Blogs For Victory

The news story:

Swiss voters Sunday approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques, defying appeals from the government to reject the proposal and raising the specter of a new round of tensions in Europe concerning the role of Islam on the Continent.

The vote highlights the persistent conflict over the integration of Europe’s growing Muslim population into civil society. Earlier this month, France considered whether to bar Muslim women from wearing full-face veils, sparking a heated debate in which one French politician described burqas, the head-to-toe veils worn by some very devout Muslim women, as “walking coffins.” The government issued a recommendation against wearing burqas, but stopped short of an outright ban.

European governments also have struggled in recent years with popular opposition to the construction of mosques, as well as with a backlash to the murder of a filmmaker in the Netherlands by a Muslim extremist, and the reaction in some Muslim countries to the publication in Danish newspapers of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The central issue is whether or not Moslems can be part of the Judeo-Christian west, or whether they are an indigestible morsel. Once upon a time there were only a few Catholics in the United States; starting in the 1850’s, massive numbers started to arrive and continues right through in to the 1920’s. Much nativist fear was generated about all these Catholics pouring in but, in the end, Catholics completely integrated in to American culture and trying to imagine America without its vibrant Catholic community is impossible. Are Moslems just the latest wave, akin to the successive waves of immigrants who have flooded in to America since the start?

To be sure, no Catholic ever shot up a group of his fellow soldiers; nor did any Jewish immigrants plot flying planes in to American buildings; and we’ve yet to see a Hindu immigrant murder his daughter about family “honor”. But because non-Moslem immigrants have not done these things while Moslems have, should we be concerned about the very existence of Moslems among us? I’ll have to give a qualified “yes” to that question.

I know Moslems and I’ve never felt the least threat from any of them. In fact, in my view the people who best demonstrate what it means to be a lady or a gentleman are Iranians; extraordinarily well-mannered and civilized people our increasingly barbarized society can learn a lot from. But with the Ft Hood incident, I’ve had to reflect upon the fact that here was a man who grew up in my nation, was given all manner of benefits – including, it seems, preferential treatment simply because he is Moslem – and yet he still became a mass murderer. What gives? I don’t know – and thus I have this growing concern.

It seems to me that Islam must demonstrate to us its good intentions. If there were loud, public Moslem statements against the Ft Hood massacre, I didn’t hear them. And then there’s the fact that people of my religion who live in Mecca practise our faith at the risk of their lives. Are we Catholics such a pollution to Islam that their city of Mecca is too good for us? We have mosques in Rome; why isn’t turn about fair play? And God help the Moslem who seeks to convert to Christianity – death is the punishment for such an action. How am I to conclude that Islam is my friend, when it shows itself the face of an enemy at almost every opportunity?

I do not wish to war on Islam – but until Islam shows itself friendly to me, I can’t help but keep up a defensive barrier. The vote in Switzerland is symbolic – its not like Moslems will be kicked out of that country, nor prohibited to worship as they like. The people of Switzerland have, from what I can tell, just laid down a marker – they don’t want to become second class citizens in their own nation. They don’t want political correctness and a fear of Islamic violence to result in the murder of a politician or the massacre of soldiers at the hands of a Moslem they nurtured.

The ball is in the court of Islam. Things are going in a certain way and disaster threatens. There is only so many times the people of the west will tolerate Islamist violence before the reaction becomes general. Eventually, either Islam changes its ways and accords due respect for we non-Moslems, or there will be war between Islam and the west. Our political elites are cowardly, but we, the people, are not. The elites might wish to bend the knee for another few months of peace, but we don’t want any more of our sons and daughters gunned down by someone who thinks he’s doing God’s will.