Tolerance or Solidarity?

In Algeria Christians who did not fast during Ramadan are being condemned to prison sentences or ordered to leave the country, defined as a “land of Islam”.

Lest we forget - or lest we never knew - present day Algeria, along with Egypt and the rest of North Africa (to say nothing of Arabia itself),  adopted Christianity with enthusiasm in the first centuries of the first millenium, well prior to its spread in Europe. It was only long after, in the 8th century, that Islam was imposed by conquest. But Christianity persisted, despite oppression. In recent decades the massacres and persecutions of Christians and Christianity rival and surpass previous episodes, and an active resistance is starting to form. Its fate is impossible to predict - particularly in the absence of support from a de-christianized West.

In France there are now calls for a moratorium on the construction of mosques, by solidarity with Algerian Christians. The building of churches is forbidden in several “lands of Islam”, and non-Muslims are forbidden to enter certain “holy cities” of Islam.

Tolerance, if it is to retain any meaning or force, must end where this sort of intolerance begins.

Do you know that there is a conflation of “Muslim” and “Arab” in Islam which gives it a certain racialist tone? Most north Africans are not Arabs ethnically. As Muslims, however, there is a pressure to self-define as Arabs. The term “Arab world” - though westerners are becoming more sophisticated in these matters - has tended to cover a much larger area than relatively small Arabia. There are indeed Arabs all over the North Africa and the Middle East - descendants of the Muslim conquistadors of the first millenium, but they are an ethnic minority. Many people considered "Arab in Lebanon, Palestine or Jordan are in fact ethnically Phoenician or Cannanite. And the Egyptians, of course, are not Arabs. Who cares? There are some Muslims and Arabs who care very much.

Funeral Gigue for Christopher Hitchens

For Christopher Hitchens: a funeral gigue!
Let’s hail with laughter the end of his gig,
For sorrow and tears he’d not give a fig,
Having avoided the infernal brig.

Hitch was a dandy of sinister bent
Who dexterously later came to repent,
Though he never would go the full extent:
From atheism he would not relent!

Struck down by Fate - or by God, who can tell?
He was seized by fear that a fear of hell,
In a delirium, like a bad smell,
Seep from his lips, and his life’s work dispel.

Thus Mr. Hitchens has left us to find
How we’re to know that his so-called "right mind"
Has any more right our credence to bind
Than the final gasp of his soul resigned?

Nutbag?

Poor reverend Jones has been denounced in all currently acceptable epithets by the totality of the cultural elite, including the “extreme right” - from Victor Davis Hanson to Mark Levin, though VDH had the decency to draw a clear parallel to imam Rauf, whose Cordoba House project he qualifies as a provocation. 

I won’t go along with any of this. How can the ground zero project in it’s intentions, financing, government support or the impudent hypocrisy of its justifications and the craven obsequiousness and moral posturing of its non-muslim defenders, be in any way compared - to paraphrase VDH - to burning a few objects which belong to you, on your own property?

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First, regarding my qualification of the situation in New York:

“Cordoba House” is a mosque at “ground zero”.

Airplane debris hit the building in question and lowered its value by more than half.

Who can tell what this project is supposed to be, now that it has been redefined several times, and why should its being a mosque be shameful? Why did Rauf back away from that?

“Cordoba” has become a double code: for westerners it is intended as a symbol of muslim tolerance - when in fact Christians and Jews in that city were dhiminis - while for muslims this outpost of their lost empire is a spur to vengeance.

“Cordoba House” will help terrorism and the promotion of Sharia in America.

Imam Rauf can say whatever he wants. A majority of Americans - to say nothing of Europeans - have become convinced that too many mosques are used to preach anti-western jihad, or even to recruit, organize and finance it.

“Cordoba House” is supported by local and national government.

The authorities of NYC, including the zoning board, which have authorized “Cordoba House” have not yet permitted the rebuilding of an orthodox church destroyed by the 9/11 attack. This situation is getting little attention, and the story reported is about obstruction on the part of the church itself, naturally. The mayor of NYC and the president of the USA - our Benevolent Guides - have given public support to Rauf. The church is not even mentioned.

“Cordoba House” will be financed by the middle east. 

Rauf has no financing of his own. Is the “muslim community” of NYC, already tricked out with 100 mosques, going to come up with the millions and millions needed to pay for a 15 story “center” in lower Manhattan?

Kadafi recently told an audience of 500 young women in Italy that Islam would soon take over Europe, and there is talk like that all over the place, for anyone willing to hear it. 

“Cordoba House” justifications are impudent.

For nine years Americans have been hearing the same thing: 9/11 was essentially thier own fault because of America’s international behavior and domestic attitudes. One would think that American efforts in Kuwait and Kosovo - to mention only those - and the uncounted mosques which have sprung up in America in the last 10 years - to say nothing of those already present or the fabulous American tradition of religious tolerance which in fact shows no sign of waning - would temper this sort of claim.

[Do Americans go berzerk, or just shrug, every time some rag-head burns the stars and stripes or saws the head off one of our fellow Americans? Why should we not hold these people to our standards of tolerance/indifference - or else? Or, if their attitude is superior, why not adopt it (and go berzerk at each "provocation")? At any rate the two attitudes cannot co-exist. Either we let ourselves be cowed by their attitude, or we make the world safe for our own.]

The defense of “Cordoba House” by non-muslims is concocted of craven obsequious and moral posturing.

Fear of the murderous mobs and fanaticized assassins so facilely mobilized by islamic tribunes is understandable. Equally understandable - and equally repugnant - is the very tired tactic of responding to every doubt or argument regarding islamism’s relation to Islam by hurling anathema upon those who dare entertain them. This unacceptable procedure is sanctioned by a well placed but centripetal and shrinking minority.

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I am hard to shock, but the repeated expressions of disgust and contempt on the part of media stars and pundits who pontificate daily, and year after year, to audiences of millions, that a “jackass”, “nutbag”, “non-entity” should get so much attention, has succeeded. The depths of arrogance and the heights of hypocrisy thus revealed have stunned even the philosophical fellow I believed myself to be. What of Equality and Fraternity? What of the 15 minutes of fame these people so complaisantly predicted and welcomed for all? In this light the bravery, certainly, but also the probity seem to be with Jones.

Despite efforts to camouflage the fact with lies, the attention Jones has gotten is due, above all, to the likes of MSNBC, and the reason these people give him so much attention comes out of the same pot as their eagerness to brand the Tea Party movement as racist. Jones is the greatly desired “proof”, eagerly seized, that America is indeed the islamophobic provocateur they claim. Now, if this is true, would it not be expedient to placate this dangerous populo, the way these same geniuses patiently explain it is prudently obligatory to do in places where enlightenment and tolerance reign supreme, like Jordan? I mean, because Jordan is mostly muslim, it must, right?

The more Obama insists America is not at war with Islam, the more it sounds like it is. Who is provoking whom? Last night, in amazed fascination, I watched CNN’s coverage of the mosque controversy, which consisted of a parade of bearded and dark skinned muslims between the ages of 20 and 30, using sociology-speak to denounce America as "islamophobic", with a cooing obligato from the upper-middle class white anchors. If this is an organized attempt to incite Americans to war on Islam it could hardly be better managed. But the fact is that the ignorance, malice and unavowable intentions inspiring these people lead them into speeches and acts which are incoherent at best.

As for the reverend Jones and his backyard trash fire, it seems he has allowed himself to be talked out of it. Now: has any muslim terrorist, kidnapper, decapitator, lapidator, rioter or jihadist ever allowed himself to be talked out of anything, or have they ever been stopped by anything but force - or multi-million dollar ransoms? What about Imam Rauf ? Will Trump's ransom offer do the trick? If not, will the government - the American government of and by the people - apply force? And if not, what then?

Once he decided upon it, and once it was publicized, Jones should have stuck to his guns, since now he is just another spineless occidental appeaser. But the story is not over, since Jones - unless he really has backed down - may have been tricked. 

Oh how fearful to burn a Coran! Does anyone take note of the angry and frustrated Algerians currently sacking mosques and burning Corans? No, because such vermin exist even less for "us" than the despised reverend Jones.

If Jones again goes ahead, he will be more like the rowdy but sturdy Africans and Asians who answer muslim provocation by burning mosques - more like them, but not really like them; for that he would have to burn more than paper - and bump off a few people. Must it really come to this sort of civil war?? Eventually only churchillian adamance will suffice. Meanwhile an American, in America, burning some printed paper which belongs to him, on his own property, is very far short of that.