Mark Steyn hits another one home about our clash of civilizations.
Fate conspires to remind us what this war is really about: civilizational confidence.
The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were deeply offensive to Muslims, and so thousands protested around the world in the usual restrained manner: rioting, torching, killing, etc.
The impending execution of Abdul Rahman for embracing Christianity is, of course, offensive to Westerners, and so around the world we reacted equally violently by issuing blood-curdling threats like that made by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack: "Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," he said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
"We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," says Abdul Raoulf of [Afghanistan's] principal Muslim body, the Afghan Ulama Council. "Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." Needless to say, Imam Raoulf is one of Afghanistan's leading "moderate" clerics.
In contrast to the Muslim world's confidence in their own culture (there's nothing wishy-washy about "Cut off his head!"), America and the West are so multiculturally sensitive that they can't even muster up strong rhetoric. And if they did manage to speak forcefully, there's no real evidence that the West would be willing back up their words with action.
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
May our leaders find such clarity today, and may they find the will to act.
4 comments:
Where is Sir Charles Napier when we need him?
I think that America has been so busy standing for nothing that it is falling for everything...and falling fast.
We need more Charles Napiers. Lots more.
Christina,
You are so right. But when I look in Congress and among the presidential wannabes, I don't see any Charles Napiers. None. Not anywhere.
When you place the fiery, confident, and angry words of the Imam Raoulf next to the words of McCormack you get an idea of just how insipid and weak we must appear to the Muslim world.
I wonder if they have been watching our illegal aliens demonstrating... parading out in the open with nothing to fear from our government.
Chris,
Great point. When the Islamists look at us over here, they see "Weak Horse." I'm hoping, though, that when they look at our military in Iraq they see "Kick-Islamist-Butt Horse."
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