Evil white people are all to blame, right? (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
In the almost 30 years that I have lived in the West, discussion surrounding Islamism has been stymied by one thing: the naïve belief that it will magically disappear. After every Islamist attack, promises are made. Ambitious changes to anti-terror programmes are ordered. Politicians line up to announce that this is the last time.
And yet somehow — despite all the vigils, all the pledges, all the policy announcements — Islamism remains as potent as ever.
It is two weeks to the day since Sir David Amess was stabbed to death — and already it seems like it’s old news, discarded from the national conversation. This is partly due to the reporting restrictions put in place after a suspect was charged; Ali Harbi Ali is not a murderer until proven as such.
But that should not prevent us from having a broader discussion, on a societal level, about the way we respond — or, more important, do not respond — to acts of terrorism. For it seems to me that there is an implicit message in our reluctance to dwell on Amess’s death: we are content to accept that, despite the horror that follows every attack, Islamist terrorism, if indeed that is what it is, is a fact of life.
We will grieve for individuals such as David Amess, and for other innocent victims whose names and faces we don’t know or remember. But terror is no longer seen as something that will go away; it is something we just need to get used to.
Part of this defeatism has been dominant since I fled Somalia as a teenager. Islamism, in essence, is a political philosophy, one that is rooted in jihad but seeks to describe how society should be run. It is more than an irrational and violent ideology: it is an attack on liberalism itself.
But for the past three decades, the West’s response has been one of cowardice masked by arrogance. We needn’t fight back; it’s much better, we’re told, to stay quiet in the hope that, one day, those who hold competing ideologies will come through and see things from our side. Evidently, it is not working.
More concerning, though, is the rise of a new type of defeatism — this time disguised as a progressive form of self-flagellation. Imagine you are a young British Muslim. At school and university, you’re repeatedly warned about Britain’s colonial roots; that the country your parents fled to, in the hope of escaping persecution and anarchy, is the cause of it all. And then you’re told: don’t worry, it’s not your fault. You are merely a victim; evil white people are all to blame.
This dispiriting approach to education, which has taken hold on both sides of the Atlantic, is often justified using the rhetoric of “equality” and “diversity”. In practice, however, I suspect it is more helpful to view it in the context of something called “dawa”. In Arabic, the term simply denotes a centuries-old, non-violent call to Islam — though in practice, it has become a tool used by Islamists to encourage Muslims to embrace their extreme ideology and disavow the West. More often than not, this is achieved by branding Western society as ungodly and sinful, as something that needs to be either reformed or destroyed. In other words, you have two choices: either come and join us, or we’ll need to wage a holy war.
Whether they realise it or not, progressives are saying something strikingly similar. In their eyes, too, the West is evil, home to foundational structures that serve only the white, heterosexual, male oppressor. So when the Islamists come along and say that Allah has given you a higher purpose, one that will culminate with ending the wickedness of the West, young British Muslims are already half-way there. Hatred for their country is all they know.
That’s how a 22-year-old man can be driven to carry out a suicide bomb attack at a concert largely attended by children. Or how two men in their twenties can become inspired to behead an off-duty British soldier in broad daylight. Or how three teenage girls from East London can be coaxed into joining Isis.
Of course, none of this to say that identity politics or other forms of progressivism are solely to blame for the rise of Islamism. The influence of dawa across Europe and America is deeply concerning. And, as I have written before for UnHerd, Muslim communities need to do more to stop their young from being drawn into extremism.
But the difference with our insistence on demonising the West is that it’s a problem of our own making — and it’s something that we can fix. The most obvious way to start would be by devising a curriculum that doesn’t seek to portray Britain and America as evil at every turn.
More urgently, though, liberalism needs to shake off its defeatist malaise and learn to compete with those ideologies that would see it destroyed. To new immigrants, as well as to our own schoolchildren, we need to teach the incredible success story of our way of life. We need to remind our younger generations why it’s better to live in Britain than, say, Somalia. The answer isn’t mysterious. I certainly feel no shame in saying it: there, women are treated as second-class citizens, and barbarity seeps into every aspect of your life. There, you have no liberty or rule of law.
In the West, on the other hand, we have all this and more. Perhaps above all else, we have the opportunity to die peacefully in our bed, of old age, surrounded by our family. That isn’t something that should be taken for granted; I should know. And yet we seem to have forgotten this, distracted by waging a toxic forever war which prioritises division over community.
But this is not a fight we can afford to sit out. Until we decide that the West is worth defending, Islamism will not be defeated — and innocent people will continue to be killed.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an UnHerd columnist. She is also a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Founder of the AHA Foundation, and host of The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast. Her new book is Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.
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SubscribeIt’s also massively unhelpful when the UKs national broadcaster never misses an opportunity to tell the population that their country is systemically racist, systemically sexist, systemically corrupt etc.
The BBCs failure to report news objectively – or more specifically their failure to report on things that don’t support their own institutionalised contempt for this country – is a massive help to Islamism (and all other destructive groups).
Excellent point, and permit me to respond with an example that I find particularly outrageous. I have debated this point with a Senior BBC Propagandist Razia Iqbal on Twitter, who was willing to engage–to a point. Our respectful conversations seem to have ended.
But I digress. I asked, Why does the BBC always say “Democratic Republic of Congo?” It’s not democratic, even by African standards, so why repeatedly emphasize something that’s not true? Is it because the BBC wants to promote the illusion that Africa, writ large, is “democratic” and “shares our values?” Is it because if they say it enough to the international BBC audience that they will come to believe that it is democratic, or just accept the lies as truth? (See, 1984).
Razia said that BBC must say Democratic Republic of Congo because…..well, that’s the country’s name. Really? Does the BBC continually refer to the Kingdom of Sweden (Sweden), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or DPRK)?
What’s wrong with DRC? Why must something that is NOT true (democracy) be emphasized over and over? Perhaps the woke can explain.
Because that is what its name is, just as before 1989 the former East Germany was known as the Deutsche Demokratic Republic.
You’ve just proved my point! The news never routinely referred to the DDR as the German Democratic Republic. Never. They referred to it as East Germany (communist) as opposed to West Germany (capitalist and democratic). I specifically remember my Mother being confused when I told her I was going to the DDR, as opposed to the BRD. She liked the sound of the DDR better.
Perhaps it is a trivial point, as woke socialist Michael Chambers below calls me out for. With respect, I disagree. It is important to call out the woke for all of these language abuses–each and every one. It is also important to understand why they do this–and BBC certainly has woke and nefarious motives.
That the DDR was referred to as East Germany was no doubt Cold War rhetoric. And I don’t think anyone feels that the DRC is more democratic than other countries just because the BBC is using its full self-ascribed name
With respect, I disagree. When something is named the opposite of what it is–take anti-fa, par example–it has a tendency to stick.
I find it vile and disgusting when any media refers to anti-fa as “anti-fascists. They are fascists.
Not to beat a dead horse, but why is the BBC doing this? Clearly it is to condition the plebs to the new, 1984 type language, where meanings are the opposite of the common meaning.
It is not necessary to do this–initials will do–DRC, or Congo will do. As noted, BBC never refers to Sweden as Kingdom of Sweden, yet that is the name. Why?
THERE ARE TWO CONGOS!
The BBC is damned in your view for using the official name of the DRC, but NOT using the official name of East Germany. (But actually East Germany WAS commonly also referred to as the DDR).
Eh?!
Not everyone catching a BBC news report has a sophisticated understanding of Central Africa .
Your response mentioning Michael Chambers as woke seems disproportionate to his point! Let being disproportionate remain a charachteristic of the woke.
With respect, I disagree. Woke must always be called out in every case. I said it, I meant it, I stand behind it. In fairness, my characterization was based not only on this, but see his woke comments at the very bottom–the ones with the downvotes.
As I understand it, this is a forum for divergent viewpoints. I have been banned from other forums for taking issue with “woke” viewpoints on transgenderism, etc. When someone disagrees with you, it does not follow that they embrace a whole range of policies with a single characterisation like “woke”
I’m a centrist who gets flak from woke and anti-woke alike. I take issues with reactionary perspectives.
That’s because there was a damned great concrete wall between the ‘west’ and the DDR. To coin a phrase “Would it help?”.
The point never made by those of the BBC mindset is that any country that calls itself the Democratic this or the People’s that is never anything of the kind. With few exceptions, such places on inspection turn out to be one-party kleptocracies.
The BBC won’t want to acknowledge these countries were decolonised much too soon.
Even more flagrant is the BBC ‘s news website referring to Jacinda Arden as New Zealand’s beloved prime minister .
I’m a centrist, not a socialist. I get flak from woke and anti-woke alike.
The BBC wants us to think Africa has had democratic republics forever which were rudely interrupted by the British Empire .
The BBC habitually referred to East Germany and West Germany.
Yep
Yes – also to distinguish it from its neighbouring country, which also has the word “Congo” in it
There are two countries including the name “Congo” and it’s important to be clear. See https://www.thoughtco.com/why-two-congos-in-africa-3555011
Even without this reality, I would say you’re picking fights over trivial matters.
Irritating, but we can’t do anything about that, any more than with ‘Holy’. As long as there is scepticism in the world, we can go on being ‘ow-you-say diplomatic.
How could anyone criticise you if you represent such a positively named grouping ?. That approach has worked wonderfully for the BLM organisation.
Your point makes no sense. That is the country’s name, like it or not. Democratic or not. It was formerly Zaire (It wasn’t that either), under President Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (no, he was not that!), and Congo (nope) beforehand – named by Belgians while amputing slaves’ hands for not harvesting enough rubber well before the Cold War use of it in other ways (the true bit). And what of the United Kingdom? How DO you explain that oh pale spirit? Cultivate your back yard first, then go to Kinshasa, and tell them what to do Ulysses. They might say – have you been to Republic of Congo (Brazza), across the cataracts? Hmm – ever heard of it old boy? Would you know the difference in name? How shrill would you would look on the banks of that raging torrent of a river between them haranguing all those people after 30 yrs of war, and the grubbing of their minerals by outsiders, about ‘just-what-you-think-of-their-country’s-name’? Perhaps they may say: “Quoi ca, nothing else to worry about?”. “Do you really so begrudge the country’s name-shift?” between one western-backed dictator – and a slightly less-toxic one (Laurent Kabila, since assassinated like Lumumba) – and the brief second of hope that dared to put ‘Democratic’ before ‘Congo’? Before reality crept back in, egged by geology and foreign/local proxies, making that a chimera?
Your point makes no sense….
Cheers, mate! Thanks for the rant. Just because you have zero understanding of it does not mean it makes no sense. Excellent images, though–I’ll take your advice and try to imagine myself by that raging torrent of a river…..(looking shrill).
Thanks, mate. Made my day!
Glad to cheer you up!
Agree
I hadn’t realised till this week human sacrifice of slaves was still being practiced at the funerals of chiefs in 1898 in Nigeria before it became a British colony . (Luckily for the slaves)
I thought it was because the country’s Official Name is “Democratic Republic of Congo?”
Journalists would do well to emphasise it’s a a name NOT a Description!
Come on! The official name of Sweden is “Kingdom of Sweden,” ever heard that used on The BBC? “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?” Ever heard that used? It’s North Korea. Or DPRK. Also not democratic.
The point is not so much that The BBC is being sloppy or careless–it’s that they are not. WHY do they do this? With respect, I submit it is for woke reasons, to make this country in Africa appear “democratic” and reasonable, sharing our values. But it’s not….. And none of the commentators were able to convince me otherwise.
Republic of Congo (Brazzaville)
Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
And ‘Congo’, then ‘Belgian Congo’ as it was before being…’Zaire’. And the eponymous river. Style guides address this kind of mess for 1) for accuracy 2) simplicity 3) brevity. No rule applies.
So, easier to call this spade a spade as the general public will not easily get….DRC. Or know or care about its awful recent history, with countless deaths to make Play Stations.
Could it not just be that using the current name avoids confusion? The type that also arises when everything gets tarred as ‘woke’, a practice of crying wolf to everything that in turn is (in some mouths) as woke as True Woke – and just muddies the wokey waters with wonkery when real issues lurk unstirred in the sedimentary depths? Razia Iqbal is right. Not a Beeb fan, but don’t ‘do a Stock’ on her.
Exactly. It’s such a non-issue. Of all things to get into a lather about. Poor Ayaan. Hope she’s reading this huge side-bar to her good efforts.
Perhaps they do it because there are (or were when I last looked) TWO Congo republics. One – the DRC.- was formerly the Belgian Congo, the other was formerly the French Congo. So the Beeb has to distinguish them somehow, and “the former Belgian Congo” sounds a bit, well, “problematic” as they say these days.
To be honest, that is a bit of a trivial argument given all the issues we might well have with the BBC. You have put them in the right, the Democratic Republic of Congo IS correct – there is another Congo (Congo Brazzaville)! ‘The People’s Republic of China’ is that country’s official name. If there were two Swedens, we’d have to distinguish THEM.
Surely we don’t read too much into names. The United States of America isn’t very united!
Agree – but China might not be the best example. What we call China is PRC. Before the 70s official ‘China’ was ROC!
So what would you call it?
Most of the countries that have the word ‘democratic’ or even republic in their titles are the least so in the world. Do they honestly believe that or is it just a device to deceive their unfortunate citizens?
What about the United … as in states, which is not even a democracy, but a republic, where people for long were not even citizens but serfs, slaves even? Of course everyone there is irish now, according to Hollywood, out of some dreamt up common history – one quite different to be sure from that of the recently genetically revealed grandson of Sitting Bull. All very confusing, which leads one to wonder why we tilt at windmills while the real the big issues slip by daily.
The Mass Media of the West has perpetuated it’s downfall. They are the problem, not politicians or Activists, or Islamists or just idiots. In order to claim racism, homophobia, white privilege or woke you must have a platform, willing and able to not only give a voice but to stifle any dissent and vilify any dissenting voice. That has almost been fully accomplished banishing dissent to those of us who gather around and talk about what is wrong with the whole mess. Mass media controls much of the population, so much that they have brought us Joe Biden, a coup of the idiots and a justification of all the Media represents.
But I wonder who controls the media?
Also it is not just the media it is the civil service as well that only seems to have found its own agenda and only recruits individuals with the right views
I thought it might be Ofcom but when I pointed out that the BBC enforces its own agenda by manipulation of facts (giving instances), by selecting someone who is less informed and less articulate to oppose an issue the producer and presenters support (Today), I was told that that was not Ofcom’s role. I had to make a specific complaint about a specific programme.
Not sure if we have a controller behind the curtain. Since the 1930’s the West has been led to accept the collective over the individual. The power of the State to, “get things done” has been grown and enhanced by the left and aided and abetted by the right, all looking to be kinder and nicer than the other. Communism and Socialism are acceptable to the deep state, Academics, the Press and government workers. Now comes Woke Culture to apply the final solution to the opposition and fully destroy the rights of individuals in the name of makes us all equal. ( in our collective misery).
In the end, we the people are the problem for not standing up and fighting against this lunacy. I am encouraged, however, by the recent school board meetings filled with angry parents about the indoctrination going on at schools. It’s a start.
The problem is that our electoral system never offers us a choice and the only thing that makes our political class listen is the threat of violence.
The BBC sees itself as the caravan that moves heedless of the dogs that bark.
Campervan?
The author is right. Until we fight those seeking to disrupt and destroy the comparative harmony and racial tolerance in the UK through the introduction of pernicious racial doctrines developed in the US that has an entirely different history to ours we will be fighting Muslim extremism with one arm behind our backs. Prevent should start rooting out the racist diversity industry as propagators of hate speech.
With respect, I disagree with your invocation of “hate speech,” which seems to have no definition other than anything the extreme left objects to. Another definition might be anything that could possibly offend anyone at any time for any reason.
That doesn’t sound like free speech to me. Didn’t Enlightened England just send someone to prison for some months for online “hate speech?” How is that right? I don’t support racial abuse online or elsewhere, I wouldn’t do it, BUT not everything that I disagree with should be a crime. This is a dangerous, 1984 slippery slope. I definitely defend the right of this football hooligan to post what he wants online, free from fear, aside from imminent threats of violence.
Come on, mate. The UK has lost the plot with “hate speech.” And can we please stop using it as an accepted term given my definitions above?
Philosophically I agree with you. I would prefer to see open debate and disregard those simply peddling abuse. However, as you have observed open informed debate is not what is usually available on the BBC and other media instead the promotion of progressive agendas prevails.
The major promoters of hate are not the few widely despised idiots who want to abuse black footballers who miss goal kicks in the most irritating way they can think of but the whole “woke” industry.
citizensadvice.org.uk gives a definition of a hate incident that can be reported and investigated:
“Something is a racist or religious hate incident if the victim or anyone else thinks it was carried out because of hostility or prejudice based on race or religion.
This means that if you believe something is a hate incident, it should be recorded as such by the person you are reporting it to.” It goes on to say that:
“Racist or religious hate incidents can take many forms including:
It can be a one-off incident or part of an ongoing campaign of harassment or intimidation……You can also report a hate incident or crime even if it wasn’t directed at you………If you’re being repeatedly harassed by the same person or group of people it’s best to report all the incidents to help the police get the full picture…….If you’ve experienced acts of hostility or harassment because of race or religion at work, you may have a discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010……The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines anti-social behaviour as acting in a way that causes or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to someone else. This includes aggressive, intimidating or destructive activity that damages or destroys another person’s quality of life……Hate incidents happen because of hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. So, where acts of anti-social behaviour are motivated by hostility or prejudice, they become hate incidents. The police should therefore treat them as hate incidents rather than anti-social behaviour…..Sometimes hate incidents can be dealt with effectively using anti-social behaviour measures. However, where the behaviour is criminal, the police should always consider whether it’s a hate crime, or crime of any sort, and deal with it accordingly…..If you tell the police you think something is hate incident, they should record it as such. It doesn’t matter if the police officer dealing with the matter perceives it differently…..You don’t have to show evidence of prejudice or hostility to report a hate incident. However, when the police investigate the incident they will have to find evidence of prejudice or hostility to charge the offender with a hate crime.“
Is not compulsory diversity training based on Critical Race Theory which argues that the white race is unarguably racist whatever the individual white person believes both prejudiced against and hostile to the “white race”? Robin DiAngelo revels in the harassment and distress of white men and women when confronted with accusations of racism. Is this not clear evidence of harassment at the workplace and under the Crime and Disorder Act?
I don’t know how diversity training is conducted in the UK but if it is anything like the diversity training conducted by Robin DiAngelo it clearly constitutes a hate incident and probably a hate crime.
Instead of moaning about the woke propaganda those subjected to it and those offended by it on their behalf have the means to fight back. The law is there for use by all not just the “woke”. You may not approve of the legislation, but if it is there it should be used to fight against the pernicious doctrines spawned by Critical Race Theory. Prevent if it was doing its job would be doing precisely this.
“Something is a racist or religious hate incident if the victim or anyone else thinks it was carried out because of hostility or prejudice based on race or religion.
With respect, I think I disagree. This can mean absolutely anything. I am in favor of so-called “hate speech,” using my definition–or even the one above. “the victim or anyone else….” Come on, mate.
Virtually ALL of stand up comedy could be said to include an element of “hate speech.” Mocking religion–not Islam of course, because as Jimmy Carr put it–I’m not an idiot. Cartoons of Muhammed? Al Murray, though he comes pretty close to “offending” Islam. So what? Fair play! You might end up like Lars Vilks, but someone has to take one for the team. He certainly did.
Watch Steve Hughes on YouTube talk about being “offended. So what if you’re offended! Grow up! (Not you–figuratively).
If I say I went to Spain and observed the people to be warm, friendly, hard-working, family oriented, would that be wrong? Would that be “love speech?” Is that OK?
Similarly, if I went to Haiti, and based on my personal observations, I observed that Haiti was filthy, with open sewers, lazy and disgusting people sitting around waiting for the next NGO to build them a well, give them food, get them an exit visa, would that be hate speech? Please explain the distinction.
I’ve been trained as a barrister. I’m something of a free speech absolutist, believing that bad speech should be combatted by more and better speech, not criminalized. I was raised on Jackie Robinson stories which prized resiliency above almost all else–fight hard, overcome, prevail; no whining.
And the UK puts someone in prison for churlish, dumb behavior! I once thought the UK was a free country. No more.
That definition would appear to me to open the way for employees to report the organisers, providers, and HR department sponsors of diversity training as guilty of a hate incident, no? If the content expresses any animus towards whites, it is a slam dunk, surely?
It depends I think on exact nature of the training. If it is based on Robin DiAngelo’s approach where white participants are told that they are racist whatever beliefs they actually hold simply because of the colour of their skin then I consider this is precisely the sort of prejudice that is caught by the current UK legislation. Of course if it is some saner version, such as earnest warnings that those attending might have unconscious prejudices they should try to counter and suggestions that they try to avoid saying things which might offend people of a different colour to them, that would not provide grounds for legal action.
My wife worked for Social Services 20 years ago and a memo was received that no one should ask any client if they wanted black coffee or tea or white coffee or tea because it might offend someone black even if there was no black person there. Quite mad, but not something that could be reported as hate speech then or now.
I think we can co-opt the “hate speech” phrase, as it is out of the box now – say for instance anyone calling me white privileged when I am patently not. Turn their arguments against them. Black privilege? Being allowed to wear what the heck you like without being accused of ‘appropriation’ for instance.
Agreed. The author is perfectly correct – the modern Left, by blaming the West for all the ills of the world, is fanning the flames of Islamism. Worse, it is actively impeding the fight against it, hampering efforts to profile likely offenders, for example; but worse than all this, it stands in the way of border control, with bloated, loaded definintions of who is and who is not a refugee, lax permission to economic migration and no attempt of any kind to vet and evaluate the persons stampeding into our continent from across the Med. And at the bottom of this web of malice lies the pernicious doctrine of “Woke”, which in its open hostility to “whites”, “white” culture and “white” identity; in its conflation of that identity with alleged “supremacism”; in its assertion of collective, inherited “white” guilt; in its effort to hobble reply and self defence with insinuations of “fragility” is nothing more than a very old prejudice indeed, repackaged to include all European peoples, even those with no history of colonial expansion; even those who, like the Greeks, were victims of non-European imperialism; even the ancients, whose sculpture was criticised recently for being insufficiently “diverse”. The “Woke” are mentally sick and their doctrine is no better than anti-Semitism. If only we had a single political figure with the backbone and integrity to stigmatise “Woke” in this way, in spite of salary, perks and career, we might open up the debate again and call these people out.
It’s a shame that I can only upvote this once.
I second your upvote!
And I third it.
And I fourth it!!!!!
And fifth
And sixth it!
Amen brother!
I will add the “woke” to Michael Savage’s definition of what a mental disorder is.
There is a play called Biedermann and the Fire Raisers which needs to be revived, because it’s exactly about this. It was written after WW2 to expose ordinary Germans’ refusal in the 1930s to face what was going on, with calamitous results.
Of course the theatre industry is as woke as they come, so would certainly attempt to cancel any such attempted revival, and ruin the careers of those involved.
Indeed they would. Anyone who opposes the creeping totalitarian takeover is taken out and silenced – witness the fate of poor Professor Stock, sacked for giving utterance to an opinion, an opinion which happens to coincide with truth. And of course, the methods by which the takeover is protected and advanced are themselves totalitarian. How has this happened? By means of exploiting and distorting notions of courtesy and compassion. Once “charitable” convention had effectively outlawed certain views, jokes and agendas from “polite” society, the law moved in, to entrench convention with police involvement – see “hate crime”, so-called. It is a classic wedge operation, which may or may not have been calculated from the first but which is certainly deliberate now. The stage, publishing, advertising, academe, education, big business, the military and the remnants of the C of E are all now in the hands of intolerant charlatans, ruthlessly ruling out liberty and truth and thinking themselves the last word in “compassion” as they do it. Naturally, those who push the countervailing claims of fact, objectivity or debate are demonised as heartless and heartlessly condemned. Where does the wedge go from here? It is meeting the final resistance of a once free society, for whilst Stock may be silenced she cannot be imprisoned for her views – yet. The question is, therefore, how long have we got before varieties of more sanguinary oppression are brought to bear?
Belter!
Simon, superbly put.
The title of this article is “Progressives are a Gift to Islamism.” I’m not sure that’s true. I’d argue the vast, silent majority in the West are the true gift to Islamism.
We are cowed. We are deferential. We mutter the weakest complaint when yet another person is cancelled or more woke ideology is imposed on our school children. We offer almost no resistance to the progressives.
The real question raised by this article is stated, somewhat indirectly, in the final paragraph: “Until we decide that the West is worth defending…”
Is the West worth defending? Despite its historic achievements, are we witnessing the end of the experiment in Western liberal democracy: an atomized society, without unifying beliefs, whose greatest aspiration is the best deal in the post-Christmas sales?
Yes, I’m being deliberately provocative, but the question is real: is the West, in its current form, worth saving, and, if so, is each of us willing to do something, however small, to resist the progressives and begin the process of rebuilding our society?
No, not in its current form. That is why I am calling for the “divorce” of the USA, but predicting Civil War. USA not worth saving in its current form, and the same applies to other Western societies, or in the case of London, a non-Western society.
Since Brexit my have distanced the rest of Europe from the pernicious influence of the US maybe the Europeans now a chance of forming a new European identity free from toxic American ideologies.
Please do not give up on the USA just yet. (I say this as an Englishman living in Connecticut.)
There are still millions of people who believe in the Constitution and who are willing to fight for it.
It is not perfect, but what other country has such a firm foundation of principles to base their battle on?
The modern West emerged, not from the grand theorists or powerful leaders, but from revolution and popular struggle and the throwing off of tyrants. Current technocratic centralism has started a counter-reaction that is almost baked into our political DNA – liberty is always a stronger aspiration than economic security – we want to be free to make our own mistakes. I don’t think that will go away that easily.
That’s exactly where I’m at with it all these days-
The West will get what it deserves.
Cultural suicide.
Indeed – the Mill/Burke quote keeps coming to mind …
” The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”
Thank you J Bryant. Further comment would be superfluous. Hersch Schneider says the ‘west’ will incur the cultural suicide it deserves. But what about all the people in it. the children who are now growing up. Isn’t it time we put people before gods and ideologies, even before our self-indulgent guilt trips?
Excellent post.
The author omits perhaps the most important fact: that Western societies are fundamentally incompatible with large scale immigration from non-Western and Muslim countries. Teaching new immigrants only goes so far, not having them in the first place is or was the solution, but at least stop the madness.
Shappi Khorsandi is an immigrant worth having. She has completely assimilated, but has retained some spice from Iran, which she hilariously illustrates in her comedy. She looks at English culture with an insightful, loving eye, knowing and acknowledging how fortunate she was to be brought to the UK as a young child, as it perhaps saved the life of many in her family. Today’s immigration scammers, on a massive scale, hate the UK, hate white people and sometimes kill them in the name of radical Islam.
Enough already!
Sometimes I wonder whether our existing notions and the language we use is preventing us from accepting the present reality. The word ‘immigrant’ has a connotation that no longer feels appropriate. There are long traditions of immigration that have been positive in my country. I think mostly of immigrants who came from Poland, Belgium, Italy, and more recently Portugal. They contributed a lot. Aside from their family names, within generations they became indistinguishable from their neighbours. I cannot see any resemblance between these old immigrants and the current arrivals. Can we accurately call someone who forces their way across multiple borders, in search of maximum economic benefit, with no intention of ever contributing or joining the host society, an ‘immigrant’? Even ‘migrant’ seems wrong to me. I am reminded of how in Germany they used terms like ‘guest workers’ in the 80s and 90s. Of course, these ‘guests’ never left and many never ‘worked’ either. We should have learned by now and it’s time to be honest. Many of these people are a hostile presence. Look at the borders with Belarus and Turkey. If our enemies see these people as weapons of war, why don’t we?
Extremely well said! Sometime around the time of failed NYC Mayor David Dinkins, the “melting pot,” which you so accurately describe above, became, in his view the “gorgeous mosaic,” where cultures remain distinct. This laid the foundation, in a sense, for the divisions.
But there is hope! There are some multi-ethnic, multi-cultural societies that have prospered despite or even because of emphasizing these difference. Let’s look to the former Yugoslavia and Lebanon. They’ve done well! Oops, my bad, they had Civil Wars, which is why I often end my posts with “Lock and load!”
You might have also mentioned how once upon a time, the US had a draft which served many necessary purposes: first, give a shared common bond to almost all men, and second, prevent foolish wars that can be fought only because of the “poverty draft.” Saying that we have a professional military is the same as saying we have a poverty draft.
Israel uses the IDF to defend the country, but it has a much, much larger social cohesion effect, bringing VERY disparate people together with a common bond. Joining the IDF is like being bar mitzahed into Israel. Absolutely necessary for social cohesion, a common bond….
Maybe but I fear that instead of military service they would join Daesh
I think the terms should be colonists, colonisers and colonialists for that is the reality
I think this point has been made elsewhere, and the piece is well focused.
The response to the murder of Sir David Amess has been instructive. Apparently it’s all about online aggression, incivility, threats, trolls. Social media must do more to police online rudeness.
We have no hope if we can’t even name what killed him.
Somehow, across most western liberal democracies, our elected politicians, our media and our institutions – not to mention a whole swathe of the population – have become apologetic about our culture and our history.
Many institutions – including much of the teaching profession and across academia – are not merely apologetic but seem actively to despise the very system and culture that has nurtured them and allowed them to grow (into the spoiled, ungrateful brats they’ve become!)
It pains the ‘progressive’ left to admit such a thing but “Western Liberal Values” are demonstrably better for the people that live under them, than the various other ideologies and regimes elsewhere in the world.
The West has lost geo-political and cultural influence due in large part to the fact that the West has lost the confidence to demonstrate to the rest of the world that our values, our laws and our tolerance lead to better outcomes.
There are plenty of people who have concerns that mainstream Muslim opinion on a number of issues is categorically at odds with what the rest of us might deem basic, Western liberal values – but it is an extraordinary leap to go from that evident and demonstrable truth to get to the idea that any such criticism thus constitutes “Islamophobia”.
Yet the fear of being labelled such, helped on by useful idiots in the media and our national institutions, means society pretends not to notice what is happening before our eyes. Politicians and progressives, when another attack occurs, rushing out to insist “Islam is a religion of Peace” and pretending such attacks have “nothing to do with Islam” is quite demonstrably a dangerous fantasy.
Since the threat of Islamist terror came to our shores, Govts of Western liberal democracies have tried to ignore the fact that these jihadis explicitly commit atrocities in the name of their faith. The state seems reluctant to admit this obvious fact for fear of upsetting Muslim communities. Obviously, the vast majority of Muslims do not condone such atrocities, though it is a real problem so many seem reluctant to condemn their co-religionists publicly.
The only “reformed” Islamist I’m aware of is Majid Nawaz – though he came to the realisation himself, rather than being deradicalised by a kindly probation officer. If a man with such an obvious intellect, a man with such finely calibrated ethics, can be persuaded to the cause of Islamist extremism it only goes to show what an insidiously “attractive” ideology it can be if fed to a disaffected young man seeking answers.
As Steve Weinberg memorably put it …. “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.” It’s the cosmic equivalent of the Nuremberg defence. I was only following orders.
Once you have a person who genuinely believes that whatever evil they commit is divinely mandated then it’s impossible to convince them of their error. What earthly logic or reason is going to persuade someone who believes, as a matter of fundamentalist faith, that murdering unbelievers will earn them an eternity in paradise?
There will always be well-intentioned do-gooders who’ll suggest that we cannot give in to fear or hate and that we must try and reach out to such people. But we are dealing with people who believe – REALLY believe – in paradise for the faithful and eternal conscious-torment-in-fire for unbelievers. No amount of well-intentioned do-goodery on the part of the state will move them from that position one inch. What rational, temporal argument could one put forward that would be seen to countermand a spiritual, holy mission, if that is what the jihadi believes his actions to be?
Not being free to discuss that point is, itself, a real problem and only provides cover in which Islamic extremism can flourish in our midst, unchallenged.
Actually I don’t agree with Steve Weinberg, that last clause shoul;d read: but for good people to do evil – that takes a belief system. Any belief system will do, it doesn’t have to be religious, provided you hold it firmly enough, take it to extremes, and hate the other.
Fair point.
Just wanted to add that I thought the Swami Vivekananda quote you found was brilliant. It is so easy to imagine we’re facing new, unique problems in society – so its always fascinating (and perhaps consoling) to realise there is nothing new under the sun and almost all our problems have been faced and recognised by people who came long before us.
Like the Woke belief system? But that is also called a religion by many of us. I think Belief System is a bit too wide a description, because we all have a belief system.
Yes, and belief systems are created by coercing people into believing contradictory facts like ‘all genders can get pregnant’.
People who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities – Voltaire.
Making a note of that one by Voltaire.
Brilliant, thanks.
” What rational, temporal argument could one put forward that would be seen to countermand a spiritual, holy mission, if that is what the jihadi believes his actions to be?”
Very good question. There are theological reasons why Fr Hamel had his throat cut while saying Mass; crucifixes and altars are despoiled and churches burnt.
So why is it right not “do God” anymore or discuss theology? Where do western values come from? Do they really only date from the Enlightenment period? I doubt that “stone age beliefs” and “sky fairies” are a satisfactory answer to the likes of Majid Nawaz.
It would probably get censored but a more accurate title would be “Progressives are the Allies of Islamism”
I and others have often noticed a disconnect between the headlines and the content of the article. They are often not the best, and misleading in many cases.
Yes, I have noticed that they sometimes change *the title* but I still consider UnHerd much braver than most of the competitors.
*edited because I forget words…
And they’d be the first ones chucked off the rooftops
We all know that, if a certain number of us attempted to put that maxim [resist not evil] fully into practice, the whole social fabric would fall to pieces, the wicked would take possession of our properties and our lives, and would do whatever they liked with us. Even if only one day of such non-resistance were practiced, it would lead to disaster. … Not only so, it would be making men feel that they were always doing wrong, and cause in them scruples of conscience in all their actions; it would weaken them, and that constant self-disapproval would breed more vice than any other weakness would. To the man who has begun to hate himself the gate to degeneration has already opened; and the same is true of a nation. .
I though people might be interested in the above quote from Swami Vivekananda.- Karma Yoga (Annotated Edition) (p. 7). Kindle Edition.
I was particularly taken by the last sentence which I have high-lighted. This work was first published in in February 1896, so even then the problem of self-hatred was seen by some.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a perceptive and intelligent writer who always succeeds in sharing thoughts and ideas that most thinking and fairminded people have already pondered, even if we can’t put it as elequently as Ayaan.
And then there’s the comments from Unherd readers.
The quality is superb. Most of the comments are of a far higher standard than anything you’d read from a ‘professional’ journalist in a mainstream media paper and are far more enlightened. It is so good to read differing views expressed so well and I am grateful for the food for thought.
An excellent article.
We seem to relish emphasising the negative and denying the postiives about our society. This country is still an attractive destination for thousands of people across the world and it has been a pleasure over the years to meet migrants who have settled and succeeded adopting many of our positive cultural behaviours on the way.
It is indicative of the nihilism of our media and educational establishment that Trevor Phillips Report was discounted when, in fact, it should have been praised for showing that the majority of people in our society accept the minorities that have arrived here.
But this would not have suited the agenda of those whose positions and livelihoods depend on creating division and dissent.
Very good point, but the common misuse use of “we” is part of the problem.
It doesn’t beg the question “why do some – but others do not ?”
The poor old Christian West. What more could it have done? Can I say that? Maybe I’m now arrogant. But I don’t want to be cowardly. Besides, “Christianity” barely warrants a mention in the flow of articles and essays dealing with The Progressives and The Islamists. That’s right, let me give a capital P to the progressive types, now that we are all so familiar with each other. Mind you, going back forty years ago now, if you had heard on the street talk of “the progressives”, you probably would have thought it was another groovy pop or rock band on the rise. The picture painted today, however, is that culture is all grim, with very little cheer, and no cheery household names conspicuous anymore. Only grim and careful ones, their pained expressions evident on billboards, for example, in the drive to promote the latest show. They hog the headlines. In the old days (may I say even THAT with a sprightly voice?), household names, of whom the average American or Briton was fond, lifted the morale of the two nations against the backdrop of the Cold War. I fear now that The Progressives and their milieu do not smile at all. Grimness is all the rage! The vast modern entertainment industry, that began with Charlie Chaplin really (the most famous person in the world at one point), is as good as done. Dusted. The West has simply lost its mojo. To put it bluntly. Was it, in the grand scheme of things, a lost cause in terms of the great attempts in the West to bring a little cheer, a little razzmatazz into otherwise bleak-looking homes? The West tried. The poor old West. Once a little wild, now very riled.
Or, to put it bluntly, west is best and people better start roaring it from the heights. And it’s still best when you control for all the bad stuff it’s done.
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Howard Beal
Why would feminists and LGBT types defend importing people who are the submissive adherents to misogynistic and anti democratic medieval societies? It’s because the abstract niton of rights has bern deeply misunderstood. That and ignorance of history. Let’s study human oppression but ALL of it- eg the destruction of the West African Songhai Empire by Moroccan Muslims that caused widespread intern slavery amongst African groups. The Portuguese turned up and found a flourishing slave trade- they simply followed the norms amongst those tribes after the muslim invasion of that area. Why no modern black population in Arabia when millions were trafficked via muslim Zanzibar? Castrated and worked to death.
‘Rights’ now means ‘the right not to be offended’.
Your points would apply also to those who want to publicise the involvement in slavery of e.g. Colston. The woke and anti-woke are equally guilty of reactionary politics, IMO.
It is because “woke” is a mental disorder. There really is no other plausible explanation for actively supporting the very people who wish to eliminate you in your own country.
This needs to be repeated
“Islamism, in essence, is a political philosophy, one that is rooted in jihad but seeks to describe how society should be run. It is more than an irrational and violent ideology: it is an attack on liberalism itself.”
it is not the “religion of peace”
Correct. It is both a religion and form of government. That is why they cannot even conceive of the idea of “Separation of Church and State”.
The utter arrogance and delusion, or malignant intention, of our leaders and much of the media truly is a gift to the enemies of the remnants of a once liberal, free and democratic West. That many of those enemies are born and bred westerners is the result of years of indoctrination and manipulation.
Islam means submission. The covid era, with its unprecedented levels of censorship, policing, draconian withdrawal of basic rights and freedoms (please note that even “the opportunity to die peacefully….. surrounded by our family.” was withdrawn for thousands for no good reason.) made it crystal clear that we are set on a path that requires a submissive population that dares not even question even the most absurd demands put upon it. For example: the Covid vaccines stop neither infection nor transmission and yet the ‘double vaccinated’ do not have to self-isolate for ten day where the disobedient ‘unvaccinated’ must.The incremental push to mandatory vaccination and universal bio-metric information passports is all part of this trend.
I have felt for a long time that there was something sinister in the determination of many to see no cause for concern with Islam despite the stark and glaring truth as to the unimaginable hardship and barbarous reality of life for multitudes born into islamic countries such as Somalia. The naivety of gullible and uninformed Westerners has made them vulnerable to manipulation. Personally, I do not see a way out of this now.
Someone once said that fascism is the marriage of state and corporate power whereas islamism is the marriage of state and one religion. I suppose to that we could add that Communism is the supremacy of state ownership and state power that demands the worship of all citizens.
There is something that binds these three evils that have afflicted countless generations: it is the wilful abuse of power to the detriment of the lives they rule over.
I’m just reading Daniel Hannan’s book ‘How the British invented freedom and why it matters’ and it’s a really interesting account of a peculiarly British way of seeing things that comes directly from the bottom up, not the top down, as in most societies. The divides in our culture that persist even today, can be directly traced back to religious division (Catholicism and rule from Rome, versus Protestantism) and the Anglo-Saxon determination to win their freedoms back from Norman conquerors. Really eye-opening stuff.
Perhaps it is this ‘peculiar British way of seeing things that comes directly from the bottom up’ that the likes of our globalist masters have sought to extinguish with mass immigration and neo-marxist indoctrination across academia and media?
Great article as usual, and it brings to mind something that we need to face up to: the process of radicalisation is not something restricted to Islamism, but is equally apparent in the education sector. The process by which a person is progressively mentally stunted into the condition of Wokeness, is no more and no less a radicalisation process than is the Islamist variety – albeit without the inclusion of direct violence.
This is one further reason why it is very difficult to point at Islamist radicalisation as being a unique example of cynical and ruthless intellectual and emotional abuse of the susceptible: we’ve been tolerating such nonsense in our own institutions for years.
I am not, of course, drawing complete moral equivalence between the two things here: there is a very big difference between enforcing your ludicrous belief system upon others by petitioning to get heretics fired from their jobs as opposed to stabbing them to death or wandering into a crowded space and blowing yourself up. All I’m saying is that the two things do occupy the same spectrum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_(film)
PS: The above link is a film about British white working-class history! When a small ruling class were ‘evil’ and stompping around in ‘their Empires’, profiting from it, the majority of our pre -descendants were being treated just as badly during the Industrial Revolution, by the same elites.
A swift study of our Working-class history would change the perspective of the jihadists that ‘all whites are evil’.
Gandhi was shocked to see the poverty when he visited Britain and Charles Dickens wrote about it at length.
The Mike Leigh film ‘The Peterloo massacre’ (a true story – one of many that happened when poor ppl fought back with no weapons btw) should be on the school curriculum. The French Revolution too! Les Miserables
Just 2 things:
Indeed. For an example you might want to read the following survey by the City of Edinburgh :- https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/edinburgh-slavery-and-colonialism-legacy-review-on/
Robert Burns is a target because he applied for a job in Jamaica, also the Royal College of Physicians as it supplied doctors for the evil empire, even the Royal Botanic Gardens with plants from India is guilty of imperialism . I kid you not.
With this degree of self-loathing, no wonder the West is held in contempt.
The woke and anti-woke are equally guilty of reactionary attitudes on this. To say that we should not highlight uncomfortable historical truths about heroes is a lack of academic rigour and ignoring the perspectives of those missed out. Likewise, demonising those figures and demanding their removal from public life is an extreme response.
I agree that when discussing an historical person and event all aspects should be discussed, but that is not what is happening, there has been a deliberate policy of presenting only the negative aspects, most of which I was taught at school in the 1960s (pace what “woke” activists believe). I know we could argue that in the past only one aspect, the positive one, was presented, but as I have said it wasn’t so in the second half 20th century and two wrongs don’t make a right (as my mum always said to us kids)
On the subjuct od statues, when one is raised to an historical figure it is often for a particular achievement, e.g. Nelson and Trafalgar, so that person’s views on any other subject are not relevant to the statue – if the statue were raised for Nelson’s stellar work on universal human rights and then his views on slavery were dicovered then it’s dismantling would be justified, otherwise not.
First confression, then forgivenes. The latter seems to be missing.
I agree. Forgiveness requires confession of one’s wrong, willingness to recieve a just punishment, and determination not to commit the wrong again. In the case of terrorists they fit none of these prerequisits (or at least I’ve not heard of any that do, maybe there are some that are not publicised). Additionally one person cannot forgive a wrong done to someone else, so it’s not possible to forgive the death of a child only the grief that death has caused to yourself. This is, of course, entirely up to the individual, but I would find it impossible if, at the very least, some expression of sorrow wasn’t forthcoming. I have also heard from those who know more than I on the subject that hatred only harms the person hating not the object of that hate; but hatred is not the same as un-forgiveness – I could live with the latter, I’m not sure about the former.
An individual must do what is the best for his or her own well being, but the state has a higher duty to all of the community and must do what is best for that, which may well be very different from the actions of a single person.
Nice Work If You Can Get It = Edinburgh reviewers
Thank you Ayann.
It seems, unlike other faiths, Islam has not progressed or compromised any of its key tenents to adjust to and embrace an evolving and changing landscape.
We continue to give a platform to the spewers of hate and in doing so, allow more young Muslims to become radicalised. Why aren’t these peddlers of destruction in Belmarsh Prison chained to a wall?
Every morning and evening, the mosques are full and new mosques are being built to accommodate the growing Muslim communities across the country.The Mosques do nothing to promote inclusivity, diversity and tolerance but consolidate divsion, difference and ‘ the one’ true way’.
Anybody who thinks the Muslim community are going to embrace Western Values and adapt their relegion accordingly are as dangerous as the relegion itself. Meanwhile Prevent, still claims the biggest terrorism threat to the U.K is from white supremacists. Really? What complete and utter politically correct hogwash. The threat is overwhelmingly coming from the Mosques in the U.K and from online Islamic chatrooms.
I wonder, what has Islam given the West? Why do we pander to it? It seems to have its vice like grip and tentacles wrapped around the ruling parties throats who protect it and are desperate to embrace its ‘values’ and understandings, promoting it as the relegion of peace. Reality doesn’t tend to support this assumption.
When the numbers tilt the balance, and its only a matter of time, the values the Liberals and woke culture claim to hold so dear will be the very values that cancel them and in particular, the groups that Western society has worked so hard to protect and give a voice to.
Meanwhile Islam is sitting back and watching the liberal progressives sow division and discord amongst the flock and in doing so, helping to reinforce the teachings and goals of Islam. Islam is on the March, in Turkey and Egypt Christianity is being wiped out and in Europe, the biggest Mosques being built in Germany, France and Belgium have been designed and funded by the Saudis who continue to build Mosques at will.
The way in which the West is eroding its core values to avoid confronting this growing threat is cowardice.
A timely wake-up call. To my mind there are 2 contributory problems; religion in the UK is primarily the CofE and the RC church. Both have had their teeth pulled by the ongoing effects of the Enlightenment, so ‘religion’ is generally thought of as fairly harmless, something Muslims capitalise on with the mantra of ‘peace-loving moderate Muslims’. The other is that for a hard core of Left wing ideologues, Islam is seen as the last best hope of destroying Western capitalism.
We need to do a number of things; firstly, hold a thoroughgoing public inquiry into the aims, principles, preaching, practices, funding etc of Islam and Islamic organisations in the UK so that we know and understand what we are dealing with.
The second is to phase out all ‘faith’ schools, and impose controls on the teaching of religion to children.
Then we need to remove ‘beliefs’ from the list of protected characteristics. Skin colour, age, height, biological sex etc are characteristics over which we have no choice. Beliefs aren’t, so should be open to question whether they are political, religious, racist, nationalist, whatever.
Finally, we need to identify common long term goals we can get behind. The ‘next world’ is this world in the near future, and working towards a better world is one such goal. But it needs hard questions to be asked about humanity’s part in that world, not least the numbers. Here the UK can set an example, by working towards a manageable, sustainable population level, and then promoting the quality and quantity of all life, not just more and more of ‘us’.
“The second is to phase out all ‘faith’ schools, and impose controls on the teaching of religion to children.”
Why? Are Anglicans shouting “Praise be Jesus Christ” as they drive into passers by? Are the Sikhs and Jews blowing up pop concert goers? Or is it the Quakers?
Might it not be better to remove all protected characteristics since it appears sex is no longer regarded as immutable and skin colour can certainly be modified as millions who lie in the sun or under sun beds can testify, quite apart from the evident skin colour transformation achieved by Michael Jackson. Why fetishise a feature that has no bearing on any important human characteristic.
I’m moving to Poland
That probably means something like Poland, Idaho. Does it?
Islam did not spread from a couple of cities in the Arabian desert to half the world by staying at home. Maybe it gave people in Middle-East, India and parts of Africa and South-East Asia an ‘invitation they could not refuse’. It is riven by internal conflict which is unlikely ever to be resolved. After all, there can be only one fundamental truth. This may eventually lead to its demise, or it may become sidelined by the individualism of affluence and common access to knowledge as Christianity has. However, this could take centuries. Christianity lost credibility three centuries ago, but the predations of ‘Christian’ empires are still historically recent, though increasingly rejected by their populations. Islam may see itself as the natural successor, but its narrow and rigid totalitarianism makes it a different animal, more like a Christian fundamentalist cult except with billions instead of thousands of adherents. Britain is a land of confusion even more than before Brexit. I can imagine it, in the distant future, submitting to Sharia just for a quiet life, finding thereby a new purpose and turning into an offshore menace to the continent of Europe (novel, anyone?). However, China definitely won’t back down. probably Russia and India won’t. Maybe the USA won’t. Can’t we, with social roots going back 4000 years and intellectual roots 2500 years, find as good a justification for our existence as them?
The novel is ‘1985’, Anthony Burgess. A quaint read these days.
The crowning success of the West is that it is a civilisation that is now supremely indifferent to religion, even though each of its individual successes are due to how Christianity has affected custom, habit and law over many centuries.
The practice of religious ritual and religiously-mandated behaviour relieves the practitioner of the troubling responsibility of deciding whether these things are right or not. That has already been decided by others. The experimental lives promoted by the progressives discomfit those who want this form of relief.
Ms Ali writes that a young man was ‘driven’ to murder others, as if he had no agency himself. The Equality Act 2010 that has made all religions equal should be enough to satisfy any reasonable person.
All the Quakers could be on drugs or be mentally ill or both, as well as being dyed-in-the-wool liberals on top of believing there’s no frivolity in Christianity, and still they wouldn’t use a home-made bomb to murder children having a fun night out.
As C S Lewis put it, if there really was a God who countenanced such deaths, then it would be the duty of everyone to resist such a deity.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali I admire you. I thank you for bravely sticking up for our Culture. A person who is constantly criticised will lose confidence in her self. A country will also. A bit of appreciation does not go amiss.
Well said. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a very gutsy lady who speaks with experience and authority. The subsequent posts might have included a little more praise for her in my view. I intend to listen to her very closely in future.
Bravo, Ayaan! Those citizens who decry the West, dismiss it as oppressive and imperialist wouldn’t last a day in Somalia or similar places.
Good article: thanks! The problem with progressives is that they believe in progress and they also believe that they are in the “van of progress”. The rest of us, the believe, will eventually follow where they lead. This makes progressives blindly arrogant. Thus they assume that integration problems are a temporary blip that will disappear spontaneously. The Manchester bomber is an example of what goes wrong: Gadaffi expelled a group of Islamist extremists and when they sought refuge in the UK, our progressives could not foresee any potential issues arising.
A great read.
Absolutely right.
Thank you Freddie and Ayan for this excellent interview. I too had been wondering why the brutal murder of DA had so quickly been ‘forgotten’.
Yes, thank you Freddie and Ayaan and UnHerd.
What a truly great interview!
As time goes on, and as secularism continues to displace our Christian roots, I am beginning to contemplate that the West has, in fact, become something not worthy of defending after all. This is a very new thought for me, but one that is based on seeing before my own eyes where we are headed.
If censorship and political correctness continues to run amok, and the democratic process is pushed aside in order to usher in a new way of governing, which anyone with a pulse knows where, then what good are we?
When enough of us are too pre-occupied with our 401-k balances, status of our homes and cars, or what bodily alteration we need to make ourselves more attractive, rather than to do anything about this existential threat, then what good are we really?
The only thing we have to look forward to is the inevitable Revival, which is likely to come well after I am gone.
Good article, and I agree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s thesis: that the ‘West’ must learn to defend itself and proclaim its virtues: democracy, free speech, human rights, equality and the rule of law, make for an incomparably better civilisation than authoritarian or faith-based societies.
Perhaps we could though also seek out allies amongst the many Muslims who not only desire the same but wish also to discover those attributes in the well-springs of their own faith. Regrettably, too much of the West’s view of Islam is derived from the Islamist side, whether it be Salafist, Wahhabi or Deobandi, it leaves unsighted on other traditions, and a lot of modern Muslim thinking, that rejects Islamism.
This is not to establish any false equivalence but, just as we should be as aware of our failings, as of our virtues, so we should when dealing with the Muslim world; it is not an undifferentiated mass of bearded, jihadist crazies, though those do, undoubtedly, exist. Those many Muslims who reject the siren calls of the jihadists need to be sought out and encouraged.
Let the jihadists then find-out their natural allies, the Wokists; they deserve each other.
Such a good article! Such discourteous arguments in the comments! What delights!
Boiling a lot of this down, I feel surrounded by fanatics who just take the fun out of everything. When the fun is taken out of everything, well you just got to smile !
They cannot stop me smiling can they?
The West, hmmm, the Christian West will have the last laugh, precisely because they do laugh, there.
I … wonder what they’re singin’.
Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful day
I’ve got a wonderful feeling …
everything’s going my way
Well said, a good parallel to draw out.
The good news is the “progressives” hold a world view so far from the mainstream Muslim let alone the swivel eyed fringe that they exist in a state of tension. The “progressives” championing of homosexuals, drug addicts and petty thieves mean that neither they nor the fringe Islamists can exist whilst the other survives. This is a positive thing. The Mujhadeen & other Afghan rebel groups did a great job retaking their land from Russia and USA (and Persia, Macedonia & several Khans over the last 2500 years). They would make short work of the woke. The woke/progressives continually ideate violence and laud those who do it. Fringe Islamists are as good an antidote to them as i can think of, certainly better than any paid joe with a gun or “liberal” cop.
An important issue that is easily forgotten is how much the “Christian west” has attacked the Muslim world over the years. We have intervened in the lives of numerous countries with large Muslim populations throughout Africa and Asia for hundreds of years, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent people. The reverse is not true. We have not treated Muslim lives as equal to our own and show little sign of changing our spots.
Perhaps the Persians of antiquity would have disagreed. Iran today might be better off with the Persian’s home-grown religion.
How many black slaves were taken to the Ottoman Empire from Africa? Why are there no descendants of theirs today in Turkey, as there are in the USA?
That’s a different point.
There is a ‘Muslim world’, or you might also say, the world of Islam. Is there a ‘Christian world’? Does ‘the world of Christianity’ exist? If it does, does it exist or operate in the way ‘the world of Islam’ does? Today? There are thousands upon thousands of various Christian communities around the world today. Do they together make up ‘the Christian world’? Or do they only contribute, as one entity among several secular ones, to the make-up of the ‘Christian West’? Such a description, increasingly a moniker as secularism gains a stronger hold, was never, I feel, looked upon as ‘the Christian world’ in earlier or slightly earlier times. In history, perhaps as Christendom. Such a place, a Christian world, may only be possible when God’s kingdom is established in this our world.
The italicising of “Christian west” in your post I think indicates your belief that Christianity had not been in the bones of those in power in European countries that had branched out forcefully into Muslim territories or countries over the centuries. Is, nevertheless, Germany, a former coloniser of Africa never mind Europe, a Christian country? Or had it only been way in the distant past? When Christmas carols were coming into vogue? Has it only ever been, in sum, a “Christian country”? A small part of ‘the Christian west’? Is Turkey a Muslim country? Or had it stopped being so when it drove out the minority Armenians in the 1910s/20s?
I don’t exactly know what I’m driving at in perhaps my nit-picking of your post. Perhaps when I read the phrase “the Muslim world”, I see a huge, big religious worldwide community of like-minded people, souls, bigger in scope than what was traditionally seen as the Muslim world. And when I read of the Christian West, whether italicised or not, whether “West” is written with a small ‘w’, I believe a decadent civilisation is now chiefly viewed upon, one that Christianity had the misfortune to get caught up in by giving it the breathing space to grow. The word “civilisation” has notably of late been spat out ironically, by vehement anti-westerners, many of whom are western woke folk. Certainly, since the West is now seen as a feckless, selfish, detrimental, blameworthy and guilt-ridden place in so many ways, such that enough people think that they can conveniently refashion it to their particular or strange tastes. Wait now for Christianity to be given short shrift by being given a small ‘c’ by the progressive-inclined. Strangely, veteran commentators on international affairs who are from the Middle East might be the last sizeable group of people who might say out loud ‘the Christian West’ without any ironic tones in their enunciation of it.
Christianity is based on love. Love for one’s fellow man. Woman and all that, yes, yes, I know. If you want to avoid being a second-class citizen in this world, then the West is probably the best place to reside in. The poor old Christian West.
I used the “Christian west” to refer loosely to countries whose majority culture stems from Christianity, whether or not there is much practice of the faith any more. I think it still has a cultural and political relevance. I think white English people feel more affinity to the Greeks than Syrians, for example, and that is one factor in why we are much more willing to bomb the latter than the former.
I mainly agree but the middle ground also acknowledges some of the woke agenda as real. Racism is a reality for many non-white people in their lives in the UK e.g. in recruitment, and it is sensible to counteract the amnesia about the impact of colonialism e.g. by educating ourselves on other perspectives on colonial historical figures.
Johnson et al need to stop dog whistles (but they won’t) and stop deepening divisions for political gain. But equally, the left’s embrace of CRT is fatal for societal healing.
Would also be useful to address the issues as seen by those people with grievances. e.g. we’ve never really faced up to the reality of atrocious “mistakes” like the Iraq war, which killed huge numbers of Muslims.
I rate Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her views, but it’s worth remembering that she’s reviled by the vast majority of Muslims who know of her. One of them told me the other day that she’s Somalia’s “Katie Hopkins”, though that lady also agreed with her fully on FGM. I don’t know how she can mend fences with Muslims but it would be nice if she could. Perhaps she is on this path – I don’t know. I wish her well, anyway.
Why mend fences with vicious mediaeval bigots?
Not with them, no, but with ordinary Muslims, who are not vicious medieval bigots.