Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Clash of Civilizations: Revisited















A note from Radarsite: Originally published in July 2007, this monumental question unfortunately still remains unaswered. Are we any closer now to understanding the concepts involved? It certainly doesn't seem so. - rg
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"The Clash of Civilizations?" This is the title of a well-known book of essays published by Foreign Affairs. Only, I think, in the West would this phrase be followed by a question mark.

To our Islamist enemies the issues are crystal clear. The concepts are easily understood, simple and straight-forward. In their own words, they are soldiers in a righteous war, a war between Muslims and non-Muslims. There is little room here for ambiguity. Their goals in this war are to destroy Christianity, undermine the power of the West and subject the world to sharia law.

In the West, by contrast, the issues are confusing and our goals are muddled. We are still mired down in a battle of legalistic semantics. While we are attempting to more precisely define the enemy, they simple say, "Death to the infidel!" and plant another bomb.

Sooner or later we are going to have to face up to a disturbing truth: throughout the universal ummah the Islamist message -- regardless of its conspiracy theory lunacies and its surrealistic expectations -- resonates. It gains more eager converts daily. Of course, it's that same old siren song of victimization, only sung in a different voice. It offers those same old promises: the promise of power regained, the promise of a new found relevancy for previously irrelevant peoples. It offers self-respect and dignity -- and a shiny new sword.

We keep talking about the "moderate Muslims", as though they could (even assuming that they would want to) somehow extricate us from this growing peril. To me, these 'moderate Muslims' are behaving in almost exactly the same way as those Eastern European countries -- Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, et al -- behaved at the beginning of WWII. They were hedging their bets. They were waiting on the sidelines to see who would come out stronger, the Axis or the Allies. Unfortunately for them, they bet on the wrong team and ended their days on the frozen tundra of the Russian steppes.

For most Westerners, certainly for most Americans, it's so much easier to accept the concept of a peaceful religion which has been 'hijacked' by a fanatical few -- as Germany had been 'hijacked' by the Nazis -- rather than having to contemplate the awful alternative: that a major world religion could, itself, be violent and that we are, indeed, in the first days of an inevitable and bloody "Clash of Civilisations".

4 comments:

  1. Roger,
    I'm glad you brought this back up for it is certainly one of the most important issues of our times.
    Not only are religions being hijacked, our entire Americana is being re-written to satisfy the liberal mindset...they have hijacked our children's minds via the heavily infested US Department of Education with humanists.
    And while these humanists* muddle with their agenda, the Islamists are pushing their own. Even if they (the humanists) did succeed in removing all aspects of religion (which IMHO will never happen) the resulting clash with Islam will result in the humanists without a 'head' to rely on...if you get my drift.

    * I refuse to give them the honor of a capital 'H'

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  2. They cry "Death to the Infidel" and throw a bomb. But we are forced by the Moonbat left to cry "Islam: The Religion of Peace." and do nothing.

    One day Muslims will go to far and we will have to do something. I just hope we will have the means to do it.

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  3. Roger, your point that it is just too difficult for us to see enemy for what it is is spot-on. When you see voters who do not have a clue who Nancy Pelosi is, and yet they are dyed in the wool Democrats and would never consider voting other than Democrat, then we know that the majority of those voters have no knowledge of Islam.

    For true moderate Christians, it is about the same. It feels so "unChristian" to speak about Islam the way you and I have, and Storm'n Morn'm and Findalis as well.

    Their souls are too tender and this isn't the way God planned it. He expects us to be aware of the world, and protect our gifts and our blessings - both of which spell "freedom." If God ever expected a fighting spirit from us, this is it.

    That photo is really eerie.

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  4. The extreme clarity & economy of words in this post cause me to wonder if you ain't really a trained, experienced journalist; a professional masquerading as an amateur. I wish that I could write half so well.

    Norman, Islam ain't a victim of hijacking, it is violent by design; created for Moe's personal emolument through the profession of piracy.

    Maggie, to see it, we must remove our rose filters and view it under the harsh light of truth. We can begin by reading Chapters 9 & 11 of Book O of Reliance of the Traveller. Scribid.com has a scanned image you can read; many of my recent blog posts have direct links to it. Search for O9.8 and you will find it eventually.

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