag people out of the menacing Muslim mob and toss them out of the country for good. Prove that there is no Muslim lobby capable of granting immunity from the laws and values of Australia. Continue to escalate the pressure till Islam goes into decline in Australia - and keep up the pressure at that level as long as the decline continues, never taking things further than is needed to keep the problem getting smaller rather than getting larger, but also not failing to step up the pressure if Islam starts to win or break even.
It will be worth keeping an eye on what works in other countries, especially America and Britain. If something turns out to work very well or badly, and it looks like it might apply to us, we should learn from that. If we can agree on common informal standards on dealing with this menace, and the standards are real, that is we are standardising on something that really reduces the problem, so much the better.
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#11 from Grim: "I wasn't trying to attribute a position to you."
Fair enough.
#11 from Grim: "I just wondered how you would differ from him here. Do you agree that radicals should be deported? I assume so, because otherwise you're taking a position on radical Islam that is rhetorically stronger but practically weaker than the one Hilali himself advocates. Surely, Hilali's advocacy of the position would give your government rhetorical cover to do so if they felt they needed to do so."
Not really. I don't think we should give Hilaly any credence at all. To use what he says as a warrant for public action gives him an importance and legitimacy we should deny him.
I don't care if my position is rhetorically stronger but practically weaker than the one Hilali himself advocates. I just want us to get the job done from the point of view of Australia and countries that share with us a civilization, a culture and a sense of what life is about.
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A strained analogy: I want the growing tiger cub outside the room, not just his claws. I know he can and will grow new claws, and I regard the whole beast as the threat.
From a certain perspective, a policy to get the whole tiger to move further and further away may be rhetorically stronger but practically weaker than a policy to clip the tiger's claws and send the clippings far away right now. But I don't care about that.
We need to distinguish between government action and personal action. I would strongly oppose a legislated crackdown on Islam - that would violate our (Canadian, in my case) liberal principles. However, liberalism in no way means that we can not, as individuals, disapprove of religious principles which are unacceptable. Speaking out in daily life, letters to the editor condemning people like Hilali, asserting one's free speech rights, boycotts: these tools can and should be used, by us as individuals, to trim the power of Islam in western countries. Politicians can speak out, too: saying that the veil is a sign of aggressive separation is fine, but banning it in public is probably not (unless it falls under existing legislation against disguises).
If you want to reduce their chances of being raped, their chief enemy isn't Hilali's attitudes. It's their government's attitude
So, uncovered women are just meat who are asking for rape. The only problem is they can't shoot the rapist first. Dhimmi logic. Astounding.
Ma'am of #22,
I don't believe advocating armed resistance to oppression is in any way compatible with Dhimmitude. "Let them think what they want, but kill them if they try to hurt you" is hardly a submissive attitude.
#21
I certainly agree that individuals should feel free to advocate as they see fit. That's the Western way. Mr. Blue and I, for example, are only arguing two separate positions. I respect him; I trust he respects me, though neither of us agrees with the other.
When it comes to official action, though, we should consider the matter dispassionately. There is a real war being fought, and we should be careful to use the advantages before us. Throwing away a military or intelligence advantage because we don't like it may be more extravagant than we can afford.
Grim,
Not as expensive as throwing away all moral advantage. Which you do when you decide to treat people like the Skeikh with kid gloves, and hold them immune from the same standards that would apply to a clergyman of any other religion.
I will note that unless one is a southern Democrat, compromise with the KKK's rhetoric was never part of the agenda or strategy. It was directly attacked, often outside its strongholds, by the wider society as a poster-boy example of backwardness and evil. That, plus enforcement of the hostile laws that followed and a political policy that switched from accomodation to confrontation, is what turned them from a force to be reckoned with to gone in about 50 years. Your family's example played a role in that as well - as did the NRA, who consistently supported the right of black people to bear arms and offered them membership and chapters on equal terms. But that wasn't what did the job, in the end.
Allowing women to arm themselves is certainly a fairly direct way, and I'm all for it. But that too only addresses part of the problem.
Many Islamic Imams are immigrants, not natives of the lands in which they preach. I haven't the slightest problem with deporting them if they misbehave, along the lines of the French model or stricter efforts if necessary. This will force the growth of homegrown imams, reducing Arab influence, and if terror legislation is in place to strip citizenship and deport for support of terrorist organizations, it will force the homegrown imams to behave according to civilized norms as well. They start out with a better understanding of what that means, which is a plus, but the motivation also has to be in place.
The result is a cycle that lets us "keep up the pressure at that level as long as the decline continues, never taking things further than is needed to keep the problem getting smaller rather than getting larger, but also not failing to step up the pressure if Islam starts to win or break even."
I'm 100% with David here, and we would be trampling on no principles to do so. Incitement is not a right.
As for monitoring preachers of hate and violence, I have no issue with special dispensation to leave a specific individual in place for the duration of a defined operation. Just as long as it ends with deportation.
His associates can continue to be monitored following his deportation, and they will lead one to the next gathering node. Rinse, lather, repeat, defeat. Leaving preachers of terrorism in place for the short term can make sense, but over the long term it's moronic.
Joe,
"Not as expensive as throwing away all moral advantage. Which you do when you decide to treat people like the Skeikh with kid gloves, and hold them immune from the same standards that would apply to a clergyman of any other religion."
None of us are talking about applying the same standards to Hilali as we would to another sort of clergyman. David is opposing Islam in his society at all; you, though making analogies to Pat Robertson, are advocating deportation. I don't imagine you'd feel it necessary to deport Robertson, idiot though he can be. I myself am advocating a combination of engagement and constant infiltration, which is based on a model of suspicion towards preachers of this sort.
This is, in other words, not the normal case. I think we all agree on that point. Analogies toward the normal case are therefore of limited utility.
I would argue that your moral advantage lies in the nature of your argument, rather than in advancing it aggressively. This is what I meant by "viral freedom" -- the argument is inherently persuasive. Exposure to it sways, over time.
You aren't throwing away that advantage by not deporting Hilali. Rather, you're offered an opportunity to advance it consistently. Just as the KKK man is undercut by the fact that his children turn away from him, so too with the Muslim expatriate. At every point his children are rubbing against a free society. This will tell.
"I will note that unless one is a southern Democrat, compromise with the KKK's rhetoric was never part of the agenda or strategy."
That's not what I said. What I said was that we allow them to spew their rhetoric whenever they wish, so long as the parade permits are in order.
That's a fact. They have a first amendment right; the courts have upheld it. We haven't chosen to suppress their rhetoric with official force. We've beaten them in other ways, as discussed.
"It was directly attacked, often outside its strongholds, by the wider society as a poster-boy example of backwardness and evil."
While true, that had no appreciable effect on the structure of the KKK, which was not dependent on support from outside its strongholds. What broke it was the fact that their children ceased to support the ideology.
As a Southerner myself (and indeed, a Southern Democrat -- not everyone was interested in appeasing the rhetoric), I can tell you that Southerners if anything took pride in the fact that they were scorned outside their "strongholds." Still do, really. You've probably encountered responses that begin with, "Well, I might be a dumb ol' Redneck, but..." and follow on with some folk wisdom. If you're emotionally at odds with the world, the fact that the wider world doesn't agree is proof that you were right in the first place.
"Many Islamic Imams are immigrants, not natives of the lands in which they preach. I haven't the slightest problem with deporting them if they misbehave, along the lines of the French model or stricter efforts if necessary. This will force the growth of homegrown imams, reducing Arab influence, and if terror legislation is in place to strip citizenship and deport for support of terrorist organizations, it will force the homegrown imams to behave according to civilized norms as well."
In this you are in line with Hilali's own stated opinion. The only difference is that you want to expand the laws from "support for terrorism" to "support for Islamic cultural ideas that differ from Western norms." As I said to David at the beginning -- fairly argued. There will be a heavy cost to bear, though, of which you should be aware.
He and I discussed it, and I won't go over it again. It can be done, but it makes the war worse, impels Australia to accept significant sacrifices, and relies upon a positive US/China relationship which is -- to say the least that may be said -- uncertain to develop.
That's a heavy cost to take on just because we don't like what some people think about women. Give Australian women the tools to defend themselves -- I don't doubt they have the will -- and let the old imams think what they like.
Like my great-great grandfather, the ladies will hold the line. For some years I've been saying that the way to win a fourth-generation war is to distribute warfighting capacity across society. We all take up our duty to defend the common peace and the lawful order, and we have little enough to fear.
It seems to me that we are the ones negotiating from a position of strength -- not the French, perhaps, but certainly the Australians or the Americans are. We can say, "The line is here, and you may not cross it and remain." For me, that line is advocacy of terrorism within the West; for you, the line is closer.
That's fine, but it leads to a different kind of war. If advocating the mainstream position among Muslims on cultural points ought to be grounds for deportation, the West is in fact opposed to Islam. It's not just that most of us think Islam is a false religion full of nutcases (which I suppose most of us do at this point). It's that the West itself is not able to coexist with Islam as it is understood -- not by the radicals in the faith -- but the vast majority of Muslims.
That leads to a kind of war I've been hoping to avoid, and not because we can't win it. We can. If it comes to it, I'll be right there helping to win it.
But I have no wish to fight that war.
#2 from Grim: "Hilali has no love for America, true enough. But he's not an American. He seems to have some love for Australia, enough that he feels Muslims who want to bring terror to her ought to be thrown out of the country."
#4 from David Blue: "We discussed something like this before, with the Muslim that Armed Liberal seemed to think was half in love with America because he wanted to go there and enrich himself, or alternately kill an American. I have no use for this kind of love."
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No, on reflection, I don't like that. It's too harsh. Even a tiny bit of love of Australia, even in someone I strongly object to on other grounds, is a good thing and ought not to be dismissed. And I won't dismiss it.
Instead, I'll restate my position on the tragedy of opposing Islam.
- Can we refrain from opposing militant Islam? Given that it is in an existential struggle against us, I don't believe so.
- Can we fight militant Islam without buying a fight with moderate Muslims such as Sheik Hilaly and his large, supportive congregation, who I agree are by far the majority? (Like 80% or even 90%.) No, I don't believe we can. The Muslim world combines far too strongly together against the unbelievers, against the "house of war", for that to be possible.
- Doesn't this point to a tragic conflict? Yes it does, and we have no good choice but to accept it.
The minimum that even moderate Islam angles for when it feels strong and confident enough is more than the maximum we should be willing to grant.
- Support for jihad terror against Israel and Jews is one example: we shouldn't accept that, even though if we don't we alienate moderate Muslims. From the First Fleet on, we don't have in Australia a native tradition that specially licenses violence against Jews, and we shouldn't be willing to grant any tolerance at all to an imported one.
- An alteration in our society such that our women have to hide themselves according to the social dictates of Islam or be deemed to have made themselves "uncovered meat", "Aussie pigs" and fair game for rape is another example...
- and "honor killings" are another...
- and female genital mutilation is another example...
- and penalties for apostasy from Islam are another example...
- and there is never any end to the possible conflicts, where there is a gap of values that cannot - should not - be bridged, and an underlying menace that we should not accept but confront and defeat.
Willingness to achieve the implementation of Muslim values through demographic pressures, tacit menace, and lawful means, when violent jihad is unnecessary of counterproductive, is not a satisfactory compromise position.
The good qualities of Hilaly and his followers are insufficient to make this a fight we don't have to have.
Between Elle's underwear and the Holy Koran, I know which contains more of value and more that breathes the true spirit of Australia.
Between making Australia safe for Scarlett "not promiscuous" Johansson and/or women like her, and making Australia a place men like Sheik Hilaly can accept, there is a gulf. One or the other. Our side is the right one, and it's one of the (many) issues worth fighting over.
I don't care what guys like Sheik Hilaly think our sin is. I'm not willing to compromise, and I'm not kidding. If this is pushed far enough, the bottom line is: respect our women or die.
The Operative: Do you really believe that?
Mal: I do.
The Operative: You willing to die for that belief?
Mal: I am.
[combat ensues] ...
Mal: Of course that ain't exactly, Plan A.
- Serenity (2005)
Just so.
Just to confirm two people I respect in their assumptions about what I am thinking...
#23 from Grim: "I certainly agree that individuals should feel free to advocate as they see fit. That's the Western way. Mr. Blue and I, for example, are only arguing two separate positions. I respect him; I trust he respects me, though neither of us agrees with the other."
Absolutely.
Joe, you understand my position correctly, and the 100% agreement you think exists between us on this issue does in fact exist.
Grim,
I understand what you mean by the moderate Muslim not being likely to turn into an alcoholic lingerie model. This is in no way unacceptable, I know atheists that think the same. The point I would make is that with respects to statements like this:
"Hilali has no love for America, true enough. But he's not an American. He seems to have some love for Australia, enough that he feels Muslims who want to bring terror to her ought to be thrown out of the country."
I am just unable to credit him with the level of trust required to believe it. There is too much history of one thing for the mosque and another for outside. The man is pretty much a petty gangster and his public statements are generally clumsily executed and distinctly fishy. Think the Douglas Woods saga and Hilali's hilarious attempts to be a self appointed international broker on behalf of the Australian government. More self serving clown than anything else.
Waleed Ali on the other hand is charged with mop up operations and spends his time providing the excuses post fact. I feel for him, he no doubt weeps over some of the things he has to spin for. But I don't for a second buy his act. How moderate can you really be in the meaningful sense (I have my core beliefs but live and let live) when you spend your idle hours penning propaganda about the sublime joys of sharia. And how we will all learn to love it once we master the relaxation of the appropriate muscle groups.
I agree with you that Islam has to be handled on its own terms, most people are reasonable and willing to make concessions. It just appears that no meaningful reciprocity is occurring amidst a sea of doublespeak.
#25 from Grim: "Just as the KKK man is undercut by the fact that his children turn away from him, so too with the Muslim expatriate. At every point his children are rubbing against a free society. This will tell.
And if his children don't reject him? If the next generation is more, not less militant than its immigrant predecessor? And if it remains a separate force with growing demographic power? That changes the case radically.
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#25 from Grim: "That's a fact. They have a first amendment right; the courts have upheld it. We haven't chosen to suppress their rhetoric with official force. We've beaten them in other ways, as discussed."
In Australia, in respect of dangerous religions, the case is different.
The Australian referendum, 1988 (Rights and Freedoms) was: A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to extend the right to trial by jury, to extend freedom of religion, and to ensure fair terms for persons whose property is acquired by any government.
Do you approve this proposed alteration?
It was crushed 69% to 31% nationally. (Which at the time I thought was a very bad thing.)
The problem was not with trial by jury or compensation for government takings. Rather, the argument that we might have to act in future to suppress some dangerous cult, and that we had better be sure the constitution would not stand in the way of our doing so, was broadly accepted.
Sheik Hilaly doesn't seem to have drawn any implications from this.
Those of his co-religionists who behind the scenes agree with him but who nevertheless now want him to shut up and get off the stage have correctly understood that they don't want to be the targets of a power that the American people renounced but that Australians have chosen very deliberately to maintain in case of need.
Of course, courts may and very likely will rule that the expressed wished of the Australian people on constitutional referenda are unimportant and what judges consider enlightened is decisive. We have judges as adventurous as yours in that way.
Nevertheless, a seven to three majority points to something big about what Australians consider acceptable if push comes to shove. If that were not so, I think we would be seeing less moderation and more dangerous radicalism than we are. Muslim militancy often expands to fill the space available to it.
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#25 from Grim (taking you a little out of context - feel free to correct me if you don't agree with my putting your words here): "There will be a heavy cost to bear, though, of which you should be aware."
I an aware of it.
#25 from Grim: "It can be done, but it makes the war worse, impels Australia to accept significant sacrifices, and relies upon a positive US/China relationship which is -- to say the least that may be said -- uncertain to develop."
I know it. Even so.
(Except of course that I do not accept that "it makes the war worse". Losing is worse. Accepting the unwanted challenge and maybe winning through is better.)
We'll do our best - we are doing our best - and for the rest we'll have to hope.
Sorry to keep banging away at this - but it's something that touches my home town, it's bothered me for a long time, and I think it's of fundamental importance.
#25 from Grim: "We can say, "The line is here, and you may not cross it and remain." For me, that line is advocacy of terrorism within the West; for you, the line is closer."
Yup.
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#25 from Grim: "That's fine, but it leads to a different kind of war. If advocating the mainstream position among Muslims on cultural points ought to be grounds for deportation, the West is in fact opposed to Islam."
The mainstream position among Muslims has a preferential tolerance of terror against Israel and Jews, and against Americans. You said yourself, Hilaly is no friend of America. And antisemitism is Islamic: it literally is in the Koran. So I think that we are bound to oppose the mainstream position among Muslims on cultural points like the proper treatment of "pigs and monkeys" - that is Jews - and our great ally from World War II (alias "the Great Satan") in any case.
I do not see the clear line between Muslim cultural values and support for terror that some people think they see.
And, there are values contested here that are not only Western but specifically Australian.
One is mateship. This is real. It has implications. We are not, for example, going to sell out the Yids. I see no legitimate room for give and take on the issue. If you're preaching the kind of raging Jew hate that typically leads to the Jews getting it in the neck, you should be subject to deportation. (Even though we know that you and your whole congregation will continue to believe it even if we stop you saying it. The issue is who's boss, and whether you'd better remember who's boss before you start torching synagogues.)
Another value is a reasonable degree of rights for women. After Queen Victoria signed the federation of Australia into being, the 1902 law that defined who could vote was a racist document, but it was also the second in the world after New Zealand to give women the vote and the first to allow them to stand for Parliament. This is a Good Thing. We are and should be proud of that aspect of what we did. In other words, according to our traditions, this ought to be one of the worst countries in the world to try redefining the status of women as "meat" that had better be kept veiled or else.
We are going to have a fight, whether we sidle away from our values and traditions first or not. I think we should fight over things we can be proud of.
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#25 from Grim: "It's that the West itself is not able to coexist with Islam as it is understood -- not by the radicals in the faith -- but the vast majority of Muslims."
I agree with that. And I think it's because they're wrong, not because we are.
Seriously: an Aussie girl in a bikini, enjoying the beach in her own country, safe and free and respected and harming no-one - that is what we must be willing to fight for.
And Muslim thugs - who can't even swim and don't want to learn to but have come to dominate the beach - threatening her with rape, and her boyfriend and any lifesavers present with gang bashings, just because the beach must belong to Muslims and "Skips" are sluts - that is pretty much what we mustn't tolerate at all.
(And when the "youth" form up, armed, at the mosque, to carry on the fight to dominate the land, which has happened, then intolerance should fall on that mosque too.)
Where the shadow of Islam falls - literally, with thugs standing so as to block the sun while they comment on the quality of the rape-meat on offer - there conflict opens.
And this fight over who will be proud and who will be humiliated, who will dominate and who will be terrorized, absolutely does follow from Muslim values. We didn't think this lunacy up, it is a culturally alien import - one we'd be better off without.
It is not each woman's solitary responsibility to defend herself with a firearm somehow tucked away in her bikini. That's not our tradition.
It's our collective responsibility to stand up for our own, and against those who would threaten our own.
Conflict with the implementation of mainstream, moderate Muslim values necessarily follows.
If we don't stand up for our own, for our mates, for our women, for our values, for our traditions, we won't even know who we are any more. Did we once really believe in things? What were they? And who is this "we" anyway?
This stuff isn't written anywhere in a constitution or a declaration of independence or anything like that. If we don't act like Aussies, then we're just a rabble. Therefore, in our land, our culture and our traditions, not only our laws, must prevail.
Jeez that sounds nasty. And I know it. But this is where I stick. We have our values, we have our traditions, we can't really compromise them, and each woman is not on her own. That's just not happening. Therefore, serious collective conflict follows. And we have to win. Slowly, perhaps, and as humanely and decently as possible - as long as we win.
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#25 from Grim: "That leads to a kind of war I've been hoping to avoid, and not because we can't win it. We can. If it comes to it, I'll be right there helping to win it.
But I have no wish to fight that war."
Thank you Grim.
I'm sorry to be advocating things that would lead to you being embroiled in a kind of fight you don't want.
At least we each understand, with a clarity unusual in online discussions, where the other stands, and why.
(David Blue does a huge double take.)
Whatever happened to frith (link), this interesting new (old) concept I was just introduced to? (link)
I think it's obvious why someone who thinks the way I've just shown I do would see merit in the concept of frith.
It's not obvious to me how someone would start with the concept of frith and conclude that what I've just said was all wrong. I think I accidentally restated some of the major points and implications of the concept in a contemporary Australian context.
Great discussion.
In a different context (comment #50 over here, I noted historian Peter Turchin's definition of the concept of asabiya. Commenting on the rise and fall of empires, Turchin wrote
That's what David Blue's talking about, too.
Standing up with the bikini-wearing and Jewish citizens of our society, against people with a very different concept of right and wrong, and of us-ness.
And while we're at it, solidarity with cartoonists, apostates, heretics, atheists, Wiccans, and Hindus--all of whom are individuals who are not well-behaved People of the Book, and who thus do not qualify for the generous provisions of Dhimmitude.
Tragic and costly dimension to this fight, as Blue describes it? A struggle worth taking on?
Yes to both.
David,
An excellent rebuttal. As you say, I think we've come to the point at which our positions are clear, and readers must decide for themselves.
I do want to address the one question you ask at the end:
"Whatever happened to frith, this interesting new (old) concept I was just introduced to?"
Why, this is what happened to it:
"Give Australian women the tools to defend themselves -- I don't doubt they have the will -- and let the old imams think what they like. Like my great-great grandfather, the ladies will hold the line. For some years I've been saying that the way to win a fourth-generation war is to distribute warfighting capacity across society. We all take up our duty to defend the common peace and the lawful order, and we have little enough to fear."
That's exactly what frith is: the distribution of warfighting capacity across the society, with an understanding that a duty goes with it. We recognize we have a common duty to uphold the laws and traditions -- not merely to "defend" them by advocation, though also that, but to actually fight and kill for them if need be.
The ladies' ability to defend themselves isn't only about defending themselves. You say -- nothing anyone has said in the last few years makes more sense than this -- that the Aussie girl in the bikini on the beach has to be what we'd fight for. True enough!
My only modification to the idea is to suggest that the lady herself be equipped for the fight. Her, and others who share the frith-bonds.
By supporting and defending each other, they win a space for the society they -- we -- wish to defend. That's what frith is; that's its real-world application. A terrorist tries to take hostages, and finds fighters where he looked for victims. A rapist corners a lone woman, and finds her armed; and the sound of her shots, even if they miss, brings others who are as well.
A society of that sort, which is the sort of society we have in North Georgia, looks differently on the threats of the current war. It has, I think, every right to be confident. There are still dangers -- chiefly nuclear arms, or terrorists capable of disabling economic networks at key points -- but they are far fewer. Even the dangers that remain are less threatening to a people that has learned to take care of each other, with kindness or force as needs be.
_This is the hard thing for westerners to understand. We (generally) believe that religion and law are distinct spheres. That distinction doesn't exist in Islam.
To be fair, the distinction didn't always exist in the west either._
Actually, SG, it pretty much has. Going back to Jesus himself, who said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." Saint Augustine made a careful distinction between the "City of God" and the "City of Man." In medieval Europe, the state and the church did not hesitate to reinforce each other's power, but they were never one. There was always a tension between secular powers and the Church that occasionally broke out into violence, as in Dante's Italy. Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church so that he could have more control over a powerful tool of state and so he could confiscate Church property (among other reasons). So separation of church and state has always existed (albeit to varying degrees) in Christendom. Islam has no such history.
I agree with Fred, but with Constantine, the state and the church were very, very close. Looking at Europe in general, however, it's varied quite a bit.
It's interesting that Islam is virtually a political force, like the Ds or Rs. It's as if Jesus had said something like "Vote for the Republicans, support a national missile defense, and you all can be my homies" it would have caused no end to conflict and confusion. Christianity was formed in a post-tribal world, where secular authority was clearly established and the emphasis was on self-sacrifice and loving persuasion. Islam was not -- the emphasis instead is on domination and fighting for the morally correct cause. Big difference.
dhimmis by near-definition aren't allowed arms. The whole point was that non-Muslims were surrendering militarily to Islam and became dependent upon the state for security. I believe this limitation was unique cross-culturally in that it was maintained even in the absence of a military threat. It subjected dhimmis to all sorts of crimes, both petty and significant.
But I don't aspire to live in a country where a woman is free to sun bathe only with a gun cocked.
I think this is a good idea:
Here
I think its critically important that he answer questions, not merely say what he feels will get him out of trouble, while maintaining plausible deniability on the basis of some technical reading of weasel words. Lawyers, priests and politicians all have words to thank for their positions.
#33 from Grim: "As you say, I think we've come to the point at which our positions are clear, and readers must decide for themselves."
Yes.
Your final words are uplifting.
#33 from Grim: "You say -- nothing anyone has said in the last few years makes more sense than this -- that the Aussie girl in the bikini on the beach has to be what we'd fight for. True enough!
My only modification to the idea is to suggest that the lady herself be equipped for the fight. Her, and others who share the frith-bonds.
By supporting and defending each other, they win a space for the society they -- we -- wish to defend. That's what frith is; that's its real-world application. A terrorist tries to take hostages, and finds fighters where he looked for victims. A rapist corners a lone woman, and finds her armed; and the sound of her shots, even if they miss, brings others who are as well.
A society of that sort, which is the sort of society we have in North Georgia, looks differently on the threats of the current war. It has, I think, every right to be confident. There are still dangers -- chiefly nuclear arms, or terrorists capable of disabling economic networks at key points -- but they are far fewer. Even the dangers that remain are less threatening to a people that has learned to take care of each other, with kindness or force as needs be."
All I'll add to that is God bless Georgia.
There are indirect ways of discouraging the spread of Islam, and with it its lunatic fringe. And they are all already within the laws of most Western countries.
Such as:
Ban the practice of halal slaughter. This can easily be justified on animal welfare grounds.
Start enforcing existing legislation on incitement to various crimes - rape, murder, riot etc. In other words, when a rabble-rousing jihadist cleric says his piece, arrest him (and anyone who obstructs the police) and toss him out of the country or throw him in jail and throw away the key, as appropriate.
Use existing planning and zoning laws to prevent the building or conversion of new mosques, and if those buildings are suspected of harbouring criminals - enter them to apprehend the individuals concerned. Without the officers' taking off their boots or any other such nonsense.
Make such buildings the first target if any sort of compulsory purchase for redevelopment is needed - on the grounds that those buildings are the least useful in the area.
Stop, immediately, any immigration whatsoever from any country that declares Islam as a state religion. And if any non-citizen resident who declares himself a Moslem leaves the country, don't let him back in. For any reason.
Ban the wearing of the Islamic veil or similar garments in any publicly-owned building. This can easily be justified on security grounds; facial recognition is an important part of security.
These are all things that a government can do. What can an individual do? Simple. Refuse to have any sort of business or social dealings with any obvious Moslem. ("Sending to Coventry" is effective.) Go so far as to cross the street to avoid any obvious Moslem. Let them know that they are the pariahs they should be.
"Stop, immediately, any immigration whatsoever from any country that declares Islam as a state religion. And if any non-citizen resident who declares himself a Moslem leaves the country, don't let him back in. For any reason."
Of the several points you make, I'm going to respond to just this one.
As a military contractor over the last several years, I've worked with numerous Muslims from many nations. They came to America and took jobs assisting our nation's defense, in the time of this particular war, because their own nations would not aid us.
The Coalition is bigger and stronger than just the nations that have signed on officially. It also includes good hearted people -- yes, even Muslims -- who believe in the cause of liberty and want to aid the fight for it.
I'll take them as brothers, gladly, without regard to their faith. I have no special love for Islam. As I said, I believe it to be false.
That said, I've known some Muslims I'm proud to know. I don't know that Al Qaeda would consider them Muslims, since they were willing to befriend an infidel and work for America's defense. Whatever Al Qaeda may think, they're on the right side. We should be glad to have them.
Re: #39 from Fletcher Christian: These measures are consistent with creating an environment hostile to Islam, which I think is in itself a good thing.
The problem is, some of them are also hostile to Australian values and traditions, such as a fair go.
But some are good and necessary. And it's a positive and helpful thing to do, to put up some proposals.
Ban the practice of halal slaughter. This can easily be justified on animal welfare grounds.
But if that's not really what it's about, and we're not planning to shut down all the kosher butchers - which we never have - then this is unfair BS, and thus un-Australian.
Start enforcing existing legislation on incitement to various crimes - rape, murder, riot etc. In other words, when a rabble-rousing jihadist cleric says his piece, arrest him (and anyone who obstructs the police) and toss him out of the country or throw him in jail and throw away the key, as appropriate.
That's necessary. (Well, minus the purely rhetorical throwing away the key.)
Use existing planning and zoning laws to prevent the building or conversion of new mosques, and if those buildings are suspected of harbouring criminals - enter them to apprehend the individuals concerned. Without the officers' taking off their boots or any other such nonsense.
Softly-softly policing for criminal Muslim gangs and the thwack of batons for Aussies hasn't worked out. I think we have to treat gangsters and rioters forming up at the mosque exactly as though they were forming up anywhere else. Yes, without walking on tippy-toes in any way.
Make such buildings the first target if any sort of compulsory purchase for redevelopment is needed - on the grounds that those buildings are the least useful in the area.
Again, is that really what this is about? And compulsory purchase for redevelopment is not a common issue anyway.
Stop, immediately, any immigration whatsoever from any country that declares Islam as a state religion. And if any non-citizen resident who declares himself a Moslem leaves the country, don't let him back in. For any reason.
I think we should treat immigration from Muslim countries the same way we treated immigration from Communist countries in the Cold War. Are you fleeing persecution? (Like Christians fleeing Iraq now.) Come in. Otherwise, generally, no.
The offense you may create by stopping people at the door is nothing to the endless problems you have if you let the wrong people in. And Muslims have turned out generally to be the wrong people. If there's one thing Australia needs like a hole in the head now it's more Islam.
Ban the wearing of the Islamic veil or similar garments in any publicly-owned building. This can easily be justified on security grounds; facial recognition is an important part of security.
But if that's not really what it's about, then you're abusing the law as a pretext, not really enforcing it.
I know if I was on a jury and a Muslim was dead to rights for something legally, but I thought the real offense was talking back while being Muslim, I'd nullify. Because historically and traditionally, that's the sort of thing jury nullification gets used for in our (Anglo) system, to prevent the letter of the law being abused as a pretext for religious prejudice, union-breaking and so on. It's a tacit part of your common law rights that juries will do that if need be. Our values and customs, such as this one, must prevail in our land, for the benefit of everyone.
These are all things that a government can do. What can an individual do? Simple. Refuse to have any sort of business or social dealings with any obvious Moslem. ("Sending to Coventry" is effective.) Go so far as to cross the street to avoid any obvious Moslem. Let them know that they are the pariahs they should be.
That's the most un-Australian suggestion of all. And I meant it when I said we have to act like Aussies, or we're just a rabble.
We would harm ourselves far more than the most radical Muslims by acting like that. It would violate our way of life, the web of customs that tell us who "we" are and help us work together for any purpose including our security.
Muslims self-ghettoize anyway, and the Koran tells Muslims never to be (genuine) friends with Jews or Christians, so this is not a problem for Islam.
It might even help hostile Muslims keep their daughters under control, as it would be harder for them to have Aussie friends.
It's an advantage for Islam that it thrives on the hostility, prejudice and exclusion it creates.
While individuals deserve a fair go, a hostile ideology does not, Islam no more than Communism. Spruiking for Islam should be about as popular as making propaganda for Communism was. Malarkey like Islam being a religion of peace and Jihad meaning inner struggle against sin should be confronted early, often and without subtlety. All this tripe is triply offensive: it aims to advance a domineering and violent ideology which is a threat to our way of life, it's malarkey, and pushing this kind of drivel is inconsistent with acting like a real Australian.
Of course you can't confront lies if you don't know the truth, which is where books by Robert Spencer and other good authors come in. The first, most important, thing we all have to do is educate ourselves.