Bob: “I would think it wise to calibrate our speech so as not to drive away potential supporters”
The government, being relatively unified and directed, can triangulate, Byzantine and disgusting though such behaviour is. It’s pretty hard to see how the rest of us could. If the governments of our age weren’t so hopelessly PC, we could count on signals from them, but let’s see now, the current government here will not refer to Islam in any sense any more, internally or externally, in the “war on terrorism”? I don’t think we can count on a government that wants to play Chamberlain’s role, bow to Arab heads of state, etc.
Part of your disadmiration for Arab “rage and denunciation” is that it is displayed for reasons that don’t warrant it. If a cartoonist draws a picture of Mohammed wearing a bomb turban, rage and denunciation in response are disgusting. If, in the name of Islam, 3000 people are murdered in a single day, and this act is celebrated in the Arab street, rage and denunciation are appropriate. That doesn’t necessarily mean going out and parading in front of TV cameras waving placards with “Death to Islam”, although I wouldn’t try to stop anyone who wanted to do that.
As far as potential allies go, a real friend would be ashamed of the behaviour of people wearing his identity doing to us what has been done in the name of Islam (done to us by Islam in my own blunt belief). A real friend with a fair mind would react against the “hijackers of Islam” in response to our denunciation of his religion for the extreme violence (and the threats) perpetrated in its name. He would not attack us, the victims, using the illogical, postmodern, PC category of “Islamophobe” (“Islamophobe” is newspeak – remember “war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”?). He would be horrified, not that we are angry, but that his religion appears to be playing the role of a monster.
Playing too much in fear of offending “friends” is playing the appeasement game. A natural, outraged, traditionally Western, reaction to Islam would give us feedback on who our friends really are. Remember, according to the PC brigade and the pro Islam followers of Eric Said himself, it’s not up to us to sort out what is ‘real’ Islam and what is an alien disease that has infected Islam. That’s Islam’s business.
Well OK, but that’s a two way street. Islam can figure out what it is. For me and the rest of us non PC players in this world, if it looks like a POS, and it smells like a POS, then I’m going to believe and act like it’s a POS.
It is our business to express this.
