Progress Report (I): the Simple Truth

Author and blogger Leon de Winter is exhausted. The day after Christmas he let the Elsevier blog readership know that enough is enough. It is I think, a good opportunity for many to re-think strategies. De Winter - who focused on multicultural issues and counter Jihad - writes:

After 11 September 2001 I got a bit crazy. Crazy of concern over the future, and madly loving my wife and children. (...) The first bout of madness incited me to write a novel, "God's Gym", which was nothing less than a process of mourning.

The second waive spurned me on to study Islam and the phenomenon of the various forms of extremism and justification to violence that go with it. For the first time in my life I was uncertain if my children's generation would experience the security and prosperity that characterised the way of life in the West since the eighties of the last century, so boundlessly enjoyed by me."

I admit I might be hypersensitive over security issues - or lack thereof. Eleven years before I was born the entire families on both sides were murdered, two relatives excepted (the father of my mother died just before their deportation (to the German death camps), one of her sisters was baptised). These people had done nothing that might have made their deaths comprehensible in the slightest - they just died because some powers deemed it necessary."

Sitting in my study I am surrounded by tome after tome on Islam, book-shelves full of treatises on the innumerable aspects of Islamic mythology. I have read them all, and I can say with some confidence that I have become somewhat of a lay expert on the subject - because I want to understand what moves the enemy, what drives his hatred and love of death, why the antisemitism, and why are so many Muslims so ambivalent towards our astonishing modern values."

I think by now that I understand; I also think however, that it is not all that complicated: a religious tradition with global ambitions, fired on by a Utopian vision of world domination - which is not borne out by the actual course of history, which for centuries has been determined by infidels - feels humiliated and offended to the core."

I agree with De Winter. While his study of what moves Muslims may have helped him dealing with his family history and the events on 9/11 - as it did so many - as far as the conclusion is concerned he could have saved himself the trouble. Former leader of the Dutch Liberal Party VVD and former Euro Commissioner Frits Bolkestein came to the same conclusion as early as the mid nineties and was vilified for it. He also wrote tomes in detached, academic terms so the truth would not offend, but to no avail.

Writing on the site of Masada 2000.org Dr Farrukh Saleem in "Why Are Jews So Powerful?" doesn't mince words: "Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes). Why are Jews so powerful?" He lists count after count of inventors, scientists, industrialists and artists, and answers the rhetorical question himself: "Education". Allow me a specification ... an education that is- in the Judeo-Christian tradition in which the transfer of knowledge and the scientific-empirical approach to epistemology - are central. (More reading by Dr Farrukh Saleem.)

As said, the disappointing facts on the ground do not match the high expectations. Human psychology being what it is the discrepancy must somehow be dealt with. Dr Sanity's take on it in her post of 5th January "The Paranoid Delusions of the Left" speaks volumes and is worth a quote or so:

"The first is an example of a series of bizarre conspiracy theories emanating from anxious leftists as they attempt to keep the holes in their ideology plugged; thus preventing any reality from washing over them or flooding their cognitive processes. Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the paranoid brand chewing gum is brought out to stop it up."

Leaving the first example aside as not immediately pertinent to the present story, we move on to the second example in which a Muslim government official expertly deflects the blame for a contemporary genocide elsewhere: "Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper." Read the usual twisted yadayada for yourself >>>

Dr Sanity explains it: "If only Israel and the Jews could be "wiped off the map"; or, if only those evil capitalist companies could be "torn up into a thousand pieces and scatter[ed] to the wind" then Islam/Progressivism would be more successful. Everything can be explained by this kind of paranoid logic. In fact, paranoia is really nothing more than the use of reason and logic in the service of the irrational and bizarre.

- Are you poor? Someone must have robbed you of what you are entitled to!

- Are you angry and experiencing hatred, but like to think of yourself as a loving, compassionate sort of person? Then the object of your hatred magically becomes the one who hates ... you! (N.B.!)

(...) The above mental gymnastics allow the paranoid person to externalize blame and avoid responsibility (...) Reality is always redrawn in order to pump up their own righteousness and virtue. Anyone who opposes their policies is automatically branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic-- take your pick, depending on the circumstances. Hell, anyone who offers ANY new ideas in these areas are automatically branded with one of the "isms". (...)

In the example above where the Darfur Minister of Defense lays the blame for the genocide on the Jews, he is just drawing from a similar tradition that runs through the most dysfunctional threads of Islam. The Jews are responsible for the misery of the Palestinians (it is never the Palestinians own fault); the Jews ritually eat the blood of Muslim babies; plot to destroy Islam; and are guilty of all sorts of atrocities and convoluted plots to take over the world (reference the Protocols of the Elders of Zion).

It is useless to point out the truth (...) It is inconceivable to paranoid persons that people actually exist who view the situation differently from them. (...) Con men always think others are out to con them. (...)

Muslims suffer from this perpetual cognitive dissonance over the fact that the results on the ground don't match the religious and ideological expectations and are dealing with it through psychological mechanisms that distort reality. It is obvious this stands in the way of rational solutions to the innumerable problems and renders them needlessly intractable.

The sooner Islam comes to terms with the gaping discrepancy, the sooner everybody can get on with their lives - except of course those who have already paid the ultimate price for the denial.

~ To be continued in Part II: "Plugging the Holes Against Reality" - "In order to avoid lumping the innocents with the terrorists the political Left have instead reversed the logic, lumping the terrorists with the innocent. This perversion of logic is a two-edged sword. They provide the radicals with a free pass, while at the same time avoiding making a moral choice. " ~

- Filed on Articles in "Progress Report: Summary", cat. Balkans/E.Europe, GWOT, Moral Legislation, Neo Totalitarianism, Terrorism -

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Moral Canary

Cacophony Redux, with only one person asking relevant questions ...

- Radio Netherlands: "Dutch parliament queries Hirsi Ali security cut" - "The Dutch Lower House has called for a written explanation from Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin on the provision of security for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The former conservative MP has returned to the Netherlands, apparently because the government is no longer prepared to pay for her protection in the United States. ... Last year she left the Netherlands for the United States to work for the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute."

- Expatica: "MPs want explanation on Hirsi Ali" - "Parliament will not be holding an emergency debate on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's return to the Netherlands but it does want a letter from the cabinet on the Ayaan Hirsi Ali's security. ... The justice department has refrained from comment thus far. ... Parliament also wants clarification on the agreements that have been made with the American authorities and with Hirsi Ali. The letter should also inform Parliament whether Hirsi Ali's security in the Netherlands is guaranteed. She is currently staying at a secret address."

- Monsters & Critics: "Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali back in Netherlands" - "The former legislator for the Liberal VVD party was allegedly forced to leave the US as American authorities had refused to finance the expenses of her personal security measures. So far, the Dutch government has paid all those expenses, but after more than a year of residency in the US, the Dutch allegedly said they were no longer willing to continue this arrangement."

- Elsevier Magazine - "The Netherlands must protect Ayaan, wherever she is": author Leon de Winter: "... What would be the value of her life in terms of the minister's budget? And on what basis would he come to such an estimate? These are the relevant questions of the sort that Margaret Thatcher never posed in relation to the life of Salman Rushdie, wherever he might might have been."

The problem for open, Western, democratic society is that nobody is commenting anymore why this witch hunt is going on in the first place! That's how accustomed we've become to intimidation by a group of people who don't tolerate any vision, other than their own.

The mentality is also creeping in that it's the critics own fault for getting into trouble. Very much like: yeah, that's what you get when you enter a house on fire! Remarks made by Dutch Anti Terrorism czar, Tjibbe Joustra recently amounted to: "Since it's well known that Muslims are easily inflammable, the Dutch have only themselves to blame, should terrorist attacks occur", as if they were an Act of God!

This is blaming the victim, coupled to a refusal to hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions! This impunity in turn is undermining the rule of law and confidence in the state of justice and politics.

Society seems to be caving in, the moral compass being lost since some time. Ayaan is once again acting as the proverbial canary is the democratic coal mine.