Salman Rushdie is, for whatever reason, the one figure who makes people who otherwise ignore or deny the jihad threat and decry “Islamophobia” think it is acceptable to take a stand against it.
Here is Rod Dreher, “Rushdie & Our Permanent Fatwa Culture,” The American Conservative, August 14, 2022:
None of the bien-pensants of the media, the academy, and among political leaders want to deal with the blunt reality that mass Islamic migration means inevitably that a non-trivial number of violent fanatics will exist within any society that accepts large numbers of Muslims….
We are all living under fatwa culture, though only poor Rushdie had to face actual death because of what those barbaric Muslim religious leaders said.
In reality, many other critics of Islam have “had to face actual death.” Rushdie is a hero to Dreher now, but when we stood for the freedom of speech in 2015, The American Conservative was not quite so admiring. We were just crackpots and nuts. Here is what The American Conservative said when Islamic jihadis attacked our free speech event in Garland, Texas in 2015, drawing rifles and hoping to make us all “face actual death”: “Pamela Geller’s Free-Speech Hypocrisy,” by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, The American Conservative, May 15, 2015:
For those of us following Pamela Geller’s bombastic career over the course of the past decade, one of the most illuminating aspects of the aftermath of her otherwise tragic Texas Muhammad caricature contest, and its accompanying road show of anti-Muslim provocateurs, was how it revealed a fault line–however thin–over just how far the right should go in provoking Islamic fundamentalism….
At the same event, her Defense Initiative co-founder, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch proceeded to snicker at the prospect of Muslim women shrinking away from full-body airport security scanners because their faith demands modesty. Any move to accommodate them would be a “perversity,” he said, because Muslims “made [full-body scanners] necessary.”
This was just one in a string of several statements and innuendo showing how he and Geller really feel about Muslims, despite their flimsy public exhortations to the contrary. “Everyone knows Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority,” Spencer said acidly to a room of knowing guffaws. Like people who “believe in Santa Claus, though no one has ever seen it.”…
This wasn’t a one-off attack. In fact, Vlahos’ column was a retread of a 2010 column, also in The American Conservative: “Newsflash: Jews and Catholics Fear Full Body Scans, Too,” by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, The American Conservative, February 23, 2010:
…But at CPAC friday, at an “unofficial” panel sponsored by jihad-hunters Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs) and Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch), called “Jihad: the Political Third Rail,” participants balked at these religious arguments against full body scanners — particularly because those concerns had been raised earlier, not by Catholics, but by Muslims. According to a group of Islamic scholars who posted a statement online, the intrusive images taken by full body scanners fly in the face of Koranic teachings on modesty. The group, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), issued a fatwah, or religious edict, preventing Muslims from going through such scanners at airports.
Of course, as it stands now, anyone can opt out of a full body scan by agreeing to a “pat down.” But Spencer roundly mocked these Muslims, because as far as he was concerned, Islam was responsible for 9/11 and Muslims themselves “made (full body scanners) necessary.” In fact, the entire thrust of the panel was that Islam is a violent religion, a plague in fact, that needed to be cured. So any idea that Muslims would consider their faith a reason to deny airport screening was rich. “Former Muslim” and speaker Wafa Sultan, cheered the full body scan, suggesting that it would be so repulsive to Muslims — and thanks to the fatwa, inconvenient — that they might stop trying to bomb airplanes….
And here is Rod Dreher in 2019, displaying breathtaking naivete about what Salafists might do, and an unwonted hysteria about “white supremacists,” who exist in far greater numbers in the media and at the corrupt, politicized FBI than they do in reality: “The Inspiring Courage Of Parkfield Muslims,” by Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, March 19, 2019:
Salafists — extreme Muslims — are the enemy of Christians and Jews (and also Muslims who don’t conform to their radical views). But the Salafists aren’t going to try to close down Christian and Orthodox Jewish schools, and compel faithful Christians and Jews to affirm (or lose their jobs and businesses) things they cannot in good faith affirm. White supremacists are the enemy of Muslims, Jews, non-white Christians, and white Christians who reject their racism — but they aren’t going to attempt to shut down our schools, businesses, and careers, or compel us to violate our consciences. Think hard about this.
Here is Rod in 2018: “Muslim Discipleship In Post-Christian America,” by Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, December 19, 2018:
…I don’t share the anxiety many conservatives have about Islam in America (Islam in Europe is a different matter, for particularly European reasons). For better or for worse, post-Christian America is going to turn Islam into Moralistic Therapeutic Deism too….
Here is Rod in 2015, writing two months after jihadis tried to murder us in Garland, Texas for standing for the freedom of speech, and three weeks after his colleague Kelley Beaucar Vlahos savaged us in his magazine for having taken that stand: “The New ‘Ecumenism of the Trenches,’” by Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, June 9, 2015:
I have more in common with believing Muslims than I do with seculars who look like me.
Dreher is no stranger to flip-flops. Here he is way back in 2002, reviewing my book Islam Unveiled: “Not Peace-Loving, After All,” by Rod Dreher, National Review, September 23, 2002:
Spencer may be wrong — I doubt it, but I’d like to hear a convincing refutation of his arguments — but he is asking questions that few others have the courage to. And until we hear from this supposed vast silent majority of peace-loving Muslims, the answers Spencer gives go a long way to explain the hatred, violence, backwardness, and fanaticism endemic to the Islamic world.
So now, because of the attack on Salman Rushdie, Dreher has at least temporarily abandoned his naive kumbaya irenicism and is acknowledging again that there is a jihad threat. So where do I go to get my reputation back?
Pray Hard says
Apparently, Rod is just another CINO and utter doofus about islam … as are most.
mortimer says
I agree with Robert Spencer. Rod Dreher was very naive in March 2019, but he has apparently learned a bit more about Islam in Aug. 2022.
I also agree that Rod Dreher should very publicly declare that ROBERT SPENCER WAS RIGHT and that Rod Dreher was wrong about Islam.
Islam has a voluminous literature that is self-referentially incoherent but which agrees on the issue of ‘HONOR’ (meaning ‘the supremacism of Islam’).
Once Rod Dreher thoroughly grasps the HONOR/SHAME culture, he will be able to fit all the self-contradictory pieces of Islam into their proper places … just as most Muslims are instinctively able to do.
The key point is this: Muslims understand that the ‘HONOR’ of Islam must never be questioned. The Western world will start to know what to do when most Westerners understand Islam’s ethos of ‘HONOR’ which is similar to the ethos of the Mafia which was itself derived from Islamic culture during the Islamic invasion of Sicily.
Infidel says
Is this the same Rod who posts here, attacking Spencer?
Back to this story, just like there are people who think that Sufis are peaceful muslims, there are conservatives who think that the only malignant jihadist country is Iran, and that all sunni muslim countries, be it Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt et al are moderate countries
mortimer says
Rod Dreher, it seems, is gradually being cured of a naive belief common in the West that Islam may coexist with other cultures. This falsely optimistic belief is especially prevalent among Leftists, namely, that the gap between the pre-Enlightenment, medieval cultural of Islam and the highly rationalistic Western culture may be harmonized and smoothed over, and then, we will all sing ‘kumbaya’ together in a wonderfully multi-culti dream world. That is not, however, the view of Islam.
Most Muslims naively want a future that incoherently combines Western prosperity with Islamic censorship and rigidity. Such Muslims miss the point that Western rationalism leads to a free society in which new ideas and innovations may be expressed and in which the best idea wins. That is anathema to Muslims, because in their view Islam must ALWAYS win and never lose.
The attack on Salman Rushdie expresses the un-harmonious, contradictory, medieval Islamic point of view which says ALL INNOVATION IS FROM EVIL. In other words, this point of view cannot be harmonized with Western utilitarian rationalism and less with Western PROGRESSIVISM!
Islamic thought lives in a parallel universe that doesn’t touch ours. It is totally alien.
Once Rod Dreher realizes (and the majority of the writers class) that Salafism is indeed normative Islam, we will finally have a rational discussion about Islam in which the fully-informed Leftists fully participate.
Right now, the Leftists are stifling discussions about Islam, because they don’t understand it and they are protecting their Muslim allies from any criticism.
James Lincoln says
mortimer says,
“Most Muslims naively want a future that incoherently combines Western prosperity with Islamic censorship and rigidity.”
Very well stated.
Western prosperity is incompatible with the tenets of islam.
Fitna says
Great post Mortimer.
Unfortunately the ‘intelligentsia’ in the West will only wake up to the danger of Islam once someone they respect and value is badly injured or killed by Muslims.
Salman Rushdie is one such prominent figure. If any one of us were stabbed/killed by an Islamic fascist, we probably wouldn’t even make the local news.
Sadly it always takes the price of blood, death, destroyed lives for others to take notice. Even then it’s not guaranteed the problem will be dealt with but I think recent with the threats against Nupur Sharma, then the actual attack against Rushdie blowing up on social media, has finally started to trickle into mainstream consciousness. This was in a way America’s Samuel Paty (the teach beheaded in France).
That is where the real fight back against Islam will begin. All Muslims need to do is wage more jihadist attacks against famous celebrities to get that ‘sleeping giant’ to finally wake up.
If they go after the ruling class, then ofc it’ll accelerate the process even more since they got “one of theirs” and they feel untouchable. The elites don’t care about us lowly dregs being slaughtered by Muslims so long as it’s not their families that are targeted.
In the end I don’t really care what the catalyst will be that will get the West to wake up and turn against Islam and Muslims, so long as that happens. This is an existential war, the future will belong either to us and freedom/Civilization, or the Muslims and Barbarism, humanity can never allow the Muslims to win.
James Lincoln says
Fitna,
You would think that the muslim invaders into Western countries would not conduct kinetic jihad, as it may slow their goal of hijra.
Kinetic jihad actually works against them – as at least some citizens wake up to the islamic threat.
But I guess that some muslims just can’t help themselves…
mortimer says
Responding to Rod Dreher: quote “mass Islamic migration means inevitably that a non-trivial number of violent fanatics will exist within any society that accepts large numbers of Muslims”.
That is a good point and the actual percentages of the jihadist spectrum among Muslims goes as follows.
Opinion surveys of Muslims show that approximately 15% of Muslims attend the mosque; about 15% of Muslims accept the jihad doctrine of warfare against disbelievers; about 60% of Muslims want Sharia law imposed under a universal caliphate; about 35% of Muslims are non-practicing and they DO NOT WANT Sharia law imposed.
In response to Dreher’s assertion that ‘a non-trivial number of violent fanatics’ will enter the West through immigration, the numbers suggest that LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of Muslims will be outright fanatical jihadists who will act out.
If we spell it out, that means that out of one million Muslims about 100 to 500 fanatical jihadists will hide in that group, carefully concealing their intentions. Here is the bad part, 15% of all Muslims will be likely to support them and conceal them from capture by law enforcement. In other words, out of one million Muslim immigrants, approximately 150,000 will be JIHAD SYMPATHIZERS and JIHAD ENABLERS. The 15% enablers will feed, clothe, equip, shelter and harbor jihadic terrorists in Western societies.
John says
You never lost your reputation Mr. Spencer. It’s Rod Dreher who lost his reputation by his constant flip flopping.
Westman says
Education is the mortal enemy of Islam. MeToo ignorance is all the rage in woke circles until the woke experience jihad personally or one of their own is attacked. Dreher just received an education that he could easily make himself a target with just the truth.