The foundational premise of Islam is that other peoples distorted and perverted the true message of God, which Mohammed presented in its pure and final form in the Koran. The Koran does not “fulfill” Christian or Jewish scripture, as Christianity claims to do for the Jewish Scriptures it embraces. It replaces them. To address the “Muslim world,” therefore, by definition is to address those who consider themselves faithful to the true prophecy that corrects the perversions and distortions of other religions.
Muslim megalomania is the cognate of Muslim paranoia: if we are the bearers of the final prophecy, why are we so weak and poor? The answer must be that a Satanic conspiracy has kept us down.
Obama sought to blunt Muslim paranoia by appealing to megalomania, in several ways. Daniel Pipes points out a howler of particular importance, namely Obama’s claim that America’s Muslim population was 7 million. “Study after study has found that demographic figure about three times too high. But Islamist organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America relentlessly promote the notion of seven or even ten million American Muslims. Obama’s accepting their version amounts to a giveaway, a cheap way to win the approbation of Islamists who so widely influence Muslim opinion,” Pipes observes.
Or the falsification of history to exaggerate (or invent of whole cloth) a Muslim contribution: “Ignoring the role of ancient Greece, pre-Islamic Persia, China and india, he credited Islam with having invented modern medicine, algebra, navigation and even the use of pen and printing. He went so far as to trace the genesis of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to Cairo’s medieval Al Azhar theological school,” as Amir Taheri wrote this morning in the New York Post.
Or equivalencies between perceived Muslim suffering and Jewish suffering. Israeli leaders noted with distaste Obama’s equation of the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering. The Jerusalem Post reported this morning:
“Obama shockingly equated the destruction of European Jewry to the suffering Arabs brought upon themselves when they declared war on the nascent state of Israel,” National Union MK Arye Eldad said. “If he doesn’t understand the difference, perhaps he will when he visits the Buchenwaldconcentration camp [on Friday]. And if he still won’t get it then, the Muslims will teach him a painful lesson that his predecessor learned on September 11.”
Just what is the great “suffering” of the Palestinian people? Per capital income of Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank and Gaza strip is estimated at $2,900, or $8 a day. Half of Egyptians live on $2 a day or less. Living standards among Palestinian “refugees” (no where else in history have the great-great-grandchildren of refugees been classified as refugees) are somewhat better than those in Egypt and other Arab countries without substantial oil exports. Foreign aid per capita of $300 per year is the highest in the world. The Palestinians, to be sure, are subject to considerable annoyance and delays in movement due to Israeli counterterrorism controls, but that is another matter.
Nonetheless, the humiliation of the Palestinians — for it is humiliation rather than impoverishment — looms as large in Arab eyes as the extermination of European Jewry. Obama obliged by accommodating the linked megalomania and paranoia of his audience.
Angelo Codevilla said it best in a National Review Online roundup:
After a thousand years during which Islam and Western civilization have trod opposite paths in philosophy, science, and the most basic attitudes toward relations between the sexes and the role of work in life — and after a half-century during which Muslims have murdered Western ambassadors and Olympians, to the cheers of millions of their own — suddenly a young American seems to believe he can conjure up a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” How could anyone imagine he possesses such a “reset button”? The answer only starts with Yuppie hubris.
n his piece de resistence he urged his audience to “abandon violence,” because “resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.” But his audience knew perfectly well that the U.S. government had given billions of dollars to to the Muslim world precisely because so many Muslims had succeeded in killing so many Americans. Of course they had succeeded…Americans have only begun to suffer for having empowered a leadership class so intellectually crippled.
Obama has made the “Muslim world” feel strong and empowered, not only by showing obeisance to Islam, but also by demanding unilateral concessions only from the Israelis. He has validated the Islamists, who always claimed to speak for “Muslim” interests, rather than, say, the national interests of an Egypt or Jordan. By conceding “peaceful use of nuclear energy” to Iran, he has validated the stance of the present Iranian leadership, which sees only irresolution from the United States.
Codevilla is right. We have only begun to suffer the consequences of our own stupidity.
June 5th, 2009 |
Pandering to backward peoples who insist on trying to rid themselves of the daily humiliation they feel by inflicting violence on more successful societies is never going to produce peace or better relationships between Islam and the developed or developing world.
While Obama recapitulates the Jimmy Carter approach to wounded Islam that brought us the Iranian hostage crisis, he would do well to consider the following. The Islamic world has not learned in two centuries how to cope with the challenges posed to it by modernity in the form of Western influence and intervention in “their” region of the world. As they continue to obsess about how the West and its proxies have inflicted such distress on their sensibilities, however, a numerically larger and closer to home threat is emerging to their east. I am speaking about the rise of India, China and other smaller Asian societies. These societies are mastering the tools of the modern world just as Europeans and Americans did in the past and will end up inflicting even more defeat and humiliation on the domains of Islam than the West did, because they are much closer to Dar el Islam, and will require its natural resources even more than the West.
If Obama had any sense, he would tell the Muslims you had better learn to deal with America now, because we are a much more benevolent society than what you will have to deal with down the road in Indians, Chinese, etc. who feel no guilt over your backwardness. In fact, the Indians might feel some glee over their current rising superiority over their Muslim neighbors, just as the Israelis might. Recognize reality, or your future will be even dimmer than the past 60 years of battlefield losses and cultural humiliation.
June 5th, 2009 |
[...] More here. [...]
June 7th, 2009 |
I love this blog by Spengler. I used to be able to email posts to my family — but now in the last few days I don’t see an “email friend” option. Can anyone tell me how to do it?
Thanks.
June 8th, 2009 |
The whole new website is brand new — I’m just learning it. I’ll look into it and let you know.
June 8th, 2009 |
Mr.Goldman, Judeocentric Islamaphobe rantings belie your credentials. President Barack Hussain Obama’s approach to the Muslims (long overdue by an American President, specially after eight years of a xenophobic meglomaniac cabal)was in the least a welcome relief. Though this too fell short of expectations, nonetheless it was well received. Obviously the bigoted psyche of the zionists will not allow a rational, studied
reaction to a hand of friendship offered by an obviously educated and thoughtful human being. You and your ilk cherry pick verses and historical events to justify hatemongering. One can do the same and more with the Bible and the Torah, which too exhorts its followers to violence and more. Unfortunately that is the path to destruction, of the entire human race. More importantly will fall in the same category as your claims taken out of context and historical perpspective. Muslims have much too much love and respect for Jesus and Moses and Abraham to indulge in such rhetorical exchanges. You will not be able wipe out the Muslims and nor can the Muslims wipe out the Jews or the Christians. The best we can do is learn to live in harmony and understanding. Belittling each other or their beliefs only creates more angst. The world owes a lot to the Muslim scholars, philosophers and scientists. Look up history instead of distorting it to suit your nefarious design. The world also owes a debt to scholars, philosophers and scientists of all other faiths and persuasions, including and specially to Jewish and Christian in the modern era. Peace and Love for all mankind, irrespective of race , color, religion or gender. Your venoumous parody of history and facts are leading the people towards disaster. We are all God’s chosen people, no one preferred over the other except by our own personal deeds. You claim to be better civilised, then prove it, not by humiliation or hubris or hate,or brutality or occupation, but by meaningful actions of tolerance and love and friendship. “Not by political oppression, economic exploitation or social degradation.”MLK
June 8th, 2009 |
Mr.Goldman, Judeocentric Islamaphobe rantings belie your credentials. President Barack Hussain Obama’s approach to the Muslims (long overdue by an American President, specially after eight years of a xenophobic meglomaniac cabal)was in the least a welcome relief. Though this too fell short of expectations, nonetheless it was well received. Obviously the bigoted psyche of the zionists will not allow a rational, studied
reaction to a hand of friendship offered by an obviously educated and thoughtful human being. You and your ilk cherry pick verses and historical events to justify hatemongering. One can do the same and more with the Bible and the Torah, which too exhorts its followers to violence and more. Unfortunately that is the path to destruction, of the entire human race. More importantly will fall in the same category as your claims taken out of context and historical perpspective. Muslims have much too much love and respect for Jesus and Moses and Abraham to indulge in such rhetorical exchanges. You will not be able wipe out the Muslims and nor can the Muslims wipe out the Jews or the Christians. The best we can do is learn to live in harmony and understanding. Belittling each other or their beliefs only creates more angst. The Holocaust was not a Muslim act, Crusades was not started by the Muslims, and the USS Liberty was not attacked by Muslims. One can go on but it serves no purpose except to inflame passions, its time to heal. Whether you accept it or not the world owes a lot to the Muslim scholars, philosophers and scientists. Look up history instead of distorting it to suit your nefarious design. The world also owes a debt to scholars, philosophers and scientists of all other faiths and persuasions, including and specially to Jewish and Christian in the modern era. Your venoumous parody of history and facts are leading the people towards disaster. We are all God’s chosen people, no one preferred over the other except by our own personal deeds. You claim to be better civilised, then prove it, not by humiliation or hubris or hate,or brutality or occupation, but by meaningful actions of tolerance and love and friendship. “Not by political oppression, economic exploitation or social degradation.”(MLK a true leader of men)
June 8th, 2009 |
Spengler,
Would you please have the User Registration site of your Inner Working blog checked up by your IT guys? It doesn´t work. I tried several times in the last few weeks and couldn´t get any password email returned for my registration. It could happen to many other potential new users as well. Sorry that I have to post this request here. Thank you in advance!
June 9th, 2009 |
Saeed,
I hope you continue to post on this blog, despite your outrage. But I did not cherry-pick verses from the Koran. On the contrary, I merely pointed out that there is no statement remotely equivalent to the ones Obama cited from the Talmud and the Christian Bible. Nor do I propose to wipe out the Muslims. Even if I could, which I can’t, I would not want to do so — God forbid. I don’t want to wipe out anyone. But many Muslim countries are in profound trouble and well may wipe themselves out without anyone’s help — starting with Iran. On that, see my post on the Public Square blog at this site this morning.
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