Tony
Blankley, editorial-page editor of The Washington Times, describes the
present danger posed by militant Islam and what must be done to counter
it in his new book, "The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of
Civilizations?" (Regnery Publishing)
First of three parts
The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as
great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in
the 1940s.
We cannot afford to lose Europe. We
cannot afford to see Europe transformed into a launching pad for Islamist jihad.
While we in the United States and Europe have
vast resources for protecting ourselves, we have thought ourselves into a
position of near impotence.
Beyond the growing number of Muslims committed
to terrorism is the threat from the Islamic diaspora's growing cultural and
religious assertiveness -- particularly in largely secular Europe, where Muslim
cultural assimilation has not occurred.
It is beginning to dawn on Europeans
that the combination of a shrinking ethnic-European population and an
expanding, culturally assertive Muslim population might lead to the
fall of Western civilization in Europe within a century.
This phenomenon, called Eurabia, is
viewed with growing fatalism both in Europe and in America. Such
fatalism, however, is premature.
Last November, an Islamist terrorist's
butchering of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie
revealing abuse of Muslim women, aroused deep fears in Holland and
across the Continent.
The public anger, which included the
burning of mosques in traditionally tolerant Holland, is evidence that
the European instinct for survival has not been fully extinguished.
But that survival instinct is threatened by
the multiculturalism and political correctness advocated in media and academe --
and institutionalized in national and European Union laws and regulations for
half a century.
Europe's effort at cultural tolerance
since World War II slowly morphed into a surprisingly deep self-loathing of
Western culture that denied the instinct for cultural and national self-defense.
If Europe doesn't rise to the challenge,
Eurabia will come to pass. Then Europe will cease to be an American ally and
instead become a base of operations (as she already is to a small degree)
against us.
Prepared to murder
What Muslims say and do now is the measure of
the political, cultural and military danger facing the West.
Most other religious developments around the
world, such as the spread of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere, have
benign or nonviolent consequences.
However, the overwhelming political fact
deriving from the ferment in Islam is that, to some degree, some percentage of
Muslims are prepared to murder -- and are murdering -- great numbers in what
they feel is their religious duty.
Many more Muslims are, to some degree,
supportive or protective of these killers. Even more Muslims, while not
supportive of such tactics, share many of the terrorists' religious
convictions and perceptions.
Radical currents within Islam drive some
Muslims to terrorism and push others at least to a more adversarial view of
their relationship to non-Muslim nations and cultures in which they live --
whether in Paris, London, Hamburg, Rotterdam, or any American city.
The resurgence of a militant Islam drove the
United States to fight two wars in Muslim countries in two years, disrupted
America's alliance with Europe, caused the largest reorganization of the
U.S. government in half a century (with the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security), changed election results in Europe and threatened the
stability of most governments in the Middle East.
This resurgence of militant Islam also drove
America to pressure Saudi Arabia to change the way it teaches religion to its
children and others (through madrasses) around the world. It forced America to
pressure Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Somalia, among others, to
change domestic security policies. It prompted America to build a ring of bases
in Central Asia across what used to be the Muslim part of the Soviet Union.
And we are only four years removed from the
September 11 attacks.
Nazi parallels
Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden are not
traditionalists. The idea of individual jihad -- separating jihadist decisions
from the Muslim community -- is a radical departure. But it is important for
recruiting potential terrorists.
Over the past 30 years, the Muslim population
in Europe expanded rapidly from a few hundred thousand to more than 20
million. Muslims there and in the United States are arguing over their role in
Western societies: Should they integrate, seclude themselves, or convert the
West to Islam?
Many Muslims in Europe are content to be
law-abiding, culturally integrated citizens. But an increasing number feel some
degree of alienation. Many are beginning to believe that they have a religious
duty not to integrate.
Radical Islam, sometimes accurately called
Islamo-fascism, has all the "advantages" the Nazis had in Germany in the
1930s. The Islamo-fascists find a Muslim population adrift, confused and
humiliated by the dominance of foreign nations and cultures. They find a large,
youthful population increasingly disdainful of their parents' passive
habits.
Just as the Nazis reached back to German
mythology and the supposed Aryan origins of the German people, the radical
Islamists reach back to the founding ideas and myths of their religious
culture. And just like the Nazis, they claim to speak for authentic traditions
while actually advancing expedient and radical innovations.
The Islamo-fascist mullahs encourage young
Muslims not to turn to their parents for guidance on choosing a wife (or
wives). Nor are young Muslims to be guided by parental or community disapproval
of making an individual commitment to jihad. They are allowed to drink alcohol,
shave their beards and commit what otherwise would be judged immorality in a
Muslim -- in order to advance jihad.
Postmodern radicalism
In many ways, these radical Muslim
fundamentalists are postmodern, not pre-modern. They are designing a distinctly
Western, fascistic version of Islam that is less and less connected to the Islam
of their Middle Eastern homeland.
Radical Western Islam brings the combative
strength and deep faith of authentic traditions while constantly modifying
itself to best attack liberal, secular European and American institutions.
The radical Islamists are able to rationalize
concessions to modernity with ancient-sounding mumbo jumbo while still sounding
like authentic fundamentalists, the only true voice of Islam.
The Nazis overwhelmed German society with
these methods 70 years ago. There is building evidence that the radical
Islamists are moving ever more successfully down the same path -- particularly
within the younger generations in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the United
States.
Many young Muslims in Europe, and some in
America, particularly second- and third-generation Muslims, cannot be considered
part of a diaspora. They no longer are strongly connected to their family's
country of origin, nor do they intend to return.
Instead, they are forming their own Muslim
consciousness from the Internet, books, videotapes and audiotapes.
The Internet offers many radical Islamic
"experts" and mullahs who function like Dear Abby. European Muslims pose
questions on everything from whether to be polite to infidels to how to prepare
for jihad. The immediate answer often is a hodgepodge of Koranic citations,
quotes from ancient scholars and personal advice.
Within this constantly morphing digital
environment, an increasingly radical Islam is emerging in Europe. Disconnected
from their homelands, isolated from their non-Muslim neighbors and fellow
workers, alienated from their elders, Europe's young Muslims find a weird,
disembodied, globalized radical Islam appealing.
Struggle for survival
Muslim sections of Paris, Rotterdam and other
European cities already are labeled "no-go zones" for ethnic Europeans,
including armed policemen.
As the Muslim populations -- and their level
of cultural and religious assertiveness -- expand, European geography will be
"reclaimed" for Islam. Europe will become pockmarked with "little Fallujahs"
that effectively will be impenetrable by anything much short of a U.S. Marine
division.
Not only will Islamic cultural aggression
against a seemingly passive and apologetic indigenous population increase, but
the zone of safety and support for the actual terrorists will expand as well.
If the current leaders of Europe do not
respond to the Islamist threat boldly and effectively, the common European
people might decide to defend their culture as vigilantes. In that case, Europe
again will become a bloody urban battleground.
This would be a temporary tragedy for liberal
principles of governance, but at least would secure Europe from Muslim
domination over the next half-century.
The harm of a vigilante effort against the
radical Islamists can be mitigated, if not avoided, if the governments
themselves will lead the struggle for European cultural survival.
It should be a prime objective of American
policy to encourage European governments and the European Union to lead their
people in this struggle, rather than follow them.
Part II
Needed: Old war spirit in a new war
Part III
At war with an enemy of an unspoken name