Posted by Harcamone
The Muslims believe that Islam isn’t only a religion, it’s a community — as “Christendom” once was. Isn’t that right? That’s why they say an attack on “Muslims” is an attack on all Muslims. That’s why Muslims in, say, Holland, feel compelled to avenge Muslims in Bosnia.
But there is another side to that logic. If we are attacked by “Muslims,” then we are entitled to retaliate at “Muslims” in the same way that if a person attacks you with his right hand, you can shoot him in his left hand, or his head, or his leg. It’s the same body.
And by the way, it’s not us who made up that idea of a BODY, it’s them. That idea is one of the fundamental concepts of Islam. Islam is a faith-based community with a higher claim on most of its members’ emotions and loyalties than citizenship in a particular nation.
If “they” don’t repudiate what’s going on (not just a few of them, but millions of them), if they’re scared to take a public position against it, if their kids hang around on British street corners seething with rage, if they fear “backlash” more than they feel the need to stand in solidarity with their fellow citizens, if they can’t resolve their theological contradictions and absurdities … well, I say it’s spinach.
“The Islamic World.” “The Muslim World.” Why do we accept this entity as legitimate, when we — i.e., The West — in our development, long ago left behind the idea of “Christendom?” Just say Christendom to yourself a few times, and boy, doesn’t it sound weird? People our age remember that word from old Chivalry tales we read as boys — the fairest and bravest knight in all of Christendom. But our children never heard of that word. You would have a hard time explaining it to them, because it is such an alien idea today. And rightly so.
“Christendom” is exactly equivalent to “The Muslim World.” But while everyone agrees that “Christendom” is a reactionary concept, “The Muslim World” is not described by our press, leaders, educators or cultural commentators as a reactionary or politically incorrect concept. But it is reactionary and politically incorrect. And it’s primitive, too. So why are we constrained from describing it as such?
When we say “The Muslim World” without gagging, or without irony, we are accepting an arrangement that doesn’t only privilege one group of people, but consigns everyone else in that “world” to inferior status — spiritually and politically. This lesser status isn’t ad hoc, or improvised, or the product of some people’s bad attitude. It’s instutionalized. It’s official. It’s doctrinal.
Liberals choke and gag when they hear about the Ten Commandments being publically displayed in a courthouse in an obscure town that hardly anybody, other than its residents, will ever visit. But they cannot bring themselves to question the legitimacy of an ENTIRE WORLD that calls itself “The Muslim World.” Not only solidly Muslim countries, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are part of “The Muslim World.” Pluralistic societies like Indonesia and the Phillipines are also part of it. Some Islamic authorities even think Spain is part of “The Muslim World.” “The Muslim World” is a spiritual reality that trumps political realities. And Western liberals — the descendents of Voltaire and Tom Paine — just swallow that shit whole. It’s unbelievable.
The Guardian prints an “analysis”
What Leftists deplore and revile if it comes from Christians, they somehow accept if it comes from Muslims.