How the West Is Being Turned into a Version of the Middle East
I have long thought that we are experiencing what might be called the Middle Easternization of the West but never fully understood it until a friend asked me a question.
Why is it, he asked, that when moderates in the Arab world are attacked they always react defensively and apologetically, trying to prove that they also hold safely radical views?
The key, I realized, was the existence of basic principles that are beyond question and can be manipulated to ensure conformity. There are four main commandments of this type, along with several secondary ones. They can be expressed in the following terms:
Thou shalt hate Israel with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Thou shalt have no other ideological deities before the promotion and protection of Islam.
Remember the importance of Arabism and keep it holy.
Thou shalt not covet the values, acts, or ideas of Western states and societies.
To prove my point, if I had written the previous four lines in Arabic as a citizen of an Arab country I would be risking my life or more likely my career. There are individuals who have done so but their number is limited. They have almost all been either Western-educated or spent many years living in the West. And they often end up having to flee there. Individual rebels who disregard the consequences — I can give you a list if you like — they may be brave, but this is not the stuff of which whole movements are made.
The existence of these imperatives limits debate, not only because someone crosses the acceptable line but far more often because they can be accused of doing so. People lie, people misunderstand, people want to win arguments, and to win or hold onto power.
That’s why the authors of the American Constitution forbade limits on freedom of speech: because once you start creating off-limit areas the worst thing that happens is the empowerment of people who have a self-interest in setting and misusing these limits. They can administer these no-go zones by declaring anything they don’t like to be a hate crime.
Before explaining how this has been transferred to the West, let me give a random example of how this works in the Middle East.
A few year ago a group of courageous Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals produced a manifesto calling for Lebanon to be a truly sovereign country rather than a satellite of Syria. How did the Syrian regime and its stooges in Lebanon respond? By accusing them of being Zionist lackeys.
You see, there was no way out of the trap. The authors of the manifesto had left out the Israel issue. First, that wasn’t their subject. But also it was a no-win situation. If they had gotten into the issue they would have had to say that, of course, Israel was the main enemy of Lebanon and of the Arabs. Therefore, since Syria and Hizballah were fighting Israel they had every right to use Lebanon as a base for the battle. To interfere with those resisting Zionism and American imperialism was equal to siding with the enemy.
In short, they had no right to complain about Syrian domination in the first place. Now imagine that this is extended to every single issue in public life.
Women’s rights? Do you want to copy the Western enemy? What if this contradicts Islam?
Peace with Israel? You can imagine. And so on. The response to any statement or event is entirely predictable. I can tell you the text of the speeches and newspaper articles in advance. This system becomes a straitjacket.
Incidentally, the transition to electoral politics may well intensify this problem, since now instead of just the regimes and Islamists slinging mud at each other, there will be multiple parties competing to use these issues for their benefit against rivals. In the 1940s and 1950s, the radical nationalists and Islamists used this to destroy moderate parties in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and among the Palestinians. Already we see this system of competitive demagoguery being revived in Egypt.
An Arab proverb that applies here is that no voice can be allowed to rise above the din of battle. If the absolute evils of Zionism, imperialism, and the infidel West are fighting it out with the absolute goods of Arabism and Islam, how can there be any real open debate permitted?
Extrapolating from Barry’s thesis, we can now understand more fully the twinning/morphing of Islamists and leftists.One is a mirror image of the other, regardless that their end goal visions differ in outcome.What is most important is that they both agree on pure totalitarian doctrines.IF one does not follow the mandated orthodoxy one pays the ultimate price, each under their own constructs.
Tragically, it has come to pass that the west is ruled by leftist leaders, from top down, bottom up.NO area of influence is left open to debate, debate is absolutely not tolerated.This is why when one speaks to a leftist one feels as if one is talking to a brick wall, whereby one leftist parrots the other-clone-like.So too do Islamists/Arabs mirror one another.
The west has all but succumbed to Middle East constructs, at least in terms set out by thuggish,elitist thought police.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The big problem, perhaps the biggest one, is that the MSM is comprised of leftists and they paint the right as lesser in intellect. The thing that seems to attract liberals is the almost religious, (read pseudoreligious) mutated idealism. A good example, I believe, is the total pacifist–the idiot who would not fight for his freedoms under any circumstances because fighting is “simply worng.” This also alludes to an almost suicidal mindset to these libtards.
A truly excellent analysis.
Thank you.
Very well put indeed, but let me rephrase it in a way that, perhaps, Roger Simon and Angelo Codevilla would like: the Western ruling class have re-branded themselves as the defenders of the oppressed; the Ancien Regime has relabeled itself as “the left”.
I think you have a well analyzed problem. What is the solution? My suggestion is to call liberals pathological altruists. Make sure they know we know they are full of crap.
I would consider pathological hypocrites concerning their altruism to be closer to the truth. Perhaps blind narcissists would be more terse yet exact.
If you are not being accused of a least one of the cardinal sins you must be intellectually mummified. Take it as a compliment. My response? I clap my hand to my forehead and say, “Oh my god. Have I committed a cardinal sin? Or is it just that you can’t come up with a counter argument?”
All those epithets are so overused and hyper-extended as to be devoid of cognitive meaning. Treating them as serious accusations is the first misstep.
Right on Rubin!
Multiculturalism inevitably devolves society into tribalism, in which life is once again nasty, brutish, and short.
Excellent observation. An observation that should be self-evident to any rational person but eludes liberals.
How large does it have to be to qualify as a lobby?
Frankly, any American who doesn’t condemn Islam doesn’t know nearly enough about it.
I agree and would add that any civilized human being who doesn’t condemn Islam doesn’t know enough about it.
I was saying the same things back in 1999, on a counterjihad email list that I was running, before there was much of a blogosphere to speak of. Back then, only a tiny handful of people were speaking up. It was a very lonely effort. The counterjihad movement has grown, but we still have a long way to go.
Exactly so, Mr. Rubin! Francis, who said anything about “pro-Islam-hating…lobbies” other than yourself? I believe the author spoke of “critical discussion of Islam”. You know, the kind you’d, apparently, like to squelch.
Eighth paragraph, first sentence.
First of all, if you had said those 4 commandments at the beginning of your article in the middle east you would have been given the Rachel Corrie Bulldozer Medallion because there is no concept of sarcasm in the middle east.
Remember that you are talking about a culture that thinks Sayd Qutb is an intellectual. Any American who has read Qutb’s 1951 essay, “What I Have Seen In America” realizes that he couldn’t have gotten a story published when he was here in 1949 in ‘Super Science Stories”, even with his talk of ‘full buttocks’ and ‘thirsty lips’. One can well imagine Qutb came away from America not liking the place since we probably reacted to him like we would Lurch in the “Adams Family”.
As for your intellectual friends in Lebanon being called ‘Zionist lackeys’, they should have simply responded, ‘I know you are but what am I?’ You yourself admit that this will be effective in the 0.1% likelihood of democracy in Egypt.
As for that ‘electoral’ problem, you seem to be covering your bases in light of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has not been lifted on eager hands to the throne of Egypt by now saying that a democracy would be even worse since they’d all be saying, ‘I know you are but what am I?. Unfair.
Next up, if you really think there are ‘no pro-racism, pro-Islam-hating, pro-sexist, or pro-homosexual-baiting lobbies’ in the U.S., or that ‘public, even semi-public expressions of racism are virtually extinct in America, you obviously haven’t been listening to Jaime Foxx or Rush Limbaugh on the radio or read black culture websites like ‘The Root’ or saw Katt Williams or Sean Hannity. In fact, this very article may qualify as putting the lie to such a notion.
I agree with you that the old fight against intolerance in America has morphed into the equivalent of Marvel Comics always finding more super villains.
Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Roland Martin, Tavis Smiley, Al Sharpton and other are all pimps who pander political correctness for money the way a chingy in a sky blue velvet fedora puts ‘full buttocks’ and ‘thirsty lips’ out on the curb next to the garbage.
Did I mention Sayd Qutb is a retarded idiot? That’s public. If I wrote a story about Egypt based on ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ it would have more weight than Qutb’s fantasy about being a young man who followed the Greeley misquote by heading West to Greeley and then heading east, 2 years older and 50 years stupider, convinced America should have jihad pronounced against it for the ‘fetching laugh’ of our wimmens, putting sugar on watermelons and worst of all giving Egyptian intellectuals bad haircuts.
And then there’s the wrestling. ‘Gorgeous George’.
Blasphemy!
This issue is not between the west and muslims. It is between one group of westerners that believe that the culture, the heritage, the civilization has value and should not disappear and another that does not. The latter has a tremendous advantage, this thing called liberalism to which we all bow down. No one wants to say I am intolerant. But one day we may have to.
to most people it is inconceivable that a person from another culture comes to your country and starts saying I want my culture to rule here. Even the colonialists did not say that. Instead they gave the colonized the tools to shame the colonialists.
No christian can move to an Islamic nation and start converting even one person or build a church or make any demands at all. Muslims want to have a place that is only for muslims, where Islam rules, where you look around and say everyone here has the same values as me, thinks like me, is akin to me, shares the same holidays, the same God. That is perfectly reasonable. the west, however, said I will be tolerant and diverse. Now the limits of that are being tested. What muslims have we also deserve, not the same extreme extent … but to what extent? That is the question. I believe we have already reached the outer limits.
The inability of westerners to defend themselves breeds contempt. It convinces people that liberalism is weak and foolish. It discourages any loyalty or even respect towards the west. It is not possible to be loyal to someone who is always saying I am nothing, there is nothing about me to inspire respect or liking. Such a posture does not make them say this is great, we need to to do this. It makes them say, we will never do this and we will insist that they change totally to suit us. A lot of damage could be avoided if we could stand firm and say, you are free here, but you are not the majority. You cannot demand that your culture rule or that we change our foreign policy for you. If you really feel strongly about that, you must leave.
The Islamic thinking is at least natural and even reasonable. It is natural to want to increase one’s own kind. It is strange to hate oneself. This is what our vaunted liberalism has come to.
Barry, it is rare that I read an essay where I don’t want to add, amend, distinguish, clarify, …put some “cfbleachers” take on it.
This was simply a masterpiece.
Well done, ….absolute, utter brilliance on display.
Forgive my attempt at adding something which I think rounds off this Fourth Commandment
Thou shalt not covet the values, acts, or ideas of Western states and societies.
except their material possessions and their women!
We musn’t leave out global warming, er I mean climate change …. oops, its climate disruption now.
And of course abortion. It is a proven fact with the left that all anti-abortion people are knuckle dragging scum.
Thought crimes and newspeak are our way of life now.
What an insightful article. That successful strategy for silencing debate is everywhere; and the primary tactic of leftists–but he’s left out one of the slogans: “murderer.” In trying to reign in spending Republicans were accused of wanting to starve old people, children and minorities. Of course, the only answer to such nonsense allows the leftist full victory. How do we confront and overcome such dishonesty?
Wrong!!!! The Founders prohibited the Federal Govt from infringing the freedom of (truthful) speech. Libel, slander, sedition were punishable at the time of the Founding — no problem!!! Oh, yeah, and blasphemy (against Christianity) was also a common-law crime (and could be a hanging offense). The Founders were influenced by the delusions of the Enlightenment, but had enough real-world experience to know that every society has to defend it’s own integrity by enforcing it’s rules and expelling alien influences without mercy.
All this discussion about MENA is interesting–but trivial in terms of American fundamental interests.
The existential threat to America is our massive national debt.
China – today- owns $1.1 Trillion of the US national debt
$1.1 Trillion.
The Roman, Spanish, British, French and Soviet empires all collapsed because of their debts.
What happens in the Levant is important to those who live in the Levant and want to further their interest.
American fundamental interests are very different and increasingly so.
I’m afraid you’re terribly wrong Victor; the existential threat to America and the West is islam, far more so than budget deficits, or sovereign debt levels. More specifically, the islamic demographic bomb dropped on America and the West, a far more powerful one than any nuclear bomb.
Victor is right on the debt, and it is a huge portion of the road to American ruin. Multiculturalism is another fork in the road to the eroding of America and its traditions and values as you mentioned. Rarely do today’s immigrants (Legal or Illegal) come to this country to become American’s and participate in the American Melting Pot. They come demanding this or that as if their culture or ideology is superior, or ours too insulting for them to tolerate. Some expect to show up and have carte blanche access to entitlements, programs, and benefits but haven’t paid a dime into them. We are expected to bend over backwards and put their holidays, traditions, and culture ahead of our own. This comes from a liberal sense that somehow because they came from some third world craphole they are morally and spiritually more enlightened and more deserving of America and its wealth.
Islam has been mostly at war with itself throughout history. Right now they are killing each other in several parts of the world. We are not worse than 500 years ago in Lepanto. Europe was divided by the German Reformation and a small band of Spaniards, Venetians, and Genovese fought the superior forces of the Sultan while the French and the Germans stayed home. God fought that battle for the forces of Don Juan (the Spanish commander of the fleet) and the Muslim forces were defeated. The West had traitors and appeasers in its midst back then just as it is now. But that battle marks the moment when the West began its magnificent ascent that lasts until today. In my view the West grows in spurts punctuated by profound crises only to surge stronger and stronger. Have faith and keep the powder dry!
Barry Rubin ….an excellent essay.
how do those that want freedom protect themselves …the DoJ is one of the bad guys.
obama has subverted the justice system and the courts.
An excellent example of of what this article is talking about is the West’s reaction to Terry Jones exercising his constitutional right to burn a book of hate (or any other book for that matter). The elites cowered in fear of what the Muslims might do if we made them mad.
“Who cares about fighting Zionism when it comes to providing jobs or collecting garbage? Well, yes this system does transcend pragmatism, which is why it blocks progress.”
This is the most insightful observation in this article. It has been proven over and over to be accurate. What follows is that we will make NO progress in our understanding of Islam until we accept that NO amount of exposure to Western ideas, prosperity, or “democracy”, such as it is in the Middle East, will cause Muslims to be more like us.
Progress in the Middle East can only begin AFTER Islam ends.
Certainly the 21 people killed cowered in fear just before they died. A high price to pay for Jones academic tom foolery.
It should be obvious by now that with these extremists anything can be turned into an excuse.
About the same time some 41 Pakistani Muslims were blown to bits and more than 60 injured at their shrine by twin suicide bombers.
Can this also be laid at Jones’ door?
The original Danish cartoon mess took months to generate sufficient incitement for killings to take place in Pakistan. In Egypt a few months before the violence, during Ramadan, it passed without a whimper.
So, Mr. May the rational and appropriate response to a perceived insult is to murder people who had nothing to do with it, and the fault lay with the author of the perceived insult? It has the ring of appeasement psychology.
So how has the Middle Eastern approach revolutionized Western discourse? What slogans are potent enough to shut people up instantly?…
Racism! Homophobia! Islamophobia! And to a lesser extent, perhaps, Sexism!
If those phony, duplicitous accusations you list are enough to shut people up, then we’re truly doomed, finished as a nation.
Yesterday, a genuine, Grade A moron Tavis Smiley stated on MSNBC that 2012 will be the most “racist” election in this nation’s history.
Tavis et al. are, apparently, too stupid to register that one Barack Hussein Obama is across the board incompetent, in knowledge, in ideas and in substance.
Which fact has nothing to do with Obama’s half-Kenyan component of genes.
Western civilization is in decline and is actively participating in it’s own destruction.
Civilizations have done this throughout history, Rome, Persia, Sumer, the Mongols, etc. Perhaps Western Judeo Christianity has reached the limits of it’s rise and is now going to decline and fall.
IF…Islam sits back and is patient they will eventually watch us self destruct and eventually fall or at least watch us go the totalitarian route the left so desires. That probably won’t happen over night or anytime soon for that matter.
If I were to bet I would think that our enemies won’t be patient indeed that it is a matter of time, sooner than later, that some Islamic group will once again attack the West in one or several places and probably in a big way.
Not unlike the Western socialist peacenik left that was forced to jump into the back seat when WWII lit up the world and evil was stopped in it’s tracks in a massive bloody conflict, I would think that at least the U.S. will rise to the occasion should Islam decide that we will cower and roll over if they attack us. I beleive they will be wrong.
The Taliban has said ‘..You have the watches but we have the time’. Probably true. Still they will need to use that time wisely and to their benefit throughout the Muslim world as there is an added comment for our Taliban/Islamic radical enemies that I would make ‘You have the greater hate, but we have more and better bombs and technology, be careful where you tread’.
Total war on the west in the streets and in our homes (ala 9/11) by Islam will eventually force us to practice total war in return and if we don’t then we deserve to die or be subjugated. Feel good wars don’t work, just like feel good politics solve nothing, indeed feel good anything usually makes the problem worse.
Islam preaches to hate and destroy all who are not Muslim. Sooner or later we will have war within the US. Those who remain openly liberal will be the first to fall in disbelief. According to Islam, this is inevitable. Islam and Christianity cannot co-exist in the same country. Sooner or later those “peaceful” muslims will be called upon to do their duty and rise up against us.
As we theorize and communicate amongst ourselves inside our safe (for now) little echo chamber, what EXACTLY are we doing to stop the Islamic takeover? Whatever it is, it isn’t enough.
A standard mantra of Israel haters is that any criticism of Israel is labelled antisemitism. Isn’t this article just the mirror side of this accusation?
I’m racist. For over fifty years, I’ve been listening to black leaders proclaiming that all whites are racist; and I’m white. They’ve convinced me.
Mind you, I wouldn’t say that if I expected huge crowds of hate-filled faces pushing toward me accompanied by scimitars and intent to cut my head off. But here in America, the crowds of hate-filled faces are still relatively small. If I’d said something equivalent in Araby, I’d probably be dead by now.
May the US never get that bad.
Anyone who wants a gander at where casual racism IS and an example of highly directional political correctness not to say delusion, just take a look at the short comments section of this article about racism in Cuba at “The Root”.
It’s done by none other than our beloved Henry Gates who is also Editor-in-Chief.
http://www.theroot.com/multimedia/black-latin-america-cubas-racism-problem
“Extrapolating from Barry’s thesis, we can now understand more fully the twinning/morphing of Islamists and leftists.”
That’s a fascinating comparison, given Islam’s Nazi connection before and during WW II. Back then, the common connection was hatred of Jews and the destruction of Israel. I wonder what the common connection between Islam and the Left is, today. Surely the Left is more than just a bunch of useful idiots?
I cannot add one jot or tittle to the excellence of this analysis. It stands alone as one of the best pieces on Islam I have read. Thank you, Mr. Rubin.
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