C’mon, whom are we kidding? How big does the elephant have to be before we’ll agree to discuss it? This coming American election is not just about universal health care–it is also about the survival of the free world as we have come to know it. And therefore, all about Islam.
If we say we are for women’s rights or for human rights, then a candidate’s gender, skin-color, or age may not be as important as their ideas about Islam.
Do our candidates understand that we are really at war and that we cannot talk our way out of it? That charm, even of the spellbinding variety, is not enough, nor can we “take a meeting,” Hollywood-style, or Tammany-Hall style, to set things right. Nor is simple, old-fashioned heroics the answer to the kind of Orwellian propaganda and guerilla-terrorism that America and our allies will continue to confront in the 21st century.
Does our next President understand that we have to fight with everything we have and risk losing it all in order to hold onto any of it?
Does our next President understand that a western concept of human rights is a universal vision and that America cannot protect such rights only for American women and then turn our backs on women in the Third World? Isolationism is cowardly, interventionism is both dangerous and almost doomed to failure; we need a new dialectical method to resolve these two seemingly intractable opposites.
Certain burning issues require immediate, not gradual solutions. Our dependence on Arab oil (a tragic addiction) must end. Alternate sources of energy must be found in a very short period of time. (Watch the Israeli electric car project). We must enact effective legislation to combat human sexual slavery/trafficking–but this is a global, not merely a national problem. While we may not be able to do so for the whole world, America must, finally, ameliorate the terrible suffering due to economic disparities at home.
Here is a question that an American President needs to answer.
Is revealing the truth about a particular religion or about its followers–be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jewish, tantamount to insulting or reviling someone else’s religion? If not–or rather, if only one group experiences the “truth” or any criticism, both valid and invalid, as an insult, what is the remedy? Sensitivity training about Islam for the presumably “Islamophobic” or sensitivity training about western standards of tolerance for too-easily injured Muslims?
This particular question will (or should) play a major role in the forthcoming American election which is not only about two individuals or two political parties but is also about defending the free world from barbarism, intolerance, and apartheid.
It’s bigger than World War Two. Bigger than Vietnam. Even bigger than the Superbowl.
Yes, I know, America is far from perfect–but compared to Iran or Sudan we are….better. Live with it.
In my last post, I wrote about Muslim taxi drivers whose private religious beliefs about wine, pork, and dogs led to behaviors towards passengers which were considered, at trial, to be crimes in North America. I also described a network of Muslim taxi drivers in the UK which, according to a government report, tracks and returns Muslim girls and women who are in flight from abuse and from being honor murdered. I did not indict all Muslim taxi drivers. Indeed, I was careful to write that many Muslim taxi drivers are also polite and courteous and that many non-Muslim drivers are not.
It wasn’t enough. The politically correct police turned out, not in droves, but with great passion. They thought I was saying things that I had not said. They were afraid that “people” would use my words to restrict Muslim immigration, profile or imprison Muslims, bar Muslims from working as taxi drivers, etc.
But I did not write any of this nor do I think it.
This issue is another thorny one, just like the Islamic headscarf.
Here’s what you must remember when you fear that your most creative or practical ideas might be “racist” : Repeat, as a mantra, that Muslims and people of color are also being victimized by Islamist suicide killers and tyrants; and that to date, it is Muslims who suffer most from Islamic gender apartheid.
But, we must wrestle with certain questions over a long period of time. There are no quick or easy answers. Do we ban the headscarf–and keep angry-and-intolerant Muslim men out of the service professions? Isn’t that profiling? And isn’t profiling racist? Just realize: If the “good” people do not start wrestling with these difficult questions, the “bad” people will step right in and do it for us.
The candidates ought to be analyzing and debating the long-term and short-term dangers posed by radical Islamist (and Marxist) regimes, terrorist organizations, and crazy individuals. We can’t entirely know what the right techniques are for protecting ourselves against these dangers.
Is that what the candidates will spend their time doing? I don’t know. Is that what most voters want to listen to? I don’t know. But it is what I want to listen to.
This is what I want to hear the candidates discuss also. But no. The words “Islam, Islamic, Muslim, etc.” are forbidden words, never passing the lips of the candidates, specifically the Democrats.
I have noticed McCain using the term now, because he things he can lure Conservative candidates over to his side, calling himself the only candidate that can tackle the Islamic terrorists. But his words are empty.
When a candidate doesn’t want to treat a terrorists like a terrorist, when he doesn’t want to interrogate even if a nuclear bomb was about to explode over the United States, when he wants to bring the terrorists off the battle field to the US court system … it’s all for show, empty words.
We need more than empty words with the challenges we are facing.
I notice in your previous post and in this one, the word “race” is mentioned. Of course Islam or Muslim is not a race. However, I’m sure you are aware of the efforts in Europe by the Muslims to have their religion treated AS A RACE.
This would mean that the same laws that cover hate crimes or racial crimes, could then be applied to Muslims whenever they are offended.
You can see where this will go. Nothing good can come from that, specifically since what happens in Europe will eventually wash up on our shores and we will also have to deal with it.
Thank you for another thought provoking article and for all that you do. G-d Bless.
Phyllis
Thanks for the last few very deeply thoughtful messages. I find myself thinking that, if I were to vote in the American elections, who would it be for. But not even the words in the speeches give any comfort–they are slogans that skirt all real issues–and only raise more anxieties. Celebrities and politicians are elided. Vapid and inane generalities stand where values ought to be debated. However, what does poke itself through the mists of hot air: the very grassroots nature of the primaries. It is the real people that make America different from other “democracies”, let alone all the failed states, dictatorships and mediocre suburb-nations. Could it be that the real election will take place in taxi cabs?
Norman
BRAVO – YOUR BEST BLOG TO DATE. How did you get to be so eloquent and TRUE. Everyone is beating around the bush. It is that Terrifying. Isn’t denial amazing. You have a gift – may it continue always. Thank you. With love, NHK
However, it is not about Islam is it? Moreover, that is the problem! This is an important post Phyllis and it ought to be widely circulated. Thank You!
The “elephant in the room” is of little importance in the main to those holding the reins of power in our country because of mutual economic enterprise, investment and majority stock ownership by Islamic States used as leverage to manipulate and influence policy decisions in both domestic and foreign policy. Investment and buyouts under non-Islamic identifiable names of multicorporations including media news sources and outlets has a collective impact that is now commonplace. Infiltration in academia, publishing, news agencies and national/state and local government and access to the highest office of our land impacts to increasingly undermine and reconfigure our democracy into a reality more reflective of Middle Eastern Islamic States dictate than America the free! Free for whom? Alien invadors? Eviscerators of our country we heretofore believed to be a secure America, the haven of democracy? Democracy as a vehicle for those seeking to destroy our pillors through legal manipulation in the service of America hatred?
Economic relationships and bonds forged behind doors closed to public scrutiny until deals have been set in place is a matter that affects all of us. We must stay alert and not give into treatment as outsiders to the loop of such power brokering in which politicians self interests alone are served.
I want to hear what the military complex has to say about how we fight this new war (World War IV). What are the tactics being developed to combat Islamo-facist terrorists? I doubt that there will ever again be a conventional war, where fighters wear sweet uniforms so they can be identified, and avoid civilian population centers, etc… To level the playing field (arms sophistication and technology) the new “warriors” deliberately live among civilians, use them as warheads, and train their followers to fight a new kind of war, one that the west (and our presidential candidates) has neither the training nor stomach for. Hell, they’re still ripping themselves apart over waterboarding.
What will it take before we hear about the strategies of WWIV? A dozen more 9/11′s?
American politicians today will do everything in their power to avoid such discussions.
Why?
What is offensive and hate speech is the “Stone and the Tree”, NOT pointing out that the Stone and the Tree is hate speech.
What is offensive is the idea that nurses (who HAPPEN to be muslim) will not roll up their chadors or coverings on their arms to sterilize adequately in the face of objective science (Bostom today), not POINTING OUT that this behavior is not acceptable.
Dr. Chesler is absolutely right that this election is fundamentally about our attitude towards Islam and the jihad, despite the media’s attempt to submerge the issue during the election cycle. She’s also right to point to our oil addiction as a critical element of this war. As Thomas Friedman said some time ago, we are funding both sides of the jihad (my word – he preferred the more PC and ultimately meaningless War on Terror.)
I would add that we have to turn to our economy to win this war. As with all previous wars, the US’s economy is its primary strategic asset, providing both the money and the technology to defeat our foes. If we don’t take action necessary to stimulate economic growth and technological innovation, we ultimately will not prevail.
Islam fell behind the West after the 17th Century because it couldn’t keep up with the industrial revolution. That revolution has evolved and is more technological than ever, but it needs to keep going in order for the West to defeat militant Islam again.
Our next president must therefore understand not just the jihad, but the economy and ways to stimulate it. And the wrong steps on either front could gravely jeopardize our civilization.
You are still being politically correct. Islam is NOT a race. So there can be no question of racism.
Islam is a belief system. It is perfectly moral is dislike a group of people for their beliefs. Period.
It is perfectly legal to limit immigration based on people’s beliefs.
It is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone because of their beliefs.
Islam is a political system masquerading as a religion.
“If the “good” people do not start wrestling with these difficult questions, the “bad” people will step right in and do it for us.”
David Duke and his ilk are waiting in the wings. Nature abhors a vacuum. Some nasty people will gladly take advantage of their growing opportunities. This is already occurring in Europe. We are probably only a few years away.
Yes. Unfortunately. I came to this blog just after listening to the beautiful “Yes We Can” video that Barack Obama has out. I wish that we lived in the safe and positive world painted by that video. Alternatively, I wish I could be sure the two candidates I am likely to vote for in the end–Hillary and Barack–will absolutely keep their eyes on the Islamist threat, or alternatively that McCain were not antichoice and seemed to have a real feeling for social justice. If the Dems are really as blithe as they are acting at the moment, this is frightening. Have the American people really forgotten 9/11?
Ms. Chessler remarked how critics accused her of writing things she simply didn’t say. This lack of rational thinking, is proof that those people are not thinking at all but are essentially “brainwashed”. They are reacting like deeply hypnotized people responding to certain “trigger” words in a pre-programmed fashion. If you say anything critical about Islam their eyes glaze over and they shout “Bigot! Bigot!” mindlessly.
These individuals are the result of decades of indoctrination in government schools that did not train our children to THINK critically, but rather simply emotionally programmed them. Will they ever recover? In time to participate in the political process as adults? Or will they just become drones for a “new world order”?
One critical point for all Americans to understand is that there are “two Islams”. There is the “liberal, tolerant, progressive, modern, spiritual Islam” and there is the “intolerant, seventh century, regressive, violent, fundamentalist, militant, Islam”.
Americans also need to understand that the “liberal” Islam is a tiny minority and have been branded “Apostates” by the majority of Fundamentalist Muslims, which carries a death sentence.
Americans must understand that “Fundamentalist Muslims” are NOT A RELIGION AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
It is a violent, predatory political dogma akin to Nazism or Fascism. It does NOT deserve the respect or protections of a real “religion”. The Koran is chock full of violence ordered, perpetrated and condoned by Mohammed. He personally ordered the killing of prisoners of war, slavery, rape of prisoners, the de-humanization of women, patriarchy and declared a never ending war of genocide against all other religions until the whole world submits to Islam.
Muslim apologists who deny it are practicing “Taqiyya” or “Holy Deception”. They are lying to your face to further the cause of Islam.
Muslim war tactics excell at infiltration, subversion, sabotage, assasination. While the beautiful, gentle, sweet, kind souls of the west argue delicately over fine points of multicultural etiquette, the Fundamentalist Muslims laugh and feel confident that it is the will of Allah that soon the West, with all it’s wonderful freedoms, is destroyed and conquered.
Ms Chesler,
If this election is all about Islam someone forgot to tell the candidates about it.
Islam, and what it means to the survival to the west was barely discusssed in the Presidential debates. The democrats touched on “terrorism” in a few token exchanges. but never a reference to Islam. The Republicans make obsucre reference to extremists and radicals, but never question whether the religion of Islam has something disturbing about it that is worthy or re evaluatuion by our political leaders.
I think your article is an argument for why it ought to be the primary topic of discussion in the Election, but it cannot be maintained that it currently is, expressly or impliedly, the main topic of concern for candidiates of either party.