IS ISLAM IS WISER
THAN THE WEST?
We all know what
it’s like to be in a good or bad relationship. We also
know the difference between good and bad chemistry. There
are people with whom we easily and effortlessly share a common
space, and those with whom we cannot. And when we cannot,
it is not necessarily the fault of one or the other, but –
with all due respect to Shakespeare -- the fault may indeed
lie in the stars. So when common sense prevails (and it rarely
does) and it is not going well, despite both persons or parties
willing that it does, one or the other will take the initiative
and vacate the shared space, allowing the respective parties
to regain their former peace of mind. Without recrimination
or self-accusation, each in his own manner will face the hard
-- often unflattering -- facts, acknowledge the chemistry
has broken bad, and that decoupling is the best solution.
Based on observation
and the 6 o’clock news, we note that the individual
is significantly better constituted to make wiser decisions
as it concerns incompatibility than government. This is so
because in especially the West, at the institutional level,
it is not politically correct to speak the truth to bad chemistry
as it concerns immigration policy, religion and culture. But
in private, among family and friends, the individual, despite
his country’s official position, will speak his mind
regarding an imagined or perceived threat to his country’s
way of life, and predictably blame the immigrant (usually
Muslim), most of whom are blameless other than for being here
instead of where they came from. The source of the mistrust
and negative chemistry arises from mutual incompatibility.
What gives one the last word over the other -- and it’s
non-negotiable -- is home field advantage; the onus is on
the guest to abide by house rules. If it's customary to remove
shoes before entering your home, I either abide or respectfully
decline the invitation.
Devout Muslims
believe in praying five times a day facing Mecca. It is only
natural they regard us, some of whom manage to attend Church
once a week, as heathens. And it is only natural that we regard
them as fanatics. Since none of us is privy to God’s
position on His worship, it is impossible to prove that one
religion or the other is doing God’s will. Which suggests
that bad chemistry is not so much the fault of one or the
other, but a condition that requires a minimum of two unlike,
contiguous elements inhabiting the same space. And since lived
and reported experience offers overwhelming evidence that
mutual incompatibility is indeed a fact of life, we quite
naturally expect our elected representatives to make decisions
that, without distinction and prejudice, will lessen the likelihood
of bad chemistry arising in respect to the mixing of demonstratively
incompatible cultures and religions. Tashfeen Malik, one of
the San Bernardino terrorists (2015), wore a burqa in the
house; she never showed her face to her husband’s brothers.
Every time she turned on the television, walked the dog, went
shopping, she was forced to confront a value system diametrically
opposed to her own. Eventually her loathing and alienation
indices went off the charts, something died inside, and she
went out (with a little help from her friends) with a bang.
Given the easy
trade between petrodollars and arms dealers, an unstable or
failed state is no longer an isolated problem that will neatly
take care of itself. Symptomatic of the failed state is the
chaos within its borders, and destabilizing effects on its
neighbours and beyond, creating the perfect storm that grows
refugee crises. So you would think it would be the height
of folly for a successful state to introduce policies that
would leave it vulnerable to becoming unstable or outright
dysfunctional. This is precisely what happened in France,
beginning in 1962 with Algerian Independence. At the encouragement
of Jean-Paul Sartre and others, France, in a fit of post colonial
guilt, decided to open its doors to massive immigration from
Algeria. Operating under a misguided compassion mandate, they
turned a blind eye to the incompatibility factor between Islam
and Judeo-Christian values, resulting in a France that has
been beset with problems of its own making ever since: from
spiking crime rates to homegrown terrorism.
There is much
to be learned from this example, but despite self-evident
truths that have brought France to its knees, and at a very
minimum destabilized most of Europe’s once rock solid
nations, western countries continue to open their saloon doors
to peoples and cultures with whom they have virtually zero
chemistry -- a sure formula for widespread malaise and every
other social ill you care to mention. It beggars belief that
the West would not only rather remain miserable and wretched
in relationships that are not working, but has convinced itself
that good will and best intentions are enough to turn water
into wine, a negative into a positive. Arthur Koestler observes
that a snob is someone who when reading Dostoyevsky is moved
not by what he reads but by himself reading Dostoyevsky. By
that measure, our policy makers are plainly moved by what
they have enacted into law, and are self-evidently unmoved
by what they wrought (spelled rot).
So how do we account
for this collective akrasia (from the Greek, kratos = power;
a = without,) weakness of will, or kraziness, which just happens
to be embedded in the word? In our century, democracy has
evolved into a theater of seduction and promise where speaking
the truth to a voting public is never in the interest of any
party vying for power. The voter doesn’t want to know
that he is biologically inclined to be positively disposed
towards his own at the expense of the other, that in respect
to culture and religion he is merely a placeholder in the
relationship that predicts for every increase in difference
between two groups there will be a comparable increase in
mutual hostility. And no politician is foolish enough to hold
up a mirror to human nature tooth and claw. Instead he positions
himself to best reflect the voters’ favourite delusions:
that he is tolerant, colour blind, compassionate and benignly
disposed towards all peoples and cultures. So the West opens
up its heart to Muslims from around the world, some of whom
refuse or cannot adapt to their new home, resulting in the
sad spectacle of two largely incompatible cultures trying
to negotiate insurmountable differences; and billions of dollars
that would otherwise be used to address hunger, poverty and
our sickening skies are spent bolstering security and combating
terrorism.
There
is no such foolery and flouting of reality (human nature)
in Muslim countries that have shown themselves to be incontestably
wiser than their western counterparts. Be as it may they are
mostly ruled by oligarchs, plutocrats and kleptocrats, there
is no pandering to the masses who are never allowed to forget
their place at the bottom rung of hierarchies set in stone
-- excepting those precious stones reserved for "crime
and punishment." And when it comes to receiving non-Muslim
immigrants or temporary workers, they don’t want to
know about them – aside from their expertise and labour.
Bad chemistry
has a smell unlike any other; even the dullest nose can pick
it up. In the 1950s, in the Empty Quarter (Arabian desert),
the presence of one Christian (Wilfred Thesiger) was enough
to upset a region the size of France. Islam, dispassionately
observing what has gone wrong in France and what is happening
inside other Western nations, without apology, has prioritized
social cohesion and stability without which no nation can
indefinitely survive. Islam grasps that there is an innate
(blameless) incompatibility factor between itself and Christianity
(western values), and in order to keep its precious institutions
and way of life intact, it understands that it must rid itself
of all potentially seditious influences. If not in official
policy but practice, and mindful of the example of France,
it takes the position that “the other” is persona
non grata to the effect that Muslim countries, especially
since the turn of the century, have been persecuting/expelling
at an alarming rate Christian, Copt, Jew and Buddhist. Islam
is waging a war not on one but two fronts: against 'the other'
from within, and the influence of the West from without.
In respect to
minorities who refuse to read the writs on their wailing walls,
they risk persecution and worse -- such is the fear and anxiety
spreading throughout all Muslim countries as western culture
(western stealth jihad) penetrates the East. It is beside
the point that there is no defense against the invasive presence
of the Internet. Islam rightfully feels that its entire belief
system is under siege, and like a mouse pinned in the corner,
it is fighting for its very existence. If from the 9th to
the 19th century minorities were tolerated in Muslim countries,
it was because they didn’t pose an existential threat.
With the advent of fiber optic and satellite communication,
those halcyon days are over.
That fundamentalist
Islam is manifestly intolerant of the other is simply beside
the point since it is savvy enough not to allow itself to
become dysfunctional as a result of bad chemistry. Meanwhile
the West, convinced of its moral authority, continues to follow
the example of the blind leading the blind down a blind alley
with a trip wire at the end of the rainbow.
The hard truth
of the matter – and never has it mattered so much –
is that 'like seeks like.' It is demonstratively easier to
dwell in agreement than disagreement. The alcoholic understands
that it is smarter (more prudent) to seek out his own kind,
his fellow drinkers, because he recognizes in himself the
tendency to regard the other’s refusal to join him as
a criticism or rebuff, that he will invariably come to resent
the latter for being able to cope with life without a crutch.
Both the drinker and non-drinker understand the necessity
that underlies their decision to dwell in separate universes
-- cherishing the peace that arises from staying apart.
In Saudi Arabia,
the powers-that-be wisely assign foreign workers to special
compounds where they are free to manifest their western values
without fear of insulting the host population or exciting
resentment. With an eye on Europe's failed immigration policy,
the Saudi's correctly understand that allowing western values
to mix with their own is a recipe for disaster.
Western nations,
such as my country of Canada, can learn much from the examples
of France and other European countries, where idealism trumps
pragmatism and human nature is given the short stick. Immigration
should be a win-win affair, and in respect to and respectful
of peoples that are vastly different than ourselves, our biologically
determined low tolerance indices should dictate a moderate
(conservative) immigration policy.
However, zero
intolerance as policy is also unhealthy, as well as unnatural.
If in certain Muslim countries, it results from accusing the
mere presence of 'the other' with the more nefarious threat
of western culture seeping in through borderless bandwidth
gateways, getting rid of the former will not prevent the latter.
Nature blesses exogamy (mixing); genetic diversity is the
best response to adversity. So the expulsion of all others
is also bad policy.
As it concerns
the world's current migrant and refugee crises, there must
be no confusing of bad chemistry for misplaced sympathy, from
which neither host nor guest benefit. There is a delicate
balance to be had, and finding it requires that human nature
be given a seat at the table, and that we pay it heed without
capitulating to its counterproductive imperatives.
Let us recall
that not so long ago, when immigration was a win-win affair,
it took only a couple of hundred years for 13 colonies to
become the greatest nation in the world. We refuse to engage
and learn from that example at our own peril.
