Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Islam and the West's schism fundamental

Being politically correct could be downright silly

Islam and the Christian/post-Christian West are on a collision course, irreconcilably alienated at the most basic level of ethical, moral, principle, and essential worldview.

There is little hope for peaceful coexistence, because Islam, broadly speaking, operates on an entirely different philosophical, ethical, and moral worldview than does the West. The mass Islamic culture (I acknowledge that there are extraordinary exceptions) is immune to reason, because it is disinterested in and/or non-cognizant of how reason has been defined in the West at least since St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.

The official boilerplate that's been parroted by most Western leaders since 9/11 is that Islam is a peaceful faith whose reputation has been corrupted by a handful of heretics. "Islam is about peace, about justice and about harmony among all people, and I sense your sadness that a great world religion has been unjustly smeared by this evil," declared Prime Minister Chretien, visiting an Ottawa mosque last September.

Unfortunately, Chretien's politically correct and multiculturally sensitive fairy-tale ignores the fact the alleged "handful" numbers hundreds of millions and on the basis of Islamic principle laid out in the Koran, they are not heretics: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day . . . until they pay compensation with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

It promises, "If you are slain or die in the way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all they could amass."

Are the tens of thousands of Pakistanis who demonstrated in support of the Taliban and bin Laden after 9/11 "smearing" Islam? Are the crowds who took to the streets on the West Bank, in Libya, and elsewhere, likewise celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, all "heretics?

Unhappily, in the liberal, postmodern, multiculturalism-obsessed West, children are indoctrinated from their cradle days to believe one religion is as good as the next, blithely ignoring the respective ethical and moral constructs advanced at the doctrinal level.

Christian and Jewish clergy scramble anxiously to prove how multiculturally tolerant they are by holding interfaith services with Muslim clerics.

The U.S. National Council for Social Studies recommends a short story titled My Name is Osama, about a nasty little boy, Todd, who taunts an Iraqi immigrant named Osama. This is ideological folly, brainwashing, and dysfunctional self-hatred.

In an Atlantic Monthly essay on the topic of suicide bombing, David Brooks wrote: "Suicide bombers . . . are told that their families will be guaranteed a place with God, and that there are also considerable rewards for their families in this life, including cash bonuses of several thousand dollars donated by the government of Iraq, some individual Saudis, and various groups sympathetic to the cause."

For many Israelis and Westerners, the strangest aspect of the phenomenon is the TV interview with a bomber's parents after a massacre. These people have just been told that their child has killed himself and others, and yet they seem happy, proud, and - should the opportunity present itself - ready to send another child off to the afterlife.

"According to polls, 70 to 80 per cent of Palestinians now support (suicide bombing) - making the act more popular than Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, or any of the other groups that sponsor it, and far more popular than the peace process ever was."

How can you reason with people like that? Well, Palestine is a special case, some might argue, where people have been driven to despair and mass psychosis by more than half a century of Israeli oppression.

OK then, consider this: World Net's Ann Coulter reports, "Soon after the terrorist attack, the New York Times chatted with students at the Al Noor School, a private Islamic academy in Brooklyn. . . . The students stated point-blank that they would not fight for America against a fellow Muslim, denied that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, and criticized the United States for always opposing Muslims.

"The students instantly and enthusiastically agreed with the proposition that a 'Muslim who becomes a suicide bomber goes to Paradise for that action. 'Definitely,' one student said, calling a female suicide bomber 'very brave.'

"As to whether suicide bombers would go to Paradise, the students said they earnestly hoped so. 'I mean, they're doing it for a good cause,' one boy explained. Not only that, but one student said, 'I think we'd all probably do the same."

Did I mention that these were kids in New York City, most of them probably American citizens, a few miles from Ground Zero?

I rest my case.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter