Saturday, April 05, 2008

The Unsubmitting

The following editorial was translated from the print edition of today’s Jyllands-Posten by Henrik of Europe News.


The Unsubmitting
by Anders Raahauge


An increasing number of persons, who have received death threats from Islamists, are starting to behave in a completely inappropriate manner. They spread courage, not fear.

At first sight, ruling by fear is completely feasible. If you truly frighten people, you will, for a while, get things the way you want. But this method is primitive and outmoded. The faults of this method are particularly exposed when applied in a modern society. This happens when radical Islamists use force to back their demands for a change in European policies and for a gradual spiritual revolution in Western Europe, where they obviously desire progress for the Umma, the world-wide Islamic community.

The intention, obviously, is for fear to spread like ripples in the water and influence all those not directly implicated. Those who actually induce fear have a limited range. The Islamists have no armies to match the Western arsenal, which is why they have to resort to terrorism. By singling out the individual, their aim is the control of many.

This is the actual logic behind acts of terrorism, where the media are to spread the terror to millions, and behind the countless minor acts of violence in the streets, where word-of-mouth rumors are meant to spread the fear. Islamism is a macho movement, setting their force on display like tribes in the desert, mafia clans or bikers do. The most important tool is the fearful attitude, which for the sake of conviction must be exercised on a regular basis to show the result of brute force of will.

But this method works better in a less than modern society. The quite effective Western intelligence agencies are up and running, and every week new foiled terrorist plots are reported in various European countries.

At some point in time we might also tackle the Quran schools where young kids are taught the hateful macho attitude towards the infidels. And because modern society actually is able to protect the individuals under threat, the behavior of these individual takes a peculiar twist, a twist most inappropriate in the eyes of the fanatics. The condemned have received their death sentences so that we all may start to tremble, but they are now acting so audaciously that they no longer have their intended effect. Quite to the contrary.

Bodyguards and protected addresses are certainly not going to recreate a normal life. The protected person is still confined. But in the unhappiness anger is kindled, and combined with the physical security this produces unexpected results.

The first to get angry was Salman Rushdie. He reacted to his death sentence in 1989 with despair, but then laid down a plan: He converted to Islam and pointed up his Islamic upbringing in Mumbai — but did that cancel the fatwa? No way, responded Teheran, This was all about setting an example. This truly annoyed Rushdie, who then threw all caution to the winds and started authoring his critical articles against Islamism. These are important landmarks, and they influence opinions, even to the point of reaching Tøger Seidenfaden [editor of Danish daily Politiken], for Rushdie is out of the ordinary. The Islamists had created a tremendous enemy.
- - - - - - - - -
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is pulling in the same direction. And she might as well carry on, as her death sentence is as immutable as that of Rushdie, and she is living under maximum personal security anyway. She is now diligently undermining the cause of the Islamists, for the pen is mightier than the sword, not least when yielded by her. Also, PR-wise it is a self-inflicted wound to force such an intelligent, Somali woman into hiding.

The same thing happens now for Geert Wilders, condemned to death by Al-Qaeda. He increases the heat by publishing his movie Fitna, but they can, after all, kill him only once. Why flatter your executioner? They might as well get the full load, he thinks.

In a short time Wilders will be trumped by the Iranian-born Dutch politician Ehsan Jami, who carries a death sentence for leaving Islam. Jami is finalizing a movie that is supposed to beat the crap out of Fitna. For this one will be blasphemous. Back in November I talked to the Dutch author Leon de Winter. He knows Jami and told me that Jami was furious because he was living the life of a prisoner. This fury led him, already back then, to speak seriously offensive things of the ‘prophet’.

These victims have nothing to lose. Probably even more of them, faced with a death sentence, will start reacting contrary to the intention. They are able to do this because they live in modernity, not as clearly visible and unprotected individuals in the desert. They were meant to grovel, but instead are choosing to mock their persecutors. This stops the spread of fear from their persons. Instead, they instill fresh courage in their surroundings.

At first shot these stubborn individuals cause intense desperation with the ‘responsible’ politicians. Wilders almost had his freedom of expression abrogated ahead of the publication of Fitna.

In the longer run, however, the ‘responsible’ will thank these desperadoes, for without their efforts the threat culture would slowly take root in Europe. It thrives and feeds off minor victories. Short-sighted politicians do not understand this, but down the line they will realize that these kamikaze pilots are in the position to short-circuit the primitive violence. The naïve might believe that the bully is softened by giving in. But the admirable victims of the bullying have learned a different lesson.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Jami is finalizing a movie that is supposed to beat the crap out of Fitna."

Thought that this movie had been dropped by Jami after pressure from the dutch government.
Anybody have updated info on this matter?

christian soldier said...

The Founders of the U.S. - knowing their history - added Amendment II - the protector of all of the ideals that birthed this great country.
They knew that individual citizens would always have to be prpared to fight for freedom.

Thank you for your continued exposure of world-wide events.

xlbrl said...

I am surprised that Rushdie was so spineless as to convert to Islam. But, it is hopeful in that even the spineless--I am thinking of the American Left-- have their limits. We need to find them.
Tom Paine--Evils, like poisons, have their uses, and there are diseases which no other remedy can reach.

Zenster said...

At some point in time we might also tackle the Quran schools where young kids are taught the hateful macho attitude towards the infidels.

Don't forget the mosques. What use is there in disinfecting the schools only to have student bathe in the mosque's filth?

Due to the Koran's intrinsically violent nature, Islam merits being treated as guilty until proven innocent. For that reason, comprehensive monitoring of mosques is completely justified. The vile hate speech that permeates Islam must be subjected to the most rigid application of Western law.

Cries of "Islamophobia" must be turned aside with direct legal assaults on Islam's derogation of all things Infidel. Muslims must begin to feel the sting of having their favorite tools turned against them. Islam is nothing more than an overgrown schoolyard bully. Such bullies are usually rather receptive to change after they've had the living crap kicked out of them. Islam is no different.

Athos said...

...to short-circuit the primitive violence

Raahauge nails it with this article/essay. Thanks, Baron, for making it available. It is now time for me to cross-blog it at Chronicles of Atlantis ... Cheers

Henrik R Clausen said...

TB, I have really no idea how the Jami movie is faring. What he said recently could also be interpreted to mean that it would not come on April 20th, but at a later date.

Personally, I don't like the idea of being too direct on this supposed prophet of Islam - sometimes euphemisms simply work better.

If anyone knows how to get in touch with Jami, I suggest dropping a note to the Baron.

Joanne said...

The best way to deal with bullies is a direct hit in the nose. I've never heard anyone say it didn't work for them. Bullies are just cowards anyhow!

Whiskey said...

IMHO the fundamental problem Islam faces is using violence to control a population that is highly mobile, atomized, individualistic, and often anonymous.

Saddam's terror and fear worked because like his hero Stalin, he was able to realistically inflict terrible tortures and death on people (and their loved ones) with no possibility of the person escaping that fate. Fear worked. And like Stalin he was careful to create (as Machiavelli advised) a class of people to instill the fear who were dependent on him personally. This sort of thing always works in a controlled, rigid society with little hope of anonymity.

Yet in modern Europe and America, populations are highly mobile. A man who is living in one city may easily move to another in six months or less. It is also highly anonymous. A man might post things about Islam in a blog, from an internet cafe or a laptop connected via free wifi, and never be connected to a solid physical address. All the surveillance cameras in the wold won't alter the fundamental power of the anonymous individual with all these tools of wealth to say and do things.

Even an ordinary man could make something like Fitna. I doubt the production man spent much time on it. Free tools like Cinelarra, or low-cost ones like Imovie give even a novice the ability to mix and match video and such.

How can Bin Laden or other Islamists terrify someone who is entirely anonymous. Much less a whole continent filled with people like that? Wilders and Ali of course face death anyway, what more can Muslims do to them?

But STOPPING anonymous mockers is beyond even bin Laden's power ...

Unless he unleashes city-killing responses. That is the logical next step. Which of course will provoke a counter-step.

Anonymous said...

The Danes saved almost all their Jews from the Nazis during the Second world war.

Maybe there's a pattern there.

Whiskey said...

There is a pattern. Denmark and Fascist Bulgaria saved the most percentage of their pre-war Jews. Italy did the next least of any occupied or Fascist nation to participate in the Holocaust. Primo Levi's sisters and mother rode out the war in their apartment. Jews who were not obvious and not part of the Guerillas were left alone, for the most part, in many parts of Italy.

By contrast France enthusiastically rounded up Jews, when often there was no benefit, i.e. no advantage of seized property etc. Same with the Dutch.

IMHO it stemmed from the attitudes towards modernity. Danes unlike other nations did well by modernity, very few losers unlike other places where modernity (seen driven by "Jews") created losers and the prospect of losing. Which might be even worse. And explains France.

Bulgaria, a small, backward nation threatened by neighbors and the Turk, felt it "needed" "smart Jews" as an advantage. The future and lots of cool technology, to fend off the German, Hungarian, Romanian, and worst of all TURK! neighbors was something Bulgarians wanted. A lot better than plowing a muddy field all your life. Better to "roll the dice" on the future. Anything was better than a legacy of defeat and poverty.

Italy, same deal. No nation loved the idea of the future more (and still does) because of the poverty and helplessness at foreigners of the past and present. Even worse, they can look around their nation at the Roman ruins and know immediately how far they've fallen.

Danes fundamentally "win" and have "won" throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries by modernity. It keeps them from being absorbed by Germany or the Low Countries or Sweden. It makes them richer. They've never "lost" i.e. a whole group of people gets impoverished by loss of say, textile manufacturing as in France.

Unsurprising they'll defend modernity from attack in other quarters.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Yes - Jami dropped his plans for making the film.
I don't know why exactly; no announcement was made by him, as far as I know.
I suspect the government has threatened to stop paying for his protection, and forbidden him to talk to the press..Jami is not a member of parliament, so he is much more vulnerable than a high profile as Wilders. For some reason his original sin - calling to fund a committee for the protection and the support of ex-muslems - was sternly frowned upon by his own party, the left Worker's Party PvdA, and he has gotten almost no public support.

Eventually he wàs beaten up in the street, and serious journalists were actually writing that he was not really attacked; that he exaggerated the incident and had made the story up, 'to get some attention', and anyway: 'no wonder people get violent when you 'insult them' professor Van Doorn wrote..
He is almost alone now, lives in hiding, and his fate is neglected..

As a matter of fact, there are even voices clamouring for an end to the protection of Wilders, as 'after all he has brought the threats upon himself' and the chief of the werkgeversorganisatie VNO-NCW; an organisation of dutch businessmen, has suggested Wilders be made to reimburse them for the financial losses they may suffer because of the 'boycotts' from the islamic world..

I'm afraid people are getting used to the idea of dutch citizens being threatened in their own country by immigrants; the government is not even ridiculed or seriously criticized for allowing that to happen.
They are probably holding their breath untill the EU is safely installed. Then people like Wilders, Hirsi Ali, Ehsan Jami, Efshan Ellian, Hans Jansen, and all the others living under protection can finally be punished and silenced by the laws that have been cooked 'while we were sleeping', and sentenced by an EU-court of 'law'

Henrik R Clausen said...

Fascist Italy never assulted their Jews. Why should they? There were many Jews in the administration, probably doing a good job, feeling themselves more Italian than Jewish.

An Austrian-German madman, who got this sick idea to blame the Jews, forced Italy to adopt anti-Jewish laws in 1938. But they were never enforced, except in German-run northern Italy near the end of WWII.

Sagunto said...

"..faced with a death sentence, will start reacting contrary to the intention. They are able to do this because they live in modernity, not as clearly visible and unprotected individuals in the desert.."

Well, some still have the courage to stand up, but to suggest that this is because of "modernity" is a bit silly i.m.o., 'cause courage is universal, though painfully scarce these days.
No mention of the long list of courageous muslims - a list that antedates Rushdie - obviously not "living in modernity" who vehemently have criticised islamist ideology and often paid with their lives.

Sagunto

davod said...

"An Austrian-German madman, who got this sick idea to blame the Jews, forced Italy to adopt anti-Jewish laws in 1938."

Let us not give the Italians a completely free pass here. Italy was a pretty strong part of the partnership in 1938. I don't think the government were forced to accept anything.

Anonymous said...

Henrik wrote:
"Personally, I don't like the idea of being too direct on this supposed prophet of Islam - sometimes euphemisms simply work better."

I agree on this point.
But, what is scary, and new, in this matter though is that the dutch government is actually trying to suppress views of its own citizens by letting them know that they might not be able to protect them anymore. That they are no longer able to guarantee the safety of their own inhabitants. Even though they act within their own constitutional and legal framework.
To my knowledge, this is one of the symptoms normally attached to a socalled failed state. But maybe Holland is turning into a failed state...who knows.
Maybe Europe is turning into a failed continent....

If my perception of the case is not right, please correct me.

Paul said...

Sorry for jumping threads.... Can someone translate? The usual translation sites are not cooperating. Thanks!

From a previous thread on Denmark, Sodbuster posted the following:

Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum
þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon·
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Oft Scyld Scéfing sceaþena þréatum
monegum maégþum meodosetla oftéah·

5
egsode Eorle syððan aérest wearð
féasceaft funden hé þæs frófre gebád·
wéox under wolcnum· weorðmyndum þáh

oð þæt him aéghwylc þára ymbsittendra

ofer hronráde hýran scolde,

10
gomban gyldan· þæt wæs gód cyning.

Sagunto said...

@Paul,

It's good old Beowulf and the lingo is Old Anglo-Saxon and for me as a Dutchman there are still words that sound, well.. like Dutch ;-) (some inhabitants of Friesland will recognize even more).

transl:
So! We Spear-Danes in days of yore
Have heard of the fame of the kings, How those nobles did great deeds, the army of his enemies, many warriors, took their mead-benches terrified the nobles. Since he was first a foundling, he gained a consolation waxed under the heavens, prospered in glory, until eventually everyone in surrounding tribes, over the whale-road, had to obey and yield to him. He was a good king!

Profitsbeard said...

As 9/11 showed, when arrogant maniacs push against Civilization too hard, and too overtly, they get firestorms in reply.

The same works for individuals.

At one point, they say: The hell with you, Jack! and kick back harder than the bully attacking them ever expected.

Muslims count on (and prey upon) submissive personalities, because they have been indoctrinated to submit, themselves.

They are in for increasingly unpleasant surprises from the West.

And will learn that our phrase:

"We have not yet begun to fight."

is all too true.

The Koran will end up in shreds once enough free minds examine its laughbale pastiche of plagiarized pabulum.

Exegesis as evisceration.

And Islam will unravel like a cheap suit.

Paul said...

Richard, Awesome! Beowulf!

Well, I recently saw the new movie 'Beowulf', with Angelina Jolee. Good night!

Hey, the movie makers said the movie was full of literarry libery. They were right about that! The old King told Beowulf that Grendle's mother was no Hag! Wow! How would he know???

I think I need to read the original. Thanks for the reply.

X said...

The same works for individuals.

All to true. I had an experience way, way back about a year before I finished school, which would make me about... 15, I think. Anyway, the previous six years had been something of a living hell for me. I'm naturally a fairly quiet and - yes - submissive personality, I tend to let other people do the leading. In a school environment this means either you never get involved, or you get bullied. I was bullied, and it got progressively worse as those years wore on. The school was worse than useless about it. Anyway I figured being the "better man" made me morally superior so I lived with it until that final year, when it just got too much for me and I beat one of them up. They never touched me again after that.

That taught me one thing. There's a time for talk, and there's a time to stop talking. Sometimes you have to, in the words of those mediation folks, "escalate" the situation. If someone is hitting you, you hit back harder, and if they keep hitting, you keep on hitting until they get the message that you aren't going to just sit there and let them keep beating you up.