Honey or Vinegar?

During the last few days’ controversy, our email has run the gamut, ranging from the “you Nazi swine!” type of disagreement, through polite disapproval, all the way to strong support and agreement.

It’s good to have the support, but I also respect principled disagreement. I value a well-reasoned argument against me, because I’ll read it carefully, and think about it. It might change my mind, or it might make me put together a stronger case defending my position. Either outcome is a good one.

I received a dissenting email this morning which was intelligent and friendly, and deserves a public response.

First I’ll post the full email, and then I’ll address it point by point. This will be a long discussion, so get yourself a cup of coffee and a doughnut if you intend to read beyond the jump.

Dear Gates of Vienna Editors,

It seems to me that you have made a very poor editorial choice by publishing the “genocide” article by the pseudonymous El Ingles. I’m sorry to see that, because like you, I believe that it is better for people worried about the future of Europe to cooperate with each other rather than waste energy fighting each other. We should be seeking allies, even if we have some disagreements. Normally I’m very sympathetic with your viewpoint, but I must say that in an effort to show your independence, you’ve walked into the trap of seeming to validate your critics.

The “descriptive”-vs-“prescriptive” dichotomy is literally true but rhetorically dubious. Once you start opening your mind to the suicide option of genocide, you are crossing an intellectual divide that has a pretty miserable history. So you are playing with fire, and I’m sure that you know you are doing that.

The reasoning of El Ingles is also debatable. History does not often pose simple a, b, c choices. It is entirely possible over the next decades that a substantial fraction of Europe’s Muslim population will modernize and assimilate to European Enlightenment values. If you know about Wafa Sultan and other heroic figures who are fighting the Wahhabi-reactionary wave of influence, you will see genuine resistance to the medieval throwbacks in Islam. In fact, as you know, a long-lasting wave of modernism swept over the Muslim world earlier in the last century, and has only been pushed out of sight by the wave of Saudi-funded missionaries who manage to control the discourse. The modernists are still there (as in Turkey) but they are now keeping their heads down.

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You are giving in to despair about population trends. I understand that, but it is not effective politically, and it may not be accurate. For example, in the case of Britain, there’s reason to think there will be a renewal of modernism within the Muslim population, combined with Eastern European (Catholic or Orthodox) immigration, combined with a more sensible (and hopefully democratic) EU policy. Certainly Sarkozy, Merkel, and perhaps Brown must be thinking along those lines. Over a decade or two, that may substantially dilute the influence of destructive radicals. The British public is now tired of Labour, which has carried out disastrous immigration policies, and may be swinging to the Tories. While the Conservative Party is now still taking an old-fashioned multicultural line, once it is in power it will have to deal with the consequences in reality. With frequent bomb plots going on, it will take only one crisis before they may have to introduce far better immigration policies.

When more Muslim countries acquire nuclear weapons, which may be inevitable, that is also bound to shock European opinion. Add continued security challenges, and the public pressure for sensible immigration controls is likely to flip. The difficulty is there is a power elite still locked into an unworkable multicultural mind-set. Nobody believes in that any more. The situation is therefore very similar to the atmosphere of crisis that elected Margaret Thatcher, or for that matter Winston Churchill.

So the counsel of despair is understandable but premature. I understand the need to sound the alarm, in a media culture that has been oppressively Party Line, to say the least. That is a very important function of free speech. I don’t quarrel in the least with your right to publish provocative articles. It just seems to me that with this one, you have shot yourself in the foot.

I also understand how annoying it is to be constantly slandered as a proto-Nazi. It’s a toxic feeling. The temptation is to respond by giving the proverbial finger to the accusers. That is what I suspect happened in this case.

The fact is that saner voices are catching on in Europe, even though things are more frightening currently than they are in the United States or Australia. Changes are subtle, but pervasive. Some heroic figures are standing up in public, and the vast silent majority is open to them. With improved free communications — like “talk radio” via cell phones and the web — things can get better. Strategically, perhaps you should consider positioning your blog to take advantage of positive developments, rather than fighting what seems like an overwhelming tide of negativity.

I hope you see this as the thoughts of a friend. It is meant to be supportive. You can attract more bees with honey than vinegar. But I understand the temptation to go for the vinegar.

Now to answer your objections.

I’m sorry to see that, because like you, I believe that it is better for people worried about the future of Europe to cooperate with each other rather than waste energy fighting each other.

I agree. That’s why I choose not to fight with people who should logically be my allies. They may fight with me, but I won’t fight back. If I have a disagreement with someone who’s on the same team, I do my best to keep it private and work towards a compromise. This is the way to build a resilient and effective coalition of groups who share a common objective.

We should be seeking allies, even if we have some disagreements.

And so we are. Some allies refuse our overtures. Others insist that alliance be only on their own terms, terms which may well violate our own principles, or damage the mission. No alliance will be undertaken simply for its own sake.

Normally I’m very sympathetic with your viewpoint, but I must say that in an effort to show your independence, you’ve walked into the trap of seeming to validate your critics.

I’ve walked into no traps. El Inglés and I had discussed his article well in advance of its publication, long before any of the current brouhaha started.

In any case, I don’t take into account in advance the reactions of people who already consider me a “crypto-fascist” or a “Nazi sympathizer”. Why should I? What good would it do me to try to appease such a bloodthirsty idol?

The price is too high, and the possible payoff meager to non-existent.

Besides, letting the opinions of people who hate me dictate the terms of what I do is a way to let them live rent-free in my head. I won’t do it.

The “descriptive”-vs-“prescriptive” dichotomy is literally true but rhetorically dubious. Once you start opening your mind to the suicide option of genocide, you are crossing an intellectual divide that has a pretty miserable history.

I don’t agree. This fear of discussing awful possibilities is a version of “warding off the evil eye”. Don’t mention the awful event, or you might make it happen!

I don’t buy that kind of logic. People who refuse to examine clearly the horrendous possibilities that lie ahead of us are whistling past the graveyard.

World war was unthinkable in 1938. No decent person wanted to contemplate the possibility. The free nations of Western Europe were ready to do anything to avoid it.

And yet it came anyway, and was much more horrific, deadly, and destructive than it would have been if the political and cultural leaders of the day had listened to people like Churchill. In 1935 a clear-eyed, unflinching look at the likelihood of what lay ahead would have saved literally millions of lives.

We have an obligation to the next generation not to repeat the errors of the 1930s.

So you are playing with fire, and I’m sure that you know you are doing that.

That’s your opinion. I disagree.

The fire exists. I can see its light and feel its heat. I point to it and say, “Look out for the fire!”

As a result, people call me an arsonist.

I can live with that kind of unfairness. It’s just part of the price of doing business in the blogosphere.

The reasoning of El Ingles is also debatable. History does not often pose simple a, b, c choices. It is entirely possible over the next decades that a substantial fraction of Europe’s Muslim population will modernize and assimilate to European Enlightenment values.

What is the evidence for this? Can you provide statistics and cite your sources? I see no sign of what you describe. For every Muslim in the West who adopts the enlightened attitudes of modernity, or for every apostate who converts out of Islam without being murdered, there are ten thousand traditional fundamentalists who adhere to Koranic injunctions, and more arrive every day.

Where is the evidence that what you say is true? Besides someone else who simply asserts it as fact, show me a credible source that refutes me, and I will concede.

If you know about Wafa Sultan and other heroic figures who are fighting the Wahhabi-reactionary wave of influence, you will see genuine resistance to the medieval throwbacks in Islam.

Wafa Sultan is a brave and admirable woman who deserves all the support we can give her. But, as I mentioned above, for every Wafa Sultan there are thousands upon thousands of unregenerate traditional believers who rely solely on the Koran. They, in their myriads, believe that it is right and just to kill Wafa Sultan for her apostasy. Many of the people who believe this have been in the West for decades, or were born here. Speculating that the situation may become otherwise is wishful thinking.

And you’ll notice that Wafa Sultan — as well as other prominent apostates like Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Ehsan Jami — get virtually no support from the governments and cultural elites in their countries. In fact, they face active hostility, because they don’t behave according to their ethnic stereotypes, and have committed heresy against the reigning Orthodox Multicultural dogma.

Existing European policies, both official and unofficial, discourage assimilation and conversion out of Islam, and thus encourage the brewing of radical jihad ideology.

In fact, as you know, a long-lasting wave of modernism swept over the Muslim world earlier in the last century, and has only been pushed out of sight by the wave of Saudi-funded missionaries who manage to control the discourse. The modernists are still there (as in Turkey) but they are now keeping their heads down.

To get an idea of the patterns of Islamic revival, I suggest reading Global Jihad : The Future in the Face of Militant Islam by Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo. The author traces the ebb and flow of Islamic revivals throughout the last 1300 years.

The pattern is this: when Muslim nations are defeated militarily, they tend to leave the strict sharia-based version of Islam behind and modernize to some extent. But as soon as circumstances warrant — as soon as the faithful are strong enough and/or threatened enough — a revival occurs. “The true Islam” re-emerges, and the jihad against Dar al-Harb resumes.

Right now Islam feels itself both strong and threatened. Its strength comes from the virtually limitless wealth generated by the petroleum windfall. It is threatened by the encroachment on all fronts of the West, with its decadent, pagan, vice-ridden, hedonistic, and irresistibly tempting culture. This combination of affluence and puritanical reactionary zeal is fueling a revival of classical Islam unlike any seen since the Ottomans fell back from Vienna in 1683.

So what likelihood is there that this revival will fade any time soon? Assuming that no alternative to oil is found, what will turn back the current tide of jihad except a massive violent reaction on the part of the infidels?

You are giving in to despair about population trends.

I am not in despair. You have chosen to read my opinions as motivated by despair, but you are mistaken.

If I were despairing, I wouldn’t have undertaken such a difficult, time-consuming, and thankless task as this one.

I understand that, but it is not effective politically, and it may not be accurate. For example, in the case of Britain, there’s reason to think there will be a renewal of modernism within the Muslim population, combined with Eastern European (Catholic or Orthodox) immigration, combined with a more sensible (and hopefully democratic) EU policy.

An attractive scenario. Once again, on what evidence do you base these claims? Opinion polls? Some other sociometric data?

Show me the sources. I certainly haven’t seen them.

Certainly Sarkozy, Merkel, and perhaps Brown must be thinking along those lines. Over a decade or two, that may substantially dilute the influence of destructive radicals.

C’mon, man, where have you been? Sarkozy and Merkel have already signed on to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which is the Eurabian pig all painted up with rouge and lipstick to make it look OK to the general public — assuming that the general public even wakes up long enough to pay attention.

Read the European newspapers. Look at The Brussels Journal or EU Referendum or Europe News.

I see no public evidence that what you predict shows any sign of happening. What do you know that the rest of us don’t?

The British public is now tired of Labour, which has carried out disastrous immigration policies, and may be swinging to the Tories. While the Conservative Party is now still taking an old-fashioned multicultural line, once it is in power it will have to deal with the consequences in reality.

It seems at least as likely that the next bomb plot in the UK will start a mass stampede to support the BNP, or simply inaugurate the descent into civil and political chaos that El Inglés has speculated about.

But I’ll defer to our British readers, of whom there are plenty. How likely is it that the Tories will regain any public confidence before the Troubles begin?

With frequent bomb plots going on, it will take only one crisis before they may have to introduce far better immigration policies.

Frequent bomb plots and one crisis — especially when accompanied by a continued failure to protect the public from immigrant (Muslim) violence and crime — will just as likely spark a civil insurrection. Why do you think your version is more likely?

When more Muslim countries acquire nuclear weapons, which may be inevitable, that is also bound to shock European opinion.

That’s an understatement. It may also shock Tel Aviv, Belgrade, and Rome into becoming glassy craters.

Add continued security challenges, and the public pressure for sensible immigration controls is likely to flip.

This is where you, I, and El Inglés all agree. The point of contention is about what lies on the other side of that “flip”.

The difficulty is there is a power elite still locked into an unworkable multicultural mind-set. Nobody believes in that any more. The situation is therefore very similar to the atmosphere of crisis that elected Margaret Thatcher, or for that matter Winston Churchill.

Yes indeed. And it’s important to remember what happened to cause Winston Churchill to be elected.

And we all better get down on our knees and pray to God that there is another Winston Churchill out there somewhere, waiting to be elected in 2011 or 2015 or whenever it is that European cities really start to burn.

Because I think it’s just as likely that a Lenin or a Castro or a Tamerlane is waiting in the wings, ready to deliver his country from the crisis by filling the mass graves with multiple hecatombs of anyone who gets in his way.

So the counsel of despair is understandable but premature. I understand the need to sound the alarm, in a media culture that has been oppressively Party Line, to say the least. That is a very important function of free speech. I don’t quarrel in the least with your right to publish provocative articles. It just seems to me that with this one, you have shot yourself in the foot.

So I’ll limp. It won’t be the first time.

I also understand how annoying it is to be constantly slandered as a proto-Nazi. It’s a toxic feeling. The temptation is to respond by giving the proverbial finger to the accusers. That is what I suspect happened in this case.

You see this as “giving the finger”. I see it as continuing to do what got me called a Nazi in the first place.

Once again, if I had to vet everything I say to make it acceptable to all the people who have declared themselves irrevocably against me, I’d never write anything that’s worth reading.

The fact is that saner voices are catching on in Europe, even though things are more frightening currently than they are in the United States or Australia. Changes are subtle, but pervasive. Some heroic figures are standing up in public, and the vast silent majority is open to them. With improved free communications — like “talk radio” via cell phones and the web — things can get better. Strategically, perhaps you should consider positioning your blog to take advantage of positive developments, rather than fighting what seems like an overwhelming tide of negativity.

If you think we don’t celebrate the positive developments, then you haven’t been reading GoV for very long. There may not be very many positive developments, but we sure do celebrate them when they come along.

In fact, we have celebrated one of the most positive European developments in decades: the rise of Vlaams Belang from a questionable fringe party to a mature, responsible, and effective political force. It is the most popular party in Flanders, and possibly the party most dedicated to civil liberties and the free market in all of Europe.

If you’re looking for constructive and lawful change in Europe, Vlaams Belang is everything that you would want in a political party, and the best that any European country is likely to get.

Yet there are many who don’t see this as something to celebrate, but who react with dread and scorn instead.

Funny about that.

I hope you see this as the thoughts of a friend. It is meant to be supportive. You can attract more bees with honey than vinegar. But I understand the temptation to go for the vinegar.

And I thank you for your friendly criticism.

But I don’t see what I offer here as vinegar. We simply have lots of exotic varieties of honey, and not all of them are to everyone’s taste.


In order to fully refute El Inglés, one must argue against some overwhelming statistics. Reposted below is that graph of immigration trends in the UK:


The vast bulk of the “Asians” are not assimilating, and radical jihadism is fermented in the toxic mix that gathers in the enclaves and no-go zones of large European cities.

The current trends all point to increased immigration. The most heartening news — the revised rules on family reunification in Sweden, for example — only serve to damp down the acceleration just a little bit. The growth will continue at current rates for a while, and then maybe slow down a bit in five to ten years.

Given the relative fecundity of the newcomers versus the aboriginals, this means that even if immigration stops dead in the near future, the proportion of unassimilated Muslims within their host countries will more than double within a generation. And immigration is not going to stop dead in the near future — unless there is a major earth-shaking event in European politics.

All of the above is contingent on the assumption that current trends continue the same, or are only slightly ameliorated. We are heading for disaster if things continue as they are.

But things cannot continue as they are.

It’s not possible. The welfare state will collapse. The introduction of political Islam will likely spark a violent reaction from ordinary European citizens. Taxation policies are drawing the continent closer and closer to an economic meltdown.

Things can’t continue the same. The question remains: What form will the changes take?

Since the situation is a chaotic one, the future can’t reliably be predicted. But Gates of Vienna will continue to attempt a clear-eyed evaluation of all the possible scenarios.

Honey or vinegar: we want to see it clearly.

And I’ve still got one undamaged foot left to shoot.