[lit-ideas] Europe (Re: Re: Dutch support killer of van Gogh)
- From: Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:31:18 -0800 (PST)
The narcism of small differences...
For the sake of discussion, may I point out that
"Europe" is 30+ nations, and more than half a billion
people depending a bit on where you draw the Eastern
border. Some of these nations are more conservative
than your average US state (think Eastern Europe),
some more liberal (think Eastern Europe again, yes it
is complicated). In terms of providing wellfare
services, or the "dole", US of A would rank propably
somewhere below average in genorosity on an European
scale but by no means at the bottom. Some do well in
integratin immigrants (Sweden, UK), some have up to
third of the population made of non-citizens (Latvia).
Minorities including Turkish, Russian, Finns (in
Sweden), Gypsy, Moroccan, etc. are over-presented in
crime statistic and general misery, while a few
minorities are actually on average better off (Swedish
speaking Finns).
And if we must post right-wing rants, how about a good
one from Theodore Dalrymple?
Why Theo Van Gogh Was Murdered
The slaughter of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on the
streets of Amsterdam, in broad daylight, by a young
man of Moroccan origin bent on jihad, has at last
dented Dutch confidence that unconditional tolerance
can be on its own the unifying principle of a viable
society. For tolerance to work, it must be reciprocal;
tolerance appears to the intolerant jihadist mere
weakness and lack of belief in anything. Unilateral
tolerance in a world of intolerance is like unilateral
disarmament in a world of armed camps: it regards hope
as a better basis for policy than reality.
Like most people in Western democracies, Van Gogh, by
all accounts a brash and combative man, took his
freedom of expression for granted. Most of us most of
the time do not reflect much on the fact that such
freedom is an historical exception rather than an
historical rule, a reversible achievement rather than
a free gift of God. There are still many who would
rather kill than brook any contradiction of their
opinions or beliefs, even while they live in the most
tolerant of societies.
But why kill Theo Van Gogh, of all the people who have
expressed hostility to radical Islam? Perhaps it was
mere chance, but more likely it resulted from his
work?s exposure of a very raw nerve of Muslim identity
in Western Europe: the abuse of women. This abuse is
now essential for people of Muslim descent for
maintaining any sense of separate cultural identity in
the homogenizing solution of modern mass society.
In fact, Islam is as vulnerable in Europe to the
forces of secularization as Christianity has proved to
be. The majority of Muslims in Europe, particularly
the young, have a weak and tenuous connection to their
ancestral religion. Their level and intensity of
belief is low; pop music interests them more. Far from
being fanatics, they are lukewarm believers at best.
Were it not for the abuse of women, Islam would go the
way of the Church of England.
The abuse of women has often, if not always, appealed
to men, because it gives them a sense of power,
however humiliated they may feel in other spheres of
their life. And the oppression of women by Muslim men
in Western Europe gives those men at the same time a
sexual partner, a domestic servant, and a gratifying
sense of power, while allowing them also to live an
otherwise westernized life. For the men, it is
convenient; interestingly, but perhaps not
surprisingly, almost the only openly hostile
expressions toward Islam from British-born Muslims
that I hear come from young women, some of whom loathe
it passionately because they blame it for their
servitude.
Religious sanction for the oppression of women
(whether theologically justified or not) is hence the
main attraction of Islam to young men in an
increasingly secular world. This explains why a divide
often opens between brothers and sisters in the same
European Muslim family; the sisters want liberty, but
the brothers enforce the old rules. They have to, or
the whole gratifying system breaks down.
This, I suspect, is the source of the rage against
Theo Van Gogh.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_11_15_04td.html
Yours,
Teemu
Helsinki, Finland
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