“…multiculturalism presupposes mutual tolerance.”
Ahhh. There’s the rub. If you read the Quran (you really only need to read a little bit), it quickly becomes clear that failure to acknowledge that Allah is the only one true God, and Mohammad is his messenger, is the greatest of all evils. Islam is thus, at its very core, obsessed with the conversion of the disbeliever. Failing conversion, the disbelievers, or kuffar, in a world that is ideally under worldwide Islamic rule (which is, after all, the goal of islam), can choose to live as dhimmis or choose to die by the sword. The very nature of Islam is supremacist. Indeed, “he who fights that Islam should be superior fights in Allah’s cause”. The call to prayer, the adhan, proclaims that there is no God but Allah – Allah is great, yada yada yada. Islam is not tolerant. Yet, strangley, Islam has found a friend and ally in liberals; liberals who do not acknowldge or recognize this little problem with their multicultural darling, Islam. Why has Islam become the “-ism” that is above criticism? Writes Paul Thomas:
Last week Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan, author of the recently filmed Atonement, told an Italian newspaper that he despises Islamism which wants to create “a society that I detest”.
The Independent interpreted this as “an astonishingly strong attack” and floated the idea that his words might constitute a hate crime.
McEwan made the comments when defending his friend and fellow novelist Martin Amis, who has been accused of racism for saying similar things at somewhat greater length.
[...]
Although Islamism is often portrayed as a determination to turn back the clock, theorists such as philosopher John Gray have pointed out it actually has much in common with modern utopian ideologies like communism and fascism.
Like them it offers a one-size-fits-all system that leaves no room for opposition or dissent.
[...]
Like most other -isms, Islamism has global ambitions and accepts no restraint on its spread and application.
[...]
Surely attacking the ideology of Islamism is no more racist than condemning the crimes and credos of Robert Mugabe or the generals of Myanmar or the Khmer Rouge or Maoism.
And the problem with trying to accommodate Islamism within the multicultural umbrella is that multiculturalism presupposes mutual tolerance.
By viewing all other belief systems as blasphemies whose heretical followers must be converted or eliminated, Islamism rather hangs its hat on intolerance. [wow, this guy gets it]
[...]
Thus while McEwan, Amis and others have argued that Islamism, with its black and white world view, its medieval censoriousness, its oppression of women and persecution of gays, threatens everything liberals hold dear, their stand has received little support from liberals who tend to see it as right-wing and pro-American.
[...]
The disquiet or outright revulsion inspired by George W. Bush’s America has created a favourable climate for Islamism, both in terms of recruitment and encouraging the tendency to downplay its incompatibility with Western values.
The Islamists will miss Bush when he retires to his ranch but they’ll get over it.
They’re in it for the long haul. [purple comment mine]
RTWT
