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June 08, 2006

Religion of Peace?

Theodore Dalrymple puts pen to paper for the City Journal and turns in a deeply pessimistic review of Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $30).

The week following the Muslim protests in London against the Danish cartoons—with marchers carrying signs calling for the beheading of infidels—other Muslims demonstrated to claim that Islam really meant peace and tolerance. While their implicit recognition that peace and tolerance are preferable to strife and bigotry did these Muslims personal honor, the claim regarding Islam was both historically and intellectually preposterous. Only someone ignorant of the most elementary facts could believe such a thing. From the first, Islam was a religion of pillage, violence, and compulsion, which it justified and glorified.

According to Dalrymple, the obligatory, "Not all Muslims are terrorists" disclaimer is not as reassuring as one might hope, noting that an unwillingness to wield the knife or the bomb -- as well as the ability to be personally charming -- may only be a public personae, forced upon the wearer by "historical circumstance." He uses a famous Englishman to make his point.

Consider, by way of illustration, Eric Hobsbawm, the famous, much feted, and unrepentantly Marxist historian. No one would feel personally threatened by him at a social gathering, where he would be amusing, polite, charming, and accomplished; if you had him to dinner, you wouldn’t have to count the spoons afterward, even though he theoretically opposes the idea of private wealth. In short, there would be no reason to suspect that he was about to commit a common crime against you. In this sense, he is what one might call a moderate Marxist.

But Hobsbawm has stated quite openly that, had the Soviet Union managed to create a functioning and prosperous socialist society, 20 million deaths would have been a worthwhile price to pay; and since he didn’t recognize, even partially, that the Soviet Union was not in fact on the path to such a society until many years after it had murdered 20 million of its people (if not more), it is fair to assume that, if things had turned out another way in his own country, Hobsbawm would have applauded, justified, and perhaps even instigated the murders of the very people to whom he was now, under the current dispensation, being amusing, charming, and polite. In other words, what saved Hobsbawm from committing utter evil was not his own scruples or ratiocination, and certainly not the doctrine he espoused, but the force of historical circumstance. His current moderation would have counted for nothing if world events had been different.

Dalrymple concludes that for Islam to become something other than a justification for jihad, it must, in essence, cease being Islam. He is not, to be certain, optomistic.

Take a few minutes and read the whole thing.

Posted by Mike Lief at June 8, 2006 07:42 AM | TrackBack

Comments

America only needs to look at itself in the mirror if it wants to see a country in full blood lust. Our history is motivated out of fear and greed. From Wounded Knee to Japanese internment camps, we have no right to throw rocks at other cultures.

Posted by: Sbarro at June 9, 2006 12:09 AM

re: above comment. Kneejerk. Another reason history classes are more important than ever.

A history course would provide the reality you're not getting from Jon Stewart....

Posted by: Vermont Neighbor at June 9, 2006 07:49 AM

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