by Samuel Z. Anvil
Thomas Friedman, one of the resident always-politically-correct pundits at the New York Times, has been chanting the mantra of “terrorism is a result of our humiliation of the Islamic world” for so long that it’s become yet another of those liberal “truths” that are so convincing only until you actually think about them.
The gist of Friedman’s chant is this: we Westerners have been beating the Moslems at everything for these last centuries, and now we’ve left them to wallow in their utterly failed backward poverty-stricken dictatorships, seething in humiliation – is it any wonder they’re crashing airliners into skyscrapers and blowing themselves (and us!) up in buses and trains? Wouldn’t you do the same? Poor fellows. It’s all our fault, you see, according to the sage from 42nd Street. We’ve embarrassed them by not being losers like they are, and now we’re getting what we deserve.
Well, there are two subtle points about humiliation that Thomas has missed.
First, failure doesn’t have to lead to humiliation. Take Thomas himself as an example. For years he’s been analyzing the Middle East and the world situation, as respected liberal columnists tend to do, and he hasn’t gotten anything right, ever. Remember that Saudi peace plan he more or less invented and waved around the world in 2001, assuring everybody that here, finally, his good friend Prince whatever-his-name-is had finally come to terms with the Jews’ right to breathe the same air as everybody else? Do you remember too what happened next, on the very day of the Arab summit that was supposed to adopt that wonderful made-in-Manhattan peace plan? The Passover Seder Massacre, that’s what happened.
Some peace plan.
And all of Tom’s deep incisive commentary and analysis about the quagmire of Iraq, and the fighting spirit of the Taliban? And all of his reasoned, learned advice about how to wean North Korea and Iran from their nuclear toys? All nonsense, every column, every word. Events proved him wrong about everything, every time.
And yet, despite being a total failure as an analyst, Thomas isn’t feeling the least bit humiliated. No, he’s still pounding away at his word processor, still going to cocktail parties and proudly pontificating to the wide-eyed cute little wannabe journalists and the oh-so sophisticated “cycle of violence” groupies.
And second, did Thomas ever notice that the word “humiliation” is closely related to the world “humility?” That’s what humiliation really means, the humiliated party humbly figures out that maybe he’s not God’s gift to humanity after all. Maybe he’s just a pathetic little screw-up who should get his act together and start behaving like a human being.
By that meaning, Moslems aren’t humiliated at all.
What they are is mad. Mad that their societies are still spinning their wheels in the third world mud. Mad that young men have nothing to look forward to except emigration. Mad that young women have nothing to look forward to but a life somewhere between a camel’s and a donkey’s. Mad that everybody else knows the truth.
If there was any shred of humiliation among them, they would have the humility to admit that their societies’ problems are of their own making and that they alone, Moslems, had better get cracking to fix what they themselves have screwed up.
But they’re not being at all humble. Instead, they’re waving their swords over their heads, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, pounding their chests like King Kong, making all sorts of awful noises and wild threats, demanding martyrdom for us all. And their cheerleaders, Thomas Friedman and his friends at CNN and BBC and Reuters, are dancing on the sidelines and waving the “Noble Savage” flag, urging them on and finding excuses for every atrocity they commit.
Well, I for one have faith that one day they’re going to run out of oil, and then there will be no more money to buy expensive cars and cheap journalists.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
What’s Behind the Double Standard
by Samuel Z. Anvil
Oh, the humiliation! The horror! No wonder the press cries out! Worldwide revulsion, disgust and Moslem rage! Shame on you!
Of course they’re not speaking about what Sadam did to his own people: the gassings, the rapes, the strangulations, the mass graves, etc. Or any of the atrocities countless Moslem leaders inflicted on their fellow Moslems over the years. But why not? Weren’t those things disgusting too? Is there something going on here that ordinary people like you and me don’t understand?
Well, actually there is. But it’s all very simple really, and it makes perfect sense to Moslems. It’s only we infidels who have difficulty understanding it.
You see, in the Islamic view of things, the lives of infidel kafirs like us (Christians, Jews and everybody else), are “worth” something between a Moslem woman and a camel. I’ll bet you didn’t think there was room between those two lowly categories to wedge a fingernail in, let alone the vast majority of human beings on this planet, but there is. There’s room for each and every one of us. It’s another of Allah’s miracles.
At the top of the heap are Moslem men, Masters of the Universe, the purpose of all creation, the exclusive custodians of the eternal Truth, and the people whose feet we kafirs should all be kissing. Below them are Moslem women, whose job it is to wash those feet. Below them, us, then camels and other useful creatures like sheep that don’t make too much of a fuss when a Moslem man whips out his knife.
So when a Moslem man tears out another Moslem’s fingernails and rapes his daughters and slits all their throats, well that’s just the way things are in Allah’s dysfunctional little family. And when a Moslem man shoots dead a pregnant dhimmi woman and her four daughters as they drive through a part of the world he thinks belongs to him (and of course every square inch of this planet rightfully belongs to Moslems and to nobody else), well, that’s his natural-born right as Master of the Universe. Even the kafirs of Europe don’t dare deny him that right.
But if a kafir, a dhimmi, one of those so-called people whose role in this life is to be properly submissive to and respectful of his Moslem betters, should turn around and strike back, well that’s completely unthinkable. It’s against Allah’s holy law. It’s as though a wife should, perish the thought, hit back when her husband beats her. It’s a shameful humiliation, a travesty of Allah’s creation, it can’t be allowed to stand, and it “fuels Islamic rage.”
It’s shameful and humiliating because what the dhimmi is saying when he strikes back is that maybe, just maybe, Moslem men are not the pinnacle of all creation, the reason why the whole universe exists. And when the dhimmi creates a free society in which people have real hope of better lives, while Moslem men use their oil billions to create one hellhole country after another, the dhimmi is saying: “Don’t give me this crap about how wonderful you are, and how Allah himself has chosen you to rule the world.”
And that is a message no Master of the Universe wants to hear. Not from his wives, not from his slaves (and yes, they do have slaves in this twenty-first Christian century), and certainly not from the dhimmis, the sons of pigs and monkeys. So he runs for refuge to his holy books, which tell him to – guess what? – kill the infidel! And if it’s not possible to kill the infidel right now, to do what Prophet did: lie to the infidel, make a false peace while you prepare for war, and plan for the long term. Send him your masses to overwhelm his country with the fruits of your wombs, take advantage of the kafir’s unsuspecting nature, use his democratic laws and rights to undermine his society, enlist the help of the dull-witted, remind him of his wars against you and when he mentions your wars against him, call him a racist, and in the end – maybe a hundred years from now, maybe a thousand – you will finally rule the world as Allah intended. Patience. The infidel is too stupid to understand what you are doing.
And that is how the dhimmi world came to recoil in revulsion at photos of Moslem prisoners being abused, while the Islamic world danced for joy at the photos of the charred bodies of murdered dhimmi hanging from a bridge.
Do you understand now?
Oh, the humiliation! The horror! No wonder the press cries out! Worldwide revulsion, disgust and Moslem rage! Shame on you!
Of course they’re not speaking about what Sadam did to his own people: the gassings, the rapes, the strangulations, the mass graves, etc. Or any of the atrocities countless Moslem leaders inflicted on their fellow Moslems over the years. But why not? Weren’t those things disgusting too? Is there something going on here that ordinary people like you and me don’t understand?
Well, actually there is. But it’s all very simple really, and it makes perfect sense to Moslems. It’s only we infidels who have difficulty understanding it.
You see, in the Islamic view of things, the lives of infidel kafirs like us (Christians, Jews and everybody else), are “worth” something between a Moslem woman and a camel. I’ll bet you didn’t think there was room between those two lowly categories to wedge a fingernail in, let alone the vast majority of human beings on this planet, but there is. There’s room for each and every one of us. It’s another of Allah’s miracles.
At the top of the heap are Moslem men, Masters of the Universe, the purpose of all creation, the exclusive custodians of the eternal Truth, and the people whose feet we kafirs should all be kissing. Below them are Moslem women, whose job it is to wash those feet. Below them, us, then camels and other useful creatures like sheep that don’t make too much of a fuss when a Moslem man whips out his knife.
So when a Moslem man tears out another Moslem’s fingernails and rapes his daughters and slits all their throats, well that’s just the way things are in Allah’s dysfunctional little family. And when a Moslem man shoots dead a pregnant dhimmi woman and her four daughters as they drive through a part of the world he thinks belongs to him (and of course every square inch of this planet rightfully belongs to Moslems and to nobody else), well, that’s his natural-born right as Master of the Universe. Even the kafirs of Europe don’t dare deny him that right.
But if a kafir, a dhimmi, one of those so-called people whose role in this life is to be properly submissive to and respectful of his Moslem betters, should turn around and strike back, well that’s completely unthinkable. It’s against Allah’s holy law. It’s as though a wife should, perish the thought, hit back when her husband beats her. It’s a shameful humiliation, a travesty of Allah’s creation, it can’t be allowed to stand, and it “fuels Islamic rage.”
It’s shameful and humiliating because what the dhimmi is saying when he strikes back is that maybe, just maybe, Moslem men are not the pinnacle of all creation, the reason why the whole universe exists. And when the dhimmi creates a free society in which people have real hope of better lives, while Moslem men use their oil billions to create one hellhole country after another, the dhimmi is saying: “Don’t give me this crap about how wonderful you are, and how Allah himself has chosen you to rule the world.”
And that is a message no Master of the Universe wants to hear. Not from his wives, not from his slaves (and yes, they do have slaves in this twenty-first Christian century), and certainly not from the dhimmis, the sons of pigs and monkeys. So he runs for refuge to his holy books, which tell him to – guess what? – kill the infidel! And if it’s not possible to kill the infidel right now, to do what Prophet did: lie to the infidel, make a false peace while you prepare for war, and plan for the long term. Send him your masses to overwhelm his country with the fruits of your wombs, take advantage of the kafir’s unsuspecting nature, use his democratic laws and rights to undermine his society, enlist the help of the dull-witted, remind him of his wars against you and when he mentions your wars against him, call him a racist, and in the end – maybe a hundred years from now, maybe a thousand – you will finally rule the world as Allah intended. Patience. The infidel is too stupid to understand what you are doing.
And that is how the dhimmi world came to recoil in revulsion at photos of Moslem prisoners being abused, while the Islamic world danced for joy at the photos of the charred bodies of murdered dhimmi hanging from a bridge.
Do you understand now?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
