A note from Fjordman concerning this post:
I have been criticized for doing good analyses of the situation in the West, but not giving good enough answers to exactly what we should do about the situation.
The following is a very rough first draft. I would be happy to get feedback, including criticism, from readers, in order to prepare a more thorough post later on.
We live in the age of the retreat of the Western world order. The West is declining as a percentage of world population, and in danger of being overwhelmed by immigration from poorer countries with booming populations. Westerners need to adjust our self-image to being just one of several powerful civilizations in the 21st century. As such, we also need to ditch Messianic altruism: We have no obligation to “save” the Islamic world, and do not have the financial strength or the demographic numbers to do so even if we wanted to.
We are not all-powerful and are not in the position to help all of the Third World out of poverty, certainly not by allowing all of them to move here. The West must first of all save itself. We need to regain our cultural confidence and reject Multiculturalism. End the nonsense of “celebrating our differences.” We should be celebrating our sameness.
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We should clean up our history books and school curricula, which have been infected with anti-Western sentiments.
We should take a break from massive immigration, also non-Muslim immigration, for at least a generation, in order to absorb and assimilate the persons we already have in our countries. This is first of all a practical issue, as the West is becoming so overwhelmed by immigration that this may, and probably will, trigger civil wars in several Western nations in the near future. We already have massive Third World ghettos in our major cities. Future immigration needs to be more strictly controlled and ONLY non-Muslim. There is no reason to allow a single Muslim to enter our lands.
This immigration break should be used to demonstrate clearly that the West will no longer be the dumping ground for excess population growth in other countries. We have cultures and countries that we’d like to preserve, too, and cannot and should not be expected to accept unlimited number of migrants from other countries. We are under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to take a single immigrant if we do not want to. We should also use this respite to gradually make illegal immigrants leave. But above all, we should use the time to make the West Islam-unfriendly and implement a policy for the containment of Dar al-Islam.
The best way to deal with the Islamic world is to have as little to do with it as possible. We should ban Muslim immigration. This could be done in creative and indirect ways, such as banning immigration from nations with citizens known to be engaged in terrorist activities. We should remove all Muslim non-citizens currently in the West. We should also change our laws to ensure that Muslim citizens who advocate sharia, preach Jihad, the inequality of “infidels” and of women should have their citizenship revoked and be deported back to their country of origin
Westerners need to create an environment where the practice of Islam is made difficult. Muslim citizens should be forced to either accept our secular ways or leave if they desire sharia. Much of this can be done in a non-discriminatory way, by simply refusing to allow special pleading to Muslims. Do not allow the public call to prayer as it is offensive to other faiths. All children, boys and girls should take part in all sporting and social activities of the school and the community. Companies and public buildings should not be forced to build prayer rooms for Muslims. Enact laws to eliminate the abuse of family reunification laws.
As columnist Diana West points out, we should shift from a pro-democracy offensive to an anti-sharia defensive, and amend our laws to bar further Islamic immigration, beginning with immigration from sharia states. Calling this the War on Terror was a mistake. We need to give it another name, maybe “War of Self-Defense against the Jihad.” Another possibility is “War against Apartheid.” [Baron Bodissey’s two cents: Call it “Take Back the Culture.”] Given sharia’s inequality between men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, it is de facto a religious apartheid system. Calling this struggle a self-defense against apartheid would make it more difficult for Western Leftists to dismiss it. We should also focus on how ex-Muslims are treated just like runaway slaves: Harassed, beaten, and frequently murdered in their quest for freedom.
People should be educated about the realities of Jihad and sharia. Educating non-Muslims about Islam the way www.faithfreedom.org and Jihad Watch are doing is probably more important than educating Muslims, but we should do both. Authorities or groups of dedicated individuals should engage in wholesale efforts to explain the real nature of Islam. Popular education in the tenets of Islam, emphasizing the division that Islam teaches between Believer and Infidel, the permanent state of war between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, the uses of taqiyya and kitman as religious deception.
As Hugh Fitzgerald says, we should explain why Islam encourages despotism (because allegiance is owed the ruler as long as he is a Muslim), economic paralysis, intellectual failure (the cult of authority, the hostility to free and skeptical inquiry) and moral failure in Islamic countries. Let Muslims themselves begin slowly to understand that all of their political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures, of their states, of their societies, whether in Dar al-Islam or Dar al-Harb, are a direct result of various Islamic doctrines and assumptions.
We should exploit the many fissures between Shias and Sunnis, and between Arabs and non-Arab Muslims by pointing out all the ways in which Islam is a vehicle for an Arab supremacist ideology. Divide and conquer. Divide and weaken. Divide and demoralize.
We also need to deprive Arabs and Muslims as much as possible of Western jizya in various forms. Which means ending foreign aid, but also institute a Manhattan Project to become independent of Arab oil.
And once again, as Mr. Fitzgerald asks: “What would the rich Arabs do if the Western world decided to seize their property in the West as the assets of enemy aliens, just as was done to the property owned not only by the German government, but by individual Germans, during World War II? And what would they do if they were to be permanently deprived of easy access to Western medical care?”
I have heard comments that it is impossible to contain the Islamic world behind some artificial Maginot Line. When the Mongols could simply go around the Great Wall of China during the middle ages, it will be impossible to contain anybody in the 21st century, with modern communication technology.
I understand this objection. No, it won’t be easy, but we have to at least try. Perhaps the spread of nuclear technology will trigger a large-scale war with the Islamic world at some point. The only way to avoid this is to take steps, including military ones, to deprive Muslims of such technology.
I’m tired of hearing the “You turn into what you fight” argument. The British, the Americans and the Canadians didn’t become Nazis while fighting Nazi Germany, did they? They bombed the crap out of the Nazis, and then went home. The truth is, we will become like Muslims if we DON’T keep them out of our countries, since they will subdue us and Islamicize us by force.
The West isn’t feared because we are so oppressive, we are despised because we are perceived as being decadent, weak and pathetic.
Muslim nations believe that they can hide behind non-state terrorist groups, secretly funded by Muslim states, and watch us chase shadowy terrorist groups while continuing to sponsor terrorism. They get away with it because they’re not scared of us. No, not just Europeans, but Americans, too.
Westerners want to be liked, while most of the world either hates us or despises us. We’re the schmucks of the planet. People can just squeeze us for money, walk across our borders at will and shout “racism” if anybody tries to stop them, but at the same time heap abuse on the citizens of that country.
Why should Muslims be scared of the West? I wouldn’t be. Yes, we should implement a policy of containment of the Islamic world, but for this to work we will occasionally have to take military action to crush Arab pretensions to grandeur.
The Buddhists of Central Asia undoubtedly held the “moral high ground” in relations to Muslims. They are all dead now. In the end, it is possible that we will win or lose by the sword. At the very least, we must be prepared to back up our ideological war with force on certain occasions. Holding a higher moral standard isn’t going to defeat an Iranian President with nukes, threatening another Holocaust.
Writer Raymond Kraft explains Western softness very well: The Islamic movement “has turned the civility of the United States and Europe into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. We have become too civilized to defeat our enemies, perhaps too civilized to survive.”
By the Management of Savagery, it can foment endless incidents of terrorism year after year, decade after decade, until Westerners are worn down, exhausted, demoralized, and no longer have the political will to keep trying to defend Western Civilization.
Kraft thinks we are naïve in believing that the deeds of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the whole Islamic Jihad, are done by a bunch of “non-state actors.” In real life they’re agents of nation states (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, China, North Korea, at least) who want to weaken the West by a proxy war.
The Chinese and the Russians do not want to fight an open war with the Americans, but they would be hugely pleased to see the United States cut down to size a bit, until it is about as much a threat to anybody as the European Union is now, “so the Chinese and Russians can run the global show as they see fit, ration the oil, and pocket the profits.”
There is, however, a big difference: The Islamic world always has been our enemy and always will be. China and Russia do not have to be our enemies, although our relations will be complicated because of their size and their own Great Power ambitions. We can, at best, persuade them that directly opposing us isn’t going to pay off.
Although the West should limit immigration in general and first of all take care of its own interests, this does not mean that we should isolate ourselves in global affairs. The United Nations is heavily infiltrated by Islamic and anti-Western groups. We should starve it for funds, ridicule it at any given opportunity and de-legitimize it as much as possible.
As an alternative to the UN, we could create an organization where only democratic states could become members. This would automatically exclude pretty much all of the Islamic world. Another possibility is an expansion of NATO. The most important principle at this point is to isolate and contain the Islamic world. We simply cannot allow our enemies to have direct influence over our policies, which they partly do through the UN.
What the West should do is to enter into strategic alliances with non-Western states that share some of our political ideals and goals. We might consider some non-Muslim Asian nations such as Japan and India, perhaps also Thailand and the Philippines. We will, however, still need some understanding with Russia and China and some mechanism for consultations with both of them. Perhaps, instead of any new and formalized organization, the most important countries will simply form ad hoc alliances to deal with issues as they arise.
For Europe, the most important thing to do right now is to dismantle the European Union in its present form, and regain national control over our borders and our legislation. The EU is so deeply flawed as an organization, and so infiltrated by Eurabian and pro-Islamic thinking that it simply cannot be reformed. Europeans have little or no chance of regaining control over our own future, far less of implementing a proper control over Muslim immigration, before the EU has been discredited and perhaps destroyed.Europeans also need to ditch the welfare state, which is probably doomed anyway. The welfare state wasn’t all bad, but it belongs to a specific historical epoch that we are now rapidly leaving behind. The welfare state economies will become less competitive in a world of several billion new capitalists in low-cost countries. Besides, the welfare state creates a false sense of security in a dog-eat-dog world, and it breeds a passivity that is very dangerous in the fight against Jihad. It may also indirectly contribute to the low birth rates in many European countries.
We should use the money instead to strengthen our border controls and rebuild credible militaries. Western Europeans have lived under Pax Americana for so long that we have forgotten how to defend ourselves. This needs to change, and soon.
Europeans should also adopt legislation similar to the First Amendment in the American Constitution, securing the right to free speech. The reason why European authorities are becoming increasingly totalitarian in their censorship efforts is to conceal the fact that they are no longer willing or able to uphold even the most basic security of their citizenry. We need to get rid of hate speech laws. Europe needs free speech more than ever.
35 comments:
I'd like to ask Fjordman if he thinks that even if Europe takes these steps, will it be saved from Islamofascism?
Even if they stop immigration, just the sheer numbers of Muslims in France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden, combined with their much higher birthrates, would already seem to guarantee two things:
a) They are too numerous and powerful to crack down on them now.
b) Since they won't accept a crackdown, or forced acculturation, and have a far higher birth rate, even without immigration, they will become majorities by 2040-2050.
Thus, (if Fjordman is kind enough to respond), are we talking about steps to save ALL of Europe, or only those portions of it east of the Oder River?
You are guilty of the unforgiveable crime of telling the truth. Good job and apreciate it.
Indeed....there is no need to outnumber or to crack down on all muslims.
It is only the Jihadist that is at the root and it is mainly the appologist Liberal Left who are our main problem.
Discredit the Liberal Left and the battle is well begun.
Zerosumgame: As much of Europe as possible. Some parts will bleed heavily, other parts may be lost:
Symposium: The Death of Multiculturalism?
I do, unfortunately, agree with Hedegaard that we have already passed the point of no return for serious conflicts caused by Muslim immigration. Anything we do now is damage limitation. A Multicultural society is only temporary. Sooner or later, we will return to a new mono-cultural society. This will happen either through the division of the previously coherent territory into new, mono-cultural enclaves or through the takeover by society as a whole of the most forceful and aggressive of these competing cultures.
My personal view is that the Jihad riots in France in 2005 could be interpreted as the early stages of a civil war, one of several Eurabian civil wars to come. What will happen to the hundreds of French nuclear warheads? Will they be used to intimidate the rest of the West?
Maybe future historians will dub this the Multicultural World War. I find this to be a more accurate term than "The Islamic World War" because what is causing this world war is Western cultural weakness more than Islamic strength. The wars in the Balkans in the 1990s will in hindsight be seen as a prelude to the Multicultural World War.
It could be similar to the division of India after WW2, with the creation of one or several Islamic "Pakistan" enclaves. All of Europe will not be lost, but some parts may be, and many others will be damaged by the fighting. Many of our cultural treasures will burn.
It is possible that those regions of Europe where the infidels are strong enough will copy the Benes Decrees from Czechoslovakia in 1946, when most of the so-called Sudeten Germans, some 3.5 million people, had shown themselves to be a dangerous fifth column without any loyalty to the state. The Czech government thus expelled them from its land. As Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch has demonstrated, there is a much better case for a Benes Decree for parts of Europe's Muslim population now than there ever was for the Sudeten Germans.
The truth is that Europe has got itself into a bad fix, again, and will have some turbulent and painful decades ahead regardless of what we do at this point. The choice is between some pain where at least parts of Europe prevail and pain where Europe simply ceases to exist as a Western, cultural entity.
The most civilized thing we can do in order to save ourselves, but also to limit the loss of life among both Muslims and non-Muslims, is for Westerners and indeed infidels in general to implement a policy of containment of the Islamic world. This includes stopping Muslim immigration, but also by making our countries Islam-unfriendly, thus presenting the Muslims already here between the options of adapting to our societies or leaving if they desire sharia law. Even whispering about Jihad should be grounds for expulsion.
Since Islamic countries can use organizations such as the United Nations to influence Western freedom of speech and immigration policies, Westerners need to discredit and disengage from the UN as much as possible, at some point maybe withdraw from it completely. We cannot under any circumstances allow Islamic nations to influence our legislation.
Regaining our cultural confidence is a more complicated and longer term goal. It probably cannot be achieved until today's version of Western Europe has collapsed. Western Europe is now a collection of several layers of different Utopias, Multiculturalism, welfarism and transnationalism, that will soon come crashing down.
However, just as Islam isn't the cause of Europe's weakness but rather a secondary infection, it is conceivable that the Islamic threat could have the unforeseen and ironic effect of saving Europe from herself. Europe will go through a turbulent period of painful, but necessary revival. Maybe Jihad will trigger a new Renaissance in the West.
Europe will bleed but she won't die. It remains to be seen whether this is wishful thinking or whether it will actually happen. In any case, it will take time to materialize.
It may sound unrealistic to talk about the collapse of the European Union or pulling out of the UN, but I believe things will rapidly get worse in the years ahead. A generation from now, things that will seem improbable or outright impossible now will have come to pass. We will see some of the largest changes in world politics since WW2, perhaps in centuries.
Fjordman:
Thank you for your response.
In a posting rich with ideas, this was the most memorable to me:
It could be similar to the division of India after WW2, with the creation of one or several Islamic "Pakistan" enclaves. All of Europe will not be lost, but some parts may be, and many others will be damaged by the fighting. Many of our cultural treasures will burn.
It is the most memorable for two reasons:
1) You seem to acknowledge that an Islamic takeover of some of Europe, perhaps much of it, is going to happen.
2) It reminds me of a book I read some years ago, "How the Irish Saved Civilization", where to make a long story short, Irish monks from recently Christianized Ireland fanned out from Hibernia in the late 5th century and 6th century, using monasteries to copy and save the great works of the Roman Empire (or at least its Western portion) from destruction at the hands of the "barbarians". I believe it was Paul Bielen at Brussels Journal who wrote an article earlier this year about how the Americans will need to fill this role in the 21st century of being the keepers of a European culture overrun by a new set of barbarians.
However, I have one question -- when you talk about "the fighting", where will the Europeans get their weaponry from, even if they find the will to fight? Will their armies finally find some cojones and take on the battle? Will individual soldiers desert and fight on their own? Will they give their guns to ordinary citizens? Will they have bombs? Europe has done a good job of disarming its citizens (apart from Switzerland). To do battle, you must have weapons. Where will the rightist people of Europe get them?
Fjordman, excellent as usual.
Here are my thoughts regarding additional actions to consider:
* do not permit foreign investment in media
*do not permit foreign investment in military related contracts. . .the recent ports deal/defense contracts come to mind. Bases in the ME should be held in similar legal standing to Guantanimo Bay, Cuba.
*Nationalize our own oil interests as well as institute that Manhatten Project.
*Reaffirm separation of church and state across the board (keep islam out of schools)
*Balance ME studies depts. at universities - prohibit foreign
funded chairmanships.
*Eliminate religious visas for foreign imams.
*Increase non-muslim translation services - eventually eliminating muslim translation services within government. There are plenty of
Lebanese Christians , Iranian zoroastrians, Israeli jews etc. that can translate Arabic, Farsi etc.
*Monitor all mosques and any found to solicite jihad (to any degree) or accept foreign aid should loose tax exempt status. Further seditious infraction(s) will result in shutting the entire congregation down with RICO Laws used for confiscating all properties to help fund anti terror measures.
*****
P.S. Report: Oil discovered in Dead Sea area
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193368922&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Europeans should also adopt legislation similar to the First Amendment in the American Constitution, securing the right to free speech.
Don't forget the Second Amendment. The right to self-defense should be regarded as a universal human right.
Great post Fjordman, as usual. I'm an avid reader of your articles. I said somewhere, probably on LGF, that I think you're the Thomas Paine of the 21st century.
onesimus said...
My hope is that the blogosphere will do for truth what Gutenberg's press did for the truth 450 years ago.
Make no mistake about it, the Internet is the greatest advance in human communication since the invention of the printing press. The telegraph, telephone, radio, and television were basically just technological refinements to the printing press.
The Internet is a whole new ball o' wax. It is a quantum leap forward.
"The West" (whatever that means) has been sleeping for the last decades. In its sleep, it allowed bugs to crawl in its bed. We now witness the nightmare that precedes awakening.
Stages of sleep appear all along human history. Maybe we shouldn't (or can't) avoid a bloody battle; it's all part of rejuvenating a sleepwalking Europe, and the cure - painful as it might be - cannot be avoided.
Some of the defensive strategies Fjordman exposes here might sound marvelous, but - IMHO - are useless in the long run. Pre-WWII America was also isolationist (or so says my History book in college) just to end up waging war after Pearl Harbor. It was a painful, bloody awakening - but with what results! Self-preserving strategies are like a "social armor" - and in the never-ending battle between projectile and armor, the projectile eventually wins. Always. The jihadists will find new ways of fooling self-preserving laws. What they fear most, on the other hand, is freedom and secularism. Since these are mortal dangers to them, we should enforce them here, in Europe, until they "contaminate" the very source of jihadists, somewhat like a vaccine being administered to all birds in the reservoir of bird flu - eventualy no virus will be left alive.
Today's Europe "elite" lost contact with the people, and the people lost contact with reality. Bloodshed might be the only way back to light - like some kind of Darwinian "survival of the fittest" - many will die, but the remaining will have a brand-new conscience of the danger.
But I agree that the West is suffering of "social indigestion" - too many un-absorbed alien cultures. It should take a break (or should I say "we should take a break" - it's not clear for me if Eastern European countries are on- or off-limits when defining "Europe", so I'm not sure as yet if I can consider myself an European or not), absorb or expel, and move on only after that.
End the nonsense of “celebrating our differences.” We should be celebrating our sameness.
Buzzwords > Maybe not sameness, how about unity, shared vision, cohesion and harmony.
Do not allow the public call to prayer as it is offensive to other faiths.
Weeeell, thats cultural marxist repressive "tolerance" tactics, which is many ways unsound, but on the the other hand rather intriging. Islam is more counter-PC than virtually anything else, the rare non-dhimmiism from secular liberals centers around Muslim transgressions against PC like repression of women or sexual minorities. Theese fundamental incompatabilities of PC sacred cows with Islamic values should be exploited, it splits two foes and as a bonus is liable to help expose the contradictions of PC against itself (radical liberal PC against multicultural PC). AN existing example is the Netherlands, while their immigrant tolerance test is misguided and loathsome, but it does the job.
Another possibility is an expansion of NATO.
Yes, admit Israel asap and extend article 5 collective defence guarantees. Jose Aznar and his think tank just recommended turning NATO into a alliance against Islamofascism.
And while talking Israel, there should be more Israels. Horrifyingly, the west has spent the last century screwing over Christians in the middle east. Thats people who share our values, and should be able to set up Israel-like islands of democracy, stability, prosperity and non-Islam if they get the chance.
=> Lebanon / Maronites
=> Iraq / Assyrians-Chaldeans
=> Egypt / Copts
In particular, at a time when the west is occupying Iraq, why are our Christian minority brethern there not being looked after?????
well Fjordman thats a mouthfull as for suggestions how about a lil jefferson or adams on the jihad they faced and the similarities
"The Internet is a whole new ball o' wax. It is a quantum leap forward."
Sure--and right now almost useless in this fight. Television and the print media still have a death-grip on shaping public awareness. Those of us immersed in the internet (especially blogs) tend to overstate its influence.
France forces thousands of immigrants to leave.
What's that about it taking years? I've mentioned before, these things have a habit of snowballing once they've started. If France is starting to deport people... ;)
Excellent as usual Fjordman, but I think we have to face the fact that in this case containment isn't enough, and the thrust of your thesis is containment.
On the other hand we can't really take the necessary steps, which would be, not a halt to non western immigration, but a reversal of it. Such steps are possible only after social traumas on the order of war, and total war at that. Events like the expulsion of Sudetenland Germans could only have been undertaken, in Europe at least, after the global upheaval of WW II. Look what happened when Serbia tried it in Kosovo in the absense of massive trauma.
It is possible that a massive attack on the US might trigger the reversal response, but even that is unlikely.
At this point we will not and cannot revive western culture, as defined along the lines of the idealism of the mid 1950s, amidst a racially and culturally balkanized population. It simply cannot be done given the sheer numbers here and arriving every day.
Most reading this will be uncomfortable. It smacks of that great bugaboo of the late 20th century: "racism". Most here will be forming questions in their mind as to the "motivations" behind these observations, and questioning whether I run around with a sheet over my head burning crosses in the dark of night.
I refuse to defend myself against it, because it is precisely that mindset, that conditioning, that has allowed...nay, decreed...that our culture commit suicide.
Any salesman with a passing familiarity with 'mirroring' will tell you that people like people who are like themselves. Anyone who has ever lived in a city knows very well the tendency for people to ghettoize according to race, and sometimes but not often according to religion (depending on the social factors involved). All anyone has to do is open their eyes and look around to see that the great multicult dream of eventual assimilation is an abject failure. Before it all began we had only to look at various states in Asia to see the failure of multicultural societies.
But fear of ackowledging that people are NOT the same at the very level of genetics has created an area of no discussion. The idea of recognizing race as a factor; "racism"; evokes all sorts of unpleasant notions. Its odd, because it is only in the west that this no-go zone exists. Ask a Han Chinaman or a Japanese or an Arab which 'race' is the best.
And that is what we have to escape before we even begin to look toward a culturally homogenous society. We need to set aside as silly the label of 'racism'. Our fear of it has allowed the Jesse Jacksons of the world to walk all over western culture and stop any reaction in its tracks with a mere yowl of "racism".
I believe our fear of the term stems from the archaic, if entirely warranted, notion of the "White Man's Burden". With due respect to the Victorian imperialists, they really DID believe all that stuff about bringing civilization to the heathen. They really DID feel that they were sacrificing their lives in a quasi-religious quest to better the lives of the savages.
Whether they succeeded or not depends upon how one sees the alternative: would Africa be better off without railroads, civil government and industry? That's a question for another time and place, but what is more relevant here is the notion that sprang from this that White = Civilization, and from that the notion that western civilization = White civilization = western culture. In fact, 'White' is incidental, really.
Western society developed into what it is because of the history of the west, not because of its genes. Yet because we believe, deep down, that western civilization is White civilization, we are afraid to promote the fact that it is a better civilization than any other. It is, and we should be proud of it.
So why is it so important that we reverse non-western immigration? Ironically, because the homogeniety of our society contributed to its success. The shared sets of believe, the implicit acceptance of the Christian ethic, the racial sameness of Christendom ALL led to the moral and practical hegemony of the west. The west did not triumph BECAUSE of race, but it certainly depended upon racial homogeniety.
I believe that it might have been possible once to introduce a limited multiracial immigration policy based on assimilation, and we might have succeeded. But we didn't do that. Instead, we closed our eyes and forged ahead after a dream, enforcing it by creating the arch-sin of "racism" to preclude any backlash or even reasoned discussion. We did ourselves a huge disfavor by doing that, and our children will reap the harvest.
Sort of a ramble, sorry...but perhaps I'll sort it out later and post it elsewhere in a more organized babble.
Great points – some are just brilliance and powerfully expressed. Since you asked for feedback let me focus on slight differences in emphasis and add a little nuance for the next draft or iteration:
Immigration: Immigration needs to be restricted to assimilation rates. The implication of the statement for the USA, for example, means that we can still assimilate immigrants from the Pacific Rim nations and India. Vetting immigrants from such nations is more feasible than from Islamic nations. Ending immigration and visits from Islamic nations is entirely reasonable.
Oil: Oil is hard to control because it is so fungible. I talk about it here. If America (and Europe) totally broke all relations with Arab nations including trade, I argue it would have no long-term effect on them or us. But I also argue that we should do it! Remember we need to find our energy elsewhere but we also need to stop them from gaining the wealth from selling to others. Only by taking away the oil or stopping them from extracting the oil can there be a real change. If we aren’t going to do that, we should focus on more important factors. Remember: they have to sell oil more than we need to buy it – they can’t eat sand.
Back to the good points: tough on immigration, pride in the West, less tolerant of Islamic ways, abandon nations-building social-engineering, allow them to fight among themselves (hear that Condi?), hurt them financially, stop being stupidly “moral” by adopting a self-interested defense-first ethical disposition, form defensive alliances with other infidels, regain the strength of character (moral, economic, military, etc.) that made us great and powerful.
At least, that’s what I heard.
Working on a more detailed response, and a follow-on blog post of my own linked to this very good post.
Meanwhile, I have a name for the war: the "War for Nationality." What we are fighting for is the right to define our own cultures, religions, laws and national polities, and protect it from the Islamofascists, and the lefty utopians among us who want to swallow us in the NGO and lawyer soup of Transnational Progressivism. We struggle to preserve all that makes up our separate national identities.
Here are my 2 cents on the issue. Believe it or not I feel Fjordman's tactics only solves some of the short to medium term problems that Jihadist create. That doesn't mean I disagree with them or don't think they should be instituted. However it does little to solve the long term world wide problem of Jihadism and its spread to other parts of the world. Fjordman's tactics would only solve the internal problems of Islam eating away at the west. Islam will continue to be a problem. Like it or not we live in a globalized world. Ignoring and relegating Islam to the middle east will be hard and wouldn't solve the underlying problem.
My long term solution would be to push democracy and western ideals on the middle east. Sharia law and western democracy are completely incompatible. This is why we see a push back from the middle east itself because it is becoming more and more threatened by this influence. Dictators to Mulahs are more scared of this then they let on. So Bush in a sense has that strategy correct, but we could all agree in changes to his tactics within the grand strategy. We need not give up on democratizing just yet. One of the many reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union was the Helsinki Accords which the west forced basic principles of human rights on the commies. This appeared as a benign request, but it would undermine the regime within. We need to attack the middle east with this same disruptive medicine. This will probably take many generations to achieve, but it will undermine Islam and it's despots. We need to think long-term or else Islam will continue to flare up like it has through out history.
I must admit that this was one of the most thought-provoking posts by Fjordman for some time. Eurabia part 2 was a stomach-turning exercise, but this post shows in a very tangible way that we are running out of good options very fast.
Holger said a couple of messages back:
"a. Freedom of speech
b. Democracy
c. The law state"
I would like to put this roughly the same way as Samuel Huntington:
1. Democracy meaning the majority rule
2. Rule of law meaning that anybody is ruled by the same law regardless of social standing or religion.
3. Individualism, which means that individual has certain rights that cannot be revoked by the state and that anybody can live as he or she pleases if he doesn't hurt others.
4. Separation of church and state, which means that the religious authority has no power in matters of state. However, this also means that men of faith are as fit to serve the public as anybody else.
If you subscribe these values, you are a Westerner regardless of skin color, religion or ethnic origin.
These values, of course, are not compatible with islamic values. Any effort to combine islamic values with Western values is doomed to fail.
The multicultural dogma tries to convince us that different cultures can coexist in the same society. However, islamists prove this argument false every single day. If we are to coexist with islam in the same society, we must give up the basic Western values. This will certainly lead to segregation and eventually to conflict, as Fjordman suggests in his posting. Multiculturalism serves only as a tool for ruling elite to fool people to believe that black is really white.
"We also need to deprive Arabs and Muslims as much as possible of Western jizya in various forms. Which means ending foreign aid, but also institute a Manhattan Project to become independent of Arab oil."
Fjordman, I believe this is key (in addition to ending Muslim immigration), in particular becoming independent of oil. Without their oil money they would look like the 7th century barbarians that they are.
BTW, thanks for all of your work.
Isolation of Eurpoe will merely see it fall further into irrelevancy, what Fjordman suggests is that the greatest trading powers of history concede the field and retire behind walls. This will allow the Chinese and Americans and Arabs and Indians to take control. It would be better to solve problems by acting against enemies rather than against yourselves. Do you really want to advocate the surrender of Europe?
Europe needs to fight not withdraw.
Kraft thinks we are naïve in believing that the deeds of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the whole Islamic Jihad, are done by a bunch of “non-state actors.” In real life they’re agents of nation states (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, China, North Korea, at least) who want to weaken the West by a proxy war.
Define your enemies better. Iran - yes; Syria - possibly; Lebanon - no, they are being subject to take over by jihadis; Russia - no, fought a war against jihadis and beat them; China - winning a war against jihadis; N. Korea - no, not with regards to jihad or Europe.
There are 3 centres of jihadi thought Egypt, Iran and Saudi. Eygpt is of least concern because it is dirt poor. Iran is under suspicion and friendless and hopefully soon to be attacked. Saudi however is armed and supported in its spread of hate and vile religion by USA and UK protection. Saudi is accorded the status of "moderate" whilst having the most constrictive Sharia law outside of the Taliban (who they funded). The Europeans need to break Saudi Arabia consigning it to the sewer of history, with (or more likely without) the assistance of the Anglo-Americans - to do this they need to awaken from their slumber, not pull the covers over their heads.
Excellent! I am especially heartened by the underlying motive, Fjordman, to go beyond the explaining and into action. We (on 'victory' blogs) pretty well agree on the main points. Next step is to harness this energy in the blogs and put them into action. I never thought I would be an activist, but I am now. Question is, where to best place my energies to leverage 'the good fight'.
All of your suggestions are poignant and bring the point home. However, to some extent, while the internet IS the next greatest gutenberg of technological communications, it is similarly (in my opinion) ineffective in causing change. We tend to preach to the choir. Of course, this is necessary, and of course there are many examples of exposure of the Left (which is just as much an enemy as Islam, I have come to believe) - especially in the media. Thus, there is a private egroup now forming 'for action'. We wish to maintain it privately, so that are methods, which may not always smack of 'moral high ground' (at least in my vision of it), will not be prematurely exposed or compromised.
In a way, yes, this sounds Machavellian and yet, who was he but a very good analyst of history and his current times and the methods needed to meet the opposition on their own level. We may certainly tend to take the moral high road (which is laudable, and who we are at essence). We do not wish to stoop to tactics which are not 100% above board. However, I'm definitely at the stage where (and think 'the west', by whatever definition, needs to come to the point) where we must engage the opposition(s) on several levels, in a concerted strategic and sustained attack. We are, if anything, well behind the power curve. (Anyway, write me about this if you wish, or Baron.)
Fjordman, just one point on the UN and Democracy in general. You wrote:
"As an alternative to the UN, we could create an organization where only democratic states could become members."
I agree -- and ... as we witness with Hamas, a democratic election doesn't mean 'the masses' won't put thugs in charge. Some wider definition of Democracy needs crafted so the masses (either willingly and knowingly, or co-opted through their own state-run propaganda, do not invoke the worst of themselves.
Let's roll, folks --
Blogs-in-action, real specific, coordinated action -- that can be taken now on legislation, education, etc., can be done through our groundswell. We just need to get clear and allow our focus groups to form. I'm done preaching to the choir, as much as reinforcement and continued education on the issues is still needed -- but for those who want to also take concrete action, that time is now upon us.
"We need to give it another name, maybe “War of Self-Defense against the Jihad.”
Oh let's be honest
"Crusade against Jihad".
and if anyone gets their feelings hurt, tough it's the truth.
Islamo delenda est
Interesting article Fjordman, if a bit gloomy. I am writing a rebuttal, but it's much too long to put together in one night, or a comment. I'll post over at noblesse, and crosspost here when finished this weekend. You've got a good start, but complex problems take multiplex solutions. Defense alone is doom in my book.
I thank God that the internet, blogosphere, never sleeps. Have not lost faith in GOD. God, however, exhorts us to help ourselves out of the messes we put ourselves into. Thanks to Fjordman for working to bring theory into application.
Baron, please don't let us lose these posts with comments. Please put them on a "best of list" so that we can refer to them as needed.
There is a "coming" together and its time is now.
One suggestion, that we begin to focus in our blogs on any given suggestion that we find here that will be an area we can support easily in keeping with our blog's emphasis: ie - ending immigration for a generation; deporting islamists and imams who preach hate and death to citizens of their host countries; European nations chucking the EU before it buries you. Americans, rising up against the SPP "treaty" between Mexico, USA, and Canada that is designed to weaken us as grand nations of Europe are being weakened. You get the idea. We are all working for the same goal - instead of a Crusade against Jihad/Islam, maybe it could be phrased as a Crusade for Reformation in the West, against Sharia Law and for pulling ourselves up out of the mire of degredation, the insanity of moral equivalency, etc.
I thank God for you. I thank God that we are coming together. If we select several "issues" and focus on them on our blogs, once a week, once a day, and if we hammer our elected officials - nation-wide, we will be heard.
You may laugh and say that ranting to the officials is a waste of time - yet, I point you to Harriet Miers who is NOT on the Supreme Court of the United States. Anatomy is not a qualification for the Supreme Court.
I am going to continue to plead with Western men to risse up Western Men - Rise up! and beg them to be the men I know they are, throw off the chains of the feminists and stand to protect us if you love us (we western women). Feminism is a sham, it is another ploy to develop "group think" as opposed to individual liberties, et al. It is the attempt of the liberal socialists to carve out another "special interest" group as they have so heinously done to blacks in America. Shame on them and may they - the liberal elite - be damned to eternity.
I take heart on our coming together. We are a force getting our legs. We are a Crusade for Freedom.
I take issue with only one comment, that is the one about egalitarianism. Our constitution says, all men.. are endowed by their creator with rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.... There is nothing there and there never has been that all men are promised an equality of outcome. The latter is straight from Marx-Lenin - it is socialism which leads to decay and rot of the Soul.
I thank you from the depths of my heart, Fjordman, Baron, Dymphna, and all of my new colleagues at arms.
Now, to take a Cold-eaz and re-supply the hankies.
Beach girl --
I keep a running list of all Fjordman's posts on our sidebar. Every time I update our template I bring it up to date.
If you want, I can start a "910 Group" section on the sidebar for easy reference to 910-related posts.
It's you and Viktorya and Pim's Ghost and all the other young people who deserve the thanks. The hardest tasks are ahead, and you are the ones who will have to shoulder them. As I slide into my dotage, I will have the comfort of knowing that you and others like you are there to carry on.
And everyone should notice how many of the these 910 warriors are women -- you go, girls!
This is a war against Tribalism.
Trackback:
Jihadis Not Welcome
Fjordman at Gates of Vienna discusses the current situation in Europe with respect to their unassimilated Muslims.
The best prescription he gives for solving the problem is mentioned in the comments. It is rather simple:
I am a battered woman. Believe me when I say you want to fight this Islamic threat with every fibre of your being. In the Western World, with our high standard of living, and our abundant freedoms, few of us understand what it means to lose those. I do. You have no framework in which to comprehend what it will be like if you do not fight. You have accepted a cultural standard of fraternity and equality. When someone threatens that you do not understand that what you stand to lose is your very soul. Your dignity, your hope, your family, your culture, your very life. Listen well to what Fjordman is telling you. Everything you hold dear depends on it. You have not one moment to waste. Every day that you delay will cost you more dearly than words can tell.
Great post, great comments.
But, in the back of my mind, (yes I really still have some of those brain cells left) I keep hearing this ol' Texas sayin:
All Hat and no Cattle.
In case there is just one of you that doesn't know what that means, it means that the person talks a good game, story,project, lifestyle, etc...but can't back it up with real tangible results, etc.
Here where I live, we take a proactive (meaning we jump right in the middle of things, boots, spurs and all) and get er' done.
Or have a hellva fight until something is done, or everybody goes back for another beer and rests for the next round.
That means in real life, that we vote, no matter what, we go to meetings, city, county even state. We go to school council meetings, PTA meetings, Church meetings and we help with every community effort that we can. We host bake sales, etc until you would think there was not another cause to raise money for, but there always is.
We don't just talk a good game, we get into the game. Even if we are not qualified, informed or educated enough in somebody's opinion.
That is the way the start of change, of improvement, of enlightenment, is done. It starts in your community.
With you.
Not just on your computer, but out in the community making your views, opinions and beliefs known and trying to convince someone else that your right and they are wrong or just uninformed.
We even carry this over to our coffeeshops, bars and fairs. Any place is a good place and any time is a good time to make things happen, to make things come together.
Try it, its not hard, its exciting and can be fun. But be prepared (at least down here) to put up or shut up and for the once in a while brawl.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
I agree with Fjordman's tactics on the defense of western civilization. Stop the bleeding and get back on our feet. When that is accomplished I think we will see a culture & religion that is threatened by the modern/globalized world. Islam is a paper tiger. It is very easy to be pessimistic on the gravity of the threat. Yes, left unchecked it could destroy a lot of the values we hold dear. I really think we need to go on the "attack". Not necessarily using warfare, but with other tools that undermine the Sharia & Islamic way of life. We need to go after their innate lack of human rights, treatment of women & minorities, etc. We need to constantly expose their 7th century behavior and mock their lack of modernization. Also confront them on the Koran and some of its barbaric and out of touch teachings. Western nations should demand universal human rights from islamic nations. This could be achieved, especially if Fjordman has his way with a democratic UN. Again I emphasize the Helsinki Accord of 1975 which had the demands of human rights. This led to Gorbachev's Perestroika in the Soviet Union, which helped to weaken and undermine the "evil empire" within. WE ALSO NEED to undermine the Islamic world within. They're tying to do it to us, might as well return the favor.
A clear picture for all.
Pulling together requires that North Americans have a clear concept of this quickly moving advance of the enemy.
Unlike the sixties, MSM today is a frgmented mix of news and fluff events gushing at as in a big jumble.
There is not enough *connecting of the dots* and people are watching Friends or Bart Simpson instead of Fifth Estae or Passionate Eye.
Without a clear picture for everyone, we have a major problem.
Al Jazeera has provided a clear and unifying picture for the antagonized Muslim world.
Muslim gangs killing Police in France in more frequest clashes.
Gendarms request armored vehicles and battle equipment
Clashes occuring now in the Windsor area UK.
Musharraf allows Al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan; completing muti-Billion$ pipelines to China and Iran both.
China has longstanding worries about insecure sea delivery of life-blood energy.
North Americans should be made aware of the rate of growth of our problem.
Do we wait for a big bang; the interuption of all programming, and a message from the president? = TG
I've finished first response to Fjordman's post, and expanded the discussion a bit beyond defense.
This is a response to Fjordman’s fine post at Gates of Vienna Wednesday. Fjordman points out that he has been a fine critic of the dissolution of Western Society, but that he’s offered few solutions — so in his preliminary post he names a few. I am quite hopeful that he will create a new manifesto for Europe, but the first draft is a bit weak as manifestos go.
I would agree with him on some, and disagree on others but to understand the disagreements, you need to look long term, and you need the basis of my conclusions. Fjordman bases his conclusions on the thesis that the problem is Islamic Imperialism coupled with the decline of the west in the face of a dire enemy, and he sees the decline as both societal and governmental.
The real problems are quite complex, and the real solutions have to be multiplex, persistent, and robust. Simple defensive measures will not do by themselves.
Islamic countries are mostly feudal, and the wealth they have is either concentrated in the hands of tyrants or an established state elite. At least half of the Islamic people live in the midst of death, dust, poverty, ignorance, disease, and despair. Suicide can be appealing when that’s what you have to look forward to.
Stated simply, most Islamic countries are 1/3 to 1/2 energy, liberty, capital, and knowledge poor in varying portions of each depending on which state you look at.
Meanwhile the west has an abundance of all four: Liberty, Capital, Energy, and Knowledge. Some might argue with me regarding energy abundance, but all of the energy we need is there if we have the will to produce it. Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal, Biofuels, hydrogen, and even oil and gas are all there if we just invest, but we won’t invest until it becomes appealing.
It becomes appealing when gas and oil from the dictators becomes too expensive, which it now has. Not just in terms of dollars, but in terms of who and what we are supporting when we pay those dollars.
Rest of post here:
http://noblesseoblige.org/wordpress/?p=572
Some very good hardcore ideas here, way too radical for the West right now though unfortunately. Hopefully if the conversation grows some of these things could be done.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
keep truth from children
make them feel ashamed
for being born American
.
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