The conflict in Ukraine has been threatening to become a world war for a considerable period, and if one key ally of Vladimir Putin gets his way, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechen Republic, is enraged about ongoing incidents of desecration of the Qur’an in Sweden and Denmark, and he has now vowed to “deal with” those countries once he and his allies take care of Ukraine. Denmark is a NATO state, and Sweden has been making a concerted effort to join. If Kadyrov’s threat actually came to pass, it would mean World War III — unless, that is, the West throws the freedom of expression overboard, which it very well may do in order to defuse this situation.
Russia’s state-controlled RT reported Friday that Kadyrov views the desecration of the Qur’an as just another manifestation of the West’s decadence, and he is frustrated with what he sees as the inaction of Muslim leaders in the face of these repeated provocations. Kadyrov “blasted Muslim leaders over their failure to address numerous Quran-burning incidents in the West, vowing to do his best to ‘deal with’ the culprits after the end of the Ukraine conflict.”
Ironically, the perpetrators behind the most recent desecrations of the Qur’an in Sweden have not been the racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” of leftist myth, but a pair of Iraqi refugees, Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem. The establishment media in the West shows no curiosity whatsoever about why a couple of Iraqis would have anything against the Qur’an. No one ever asks Momika or Najem why they keep destroying copies of the Qur’an; the fact is, they object to the book’s teachings. They had experiences in Iraq that made them deeply familiar with how those teachings can lead some (no, not all) believers to commit acts of unfathomable cruelty.
But as far as Kadyrov is concerned, it’s all just “Islamophobia” and must be challenged as such. He “said that the continued desecration of Islam’s holy book in Europe poses an ‘unprecedented challenge’ to the Muslim world, and that the stunts ‘predictably bring the situation to the point of no return.’” In high dudgeon, he thundered, “Where are the leaders of Muslim states at this time? Why are they allowing our Holy Scriptures to be openly violated and not taking any significant steps to protect Muslims and the Islamic religion? Do they really fear backlash and American and European sanctions more than the wrath of Allah Almighty?”
Kadyrov situated the need to defend the Qur’an as part of the larger defense against the decadent and godless West, as other Russian leaders have said previously about the Ukraine war. Kadyrov said that “Russia stands alone against Western ‘aggressive atheist colonial policy’ while fighting ‘for our sacred and sacrosanct values’ in Ukraine.” And he plans to take this war to the West itself: “I’m 100% certain of victory. When we finish with Ukraine, we will go to those countries that have desecrated the Qur’an.” For, he warned, if the forces of good don’t stop “Satan’s servants,” then “tomorrow they will be in our mosques,” and “they will indoctrinate our children that prayer is not fashionable and turn our peoples into a faceless mass of consumers for whom the dollar will become their god.”
Kadyrov thus enunciated what increasing numbers of people in the United States are coming to believe. More and more are becoming convinced that the only choice we face in the West today is between the Left’s wholehearted embrace of madness, deviance, and perversion, or Islam. Certainly, today’s emasculated and worldly Christianity offers no third way.
Related: Cops Called In, Students Suspended for Qur’an Desecration…in the U.K.
This ignores the fact, however, that the godless left is also the largest foe of freedom in the West today, as it is enthusiastically in favor of authoritarianism, censorship, and forced indoctrination. Those who are desecrating the Qur’an are actually standing for the older Western principle of the freedom of expression as an indispensable foundation of a free society.
Kadyrov and the left are offering two versions of authoritarianism. Is anyone, anyone at all, standing instead for a truly free society in which sound values are not energetically suppressed and warred against? Both Kadyrov and the trans fascists would likely say that such a society is not possible, and that the good (as they see it) must be imposed by force. And both are authoritarian because they see a free society as a chance for those whom they hate and fear to gain ground.
That is the impasse we face today. No one has articulated a vision for a free society that doesn’t tend in itself to degenerate into one kind of authoritarianism or another. This is no surprise. Plato foretold it long ago.
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