Richard Fernandez, commenting on Michael Totten in Sarajevo (remember that clash of cultures from the 1990s?), has a counterintuitive thought of general application:
Maybe the real threat to multiculturalism are the demagogues who see identity politics as the road to power, even if that process involves the destruction of the larger polity. Under the color of multiculturalism, the ship of separatism steams majestically on.
And yet the post-war Balkans seems to have a kind of stability of its own. It may have engendered warfare and hatred, but it was of a local kind. Imported varieties were unwelcome. It's interesting to learn that despite the vast effort expended in the Middle East to deploy Wahabi fighters and missionaries there, they were largely treated with disdain by the local Muslims themselves. Still they are trying, though without much success -- so far.
Our great advantage over the death cults within Islam is that they cannot conceive of the probability they are their own worst enemies. Michael Totten is in Europe, and that's the context for Wretchard's counterintuitive thought. However, people are people and the odds dictate the likelihood that what is instinctively true in Sarajevo is also instinctively true in Jakarta as well. Witness the latest radical push among a dedicated minority in Indonesia, Muslim Sect Told to Return to Mainstream Islam:
Hard-liners have attacked Ahmadiyah members and torched their mosques since the government said in April it was considering banning the faith. Several dozen religious tolerance activists were beaten at a rally in Jakarta just over a week ago while police stood by.
A spokesman for the radical Islamic Defenders' Front — which has a long record of arson, stoning and vandalism against opponents and Western targets — said the decree falls short of its demands.
"It is not enough. We will keep up the struggle until the president orders the disbandment of Ahmadiyah," he said in a telephone interview.
Earlier Monday, several thousands protesters wearing white Islamic robes and caps gathered outside the presidential palace to demand that the organization be outlawed.
Indonesia is a moderate Islamic nation -- and the largest Islamic nation -- and they are fighting the good fight to keep the radicals in check.
That has to be done delicately, for obvious reasons. Islam is a notoriously insecure faith. As a non-Islamic society, we should at least acknowledge the challenge they [the Government of Indonesia and other nation-state's in the Islamic world] are confronting. I think the Indonesians are doing a fairly good job -- they surely fall far short of what I would like but that can't be the standard when modernity is defecating on so much of what they hold dear (just as it is in our country).
Dinesh D'Souza, ridiculed on the left and right in America for his book "The Enemy at Home," was absolutely correct on this point.
We have to help the great middle in Islam, from a position of respecting their faith, deal with their death cults. One of Wretchard's readers referred to them as Luciferians. Here's what Dave wrote:
The Wahabi mentality is not limited to Muslims/Arabs/towelheads/other common pejoratives.
Approximately 50% of the Ron Paul supporters fit the profile. An equal or higher percentage of Buchanan acolytes do the same.
And we hardly need to mention moonbats, humanists, militant atheists, and a host of other usual suspects.
It all stems from fear of the hereafter. Dread that you will suffer some form of eternal damnation unless you do very nasty things to anybody and everybody that ever so slightly deviates from your notion of propriety. (And said notions tend to change very rapidly.)
To expose my own beliefs: I call this Luciferian in orgin. The imposition of behavior that if universal would result in species extinction. And promoting same as the only morality in existence.
The towelheaded Wahabis are currently the most prominent variety. That is because they can utilize illegal behavior and enjoy the strongest cash flow. However the Gorebots are not too far behind.
That may be too strong (may be) but it is a good formulation for understanding these folks who appear to be worldwide fellow-travelers. Quite often well-intended but hopelessly tools for evil. That's why vigilance is required, a vigilance that is not superhuman but is simple and quite "of this world." A vigilance that occasionally backslides, perhaps even regularly, but never gives up.
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