Pepperdine 4: Daniel Pipes reveals his Grand Design

Not being able to participate ourselves in the Pepperdine 'Collapse Of Europe' Conference on June 10/11, 2007 against Islam in Malibu, California, we depend on the truthful recordings by Vik Rubenfeld in his Blog 'The Big Picture'. He recorded and photographed everything himself, so we can be sure that nothing is lost.
Here is how Vik saw the second general meeting, after the break on the 10th of June, during which he assisted at the 'Eurabia' separate meeting, about which we reported in Pepperdine 3, etc.
Daniel Pipes, visiting Professor at Pepperdine since Jan. 1, repeats here, and elaborates on, his conclusions about Europe ('Eurabia'):

We reproduce Vik here again:

Daniel Pipes.

(This is the third in a series on the international conference on the Collapse of Europe, organized by Avi Davis of the American Freedom Alliance, and the Council for Democracy and Tolerance, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. The first two articles are here: first article - second article.)

At 3pm there was a second panel in the main auditorium for all attendees. At this panel, Daniel Pipes made what appears to me to have been one of the most profound observations of the Conference. He began with an overview of the history of Europe over the last hundred years:

About Daniel Pipes, a US expert on Islam, we refer to:

Wikipedia: Daniel Pipes, starting: "The Arab American Institute, headed by James Zogby, stated "For decades Daniel Pipes has displayed a bizarre obsession with all things Arab and Muslim. ...

The man indulged into discussions about the Tobacco pipe and Islam, the 72 maidens reserved for jihad heroes being in fact grapes and the Arab language not being the original language of the Qur'an. You get the picture. The ideal person to be nominated as president of the American Freedom Association by president Bush! The AFA is one of the sponsors of the conference and wields some government money to distribute among people who will divulge the message everywhere in the world.

Listen to Professor Pipes about Europe. You'll feel somewhat outlandish, you'll not connect immediately to the picture he brushes. Bur surrealism is part of Western Culture. Hold on!

Vik records:

Europe in the 19th century was a confident continent. It was successful and it knew it - whether in terms of political achievement, cultural achievement, scientific, engineering achievement - power projection - Europe until 1914 - what we call 19th century Europe, was superior to any other part of the world. It's achievements stood out. And indeed had been standing out, for four centuries. Europeans entered into world war I with a great deal of enthusiasm - what's been called a delirium of enthusiasm. It had been a century since there had been a major war - the Napoleonic wars. There had been the buildup of the philosophical base - let me just mention the name of Frederic Nietzsche - that found war to be romantic and attractive. And so Europeans went to war in 1914 in this delirium of enthusiasm. And of course, four years later, they came out of it devastated and horrified - and came to the conclusion, never again would they engage in such a war. They would avoid war - they would do whatever it took to avoid such a war. In the 1930s we saw that policy in action, in particular by the british and french governments, as they sought to avoid war - what we call, 'appeasement.'

Well, that didn't work either, did it? And the consensus, the second consensus, was, as we faced, as the Europeans faced the Soviet threat, was that they would not appease. No more Munichs. The lesson had been learned. And that remained in place roughly through the Cold War. And - grant me a lot of generalization here, please - there were a lot of exceptions - but, overall, it was maintained through the 40 years plus of the Cold War.

But with the ending of the Cold War, in about 1990, what I think one sees, is a reversion, to the earlier consensus. In other words, the no more Munichs idea, that held through the Cold War, has evaporated [inaudible], taking 20 years. And instead what one sees is a reversion to that earlier, post-World War I consensus. In other word, we've lived our lives in the post-World War II era, but it is, before our eyes, in Europe, turning into a post-World War I era. As David Galenter of Yale University puts it, it's the 1920s all over again.

Here are a number of things to be set straight:

1. Without Churchill and De Gaulle, who put things straight in 1940, the US never would have intervened as they did, later on, when the US were attacked themselves by Japan in 1942. Without the tremendous effort by the Soviet Union, starting in 1941, Nazism would not have been eradicated as it has been. The main force against authoritarianism, against Nazism, came from Europe itself.
2. 19th Century Europe was colonialist, draw upon exploitation of African and Asian sources. Theodore Roosevelt, American president at the start of the 20th century, intended to copy that European policy and he got his share of the imperialist world, subduing the Philippines, Cuba and several ex-Spanish dominions in Central America. Later on, the US abandoned this classic kind of colonialism. To their honor. The 1919 restructuring of Europe, was led by an US president, who choose liberty, freedom, democracy over short-term objectives. He shaped the League of Nations, the forerunner of the UN. Under Rumsfeld and his NeoCon friends, the US returned to Theodore-Rooseveltian policies (look at his statue in Rumsfeld's Pentagon office!). The US, under the Project for an American 21st century, intend to copy the European colonialist drive, as shown in contemporary Iraq.
3. Europe is living with Russia as its neighbor. There is interdependence, mainly in the energy (oil, gas) market. That is a different position from the US. The US seeks its energy deliveries in the Middle East, accommodating (appeasing) with the Salafist Saudi-Arabian regime and occupying the Mesopotamian region (Iraq). There is no question, that the EU countries condemn Russian authoritarian policies. But, like the US, the EU has to live with non-democratic regimes at its doorstep. That is the only thing that counts.
4. Mr. Pipes is not describing a really existing Europe, but he is referring to what he sees as US-American softness on imperialism. In attacking that false image of Europe, he intends to attack the American Democrats and the left wing of the Republicans. It is like the Russians attacking in the Seventies Albanian practices, meaning China, and the Chinese attacking Yugoslavia, meaning the Soviet Union. Hirsi Ali, who couldn't be less concerned, and De Winter and Broder, lent, without any opposition, their names and their reputation to that villain agitation.

Vik again:

Pipes continued:

...France is a particularly interesting case, because France is, like the United States, a country that is - an idea. We're not related to each other, we don't have a history that goes back together, but we, in one fashion or another, found ourselves in this country, and we're in pursuit of happiness here. The French have liberte, equalite and fraternite. But no other countries have, at least in Europe and North America, have an idea. Not Canada - certainly not the other countries of Europe. And what they find, is particular difficulty in explaining who they are. And as their civilizations are now challenged from the inside, by a substantial and growing population, that says, 'we have something better - we have Islamism, which beats what you have' - the European peoples are finding it very difficult to come up with a response and say, 'no no, what we have is good.' And what one finds is rather pathetic. For example, the famous Dutch film, that shows the Dutch values to be shown to potential immigrants, that shows a topless woman in the surf, or two men kissing - is this really what Dutch culture is? Or, less humorous but also somewhat pathetic, is a website put up by the British government, called "Icons - a Portrait of England," which has some hundred or so, very specifically British things. Sherlock Holmes - Westminster Abbey - certain foods and the like. Just this week the incoming Prime Minister has suggested "Britain Day," to celebrate being British. Nobody quite knows what it means. [Amused laughter].

So both for historical reasons, having to do with the 20th century, and historical reasons having to do with the fact that most of Europe is made up of countries that are one large family - that have a certain set of customs, of language, foods, songs, and so forth - but are difficult to turn into an abstraction, and say, 'no - our civilization is something worth preserving.' And for all these reasons I think yes, there is a collapse of confidence. And while I don't think for sure that it's permanent - and there could well be a revival - at this point I think we're seeing a lowpoint - it could go lower - but certainly a lowpoint in European confidence, and something that really is without precedent. I don't know of any historical phenomenon akin to what the Europeans have gone through in the last century.

I did not left out a word of this incredible, racist, rant. Pipes doesn't know how to deal with France, a staunch nationalist, republican values-based nation. Sharing most of its national values with the US. The liberty for a "pursuit of happiness", individual and collective, is inscribed in the French constitution, like it has been in the US one. In my humble opinion, this is a big part of the EU coming together and creating a block of nations of a new type, that will play its role in the world and protect itself against dangerous dreams of the Pipes kind!

If you know the French somewhat, like I do, you will understand, that their constitution is not something unimportant to them. They live their life under its prescriptions. The first thing that is asked from a stranger, is, to abide to the rules of French civility. And they do, the immigrants, happy to be French with the French. They even exaggerate often, being more French than the French, and loathing other Europeans and co-immigrants for not being so.
And, moreover, those French Revolution ideas have been transmitted into the constitutions of all, I repeat: all, European states. To Holland and Belgium as well as to Austria and Turkey. To the German mini-states, as well as to the German Federal Republic as we know it now.
That is European civilization, anchored in its different cultures!

Pipes' humorous examples are drawn from Holland and Britain.
A great friend of Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Hague, from her own conservative party VVD, Rita Verdonk, government secretary for integration and immigration from 2003 to 2006, was at the roots of that ridiculous and offending "exam" for would-be refugees and immigrants, featuring homosexual love and bare breasts. In fact, it was designed to bar potential immigrants from applying for immigration. Many friends of Mr. Pipes jubilated, when it was issued. Now, it is featured as a "weakness", typical for European appeasement policies! Poor Rita: It is not easy, to please people like Mr. Pipes and consorts! I am curious to know, how Hirsi Ali will explain all this to her party-friends in Holland...
And what is wrong with developing a program that explains what it means, being British?
All of British immigrants I ever met, are proud of being British, too, on top of their exotic origins. Second-generation Radha gives me the typical British cold shoulder, when I approach her, exactly like her British neighbor Diana would do. Perhaps, Pipes doesn't know what that means. But I am sure, most inhabitants of the British Islands, do. (And I know how to deal with that cold shoulder, and Pipes apparently, doesn't...) While I would have preferred a less exclusively British exposition of culture, as Britishness includes a high share of common European values, (for instance, what would British 18th century music have been without Haydn?), I see nothing wrong in featuring Sherlock Holmes' intelligent reasoning capacities, his un-racial, un-prejudiced judgments. I would be really upset, when Brown would have featured Watson in stead.

Pipes is the 21st century Watson. Prejudiced, short on imagination, quick to jump to conclusion. But our guide Vik R. is flabbergasted by Pipes' views:

In other words, in the United States, we have a goal: the pursuit of happiness. And it's a goal we all believe in as a nation. It's a goal worth defending, a way of life worth fighting for. It shows us why what we have is better than what the Islamists offer, because the goal of the Islamists is to destroy freedom, to destroy equality of the sexes, to destroy free speech - and to accomplish nothing more than to require that all others also join their effort to destroy their own freedoms, and the freedoms of others.

Poor Vik! The Freemasons who inscribed "pursuit of happiness" into the American Constitution, denying the traditional Christian view of us all, who are sinners, who have nothing to win by happiness on this earth, would have had nothing against the Muslim pursuit of happiness, but the same contempt they had for Christian toiling and suffering to get happiness after Redemption!

Even the Neoconservatives, who are so trigger-happy to enroll Christian fundamentalists, do not agree with Pipes' and Vik's image of Muslims as destroyers of our freedom. They valuate the disciplining influence of values and rules, that are put forward in traditional Muslim faith. They encourage Muslims to abide by their rules and occupy themselves of the social, communautarian, tasks that are necessary in their communities. And leave big man policies to them (defense, police, law). I do not agree. I believe, that there is no separation between "social" and "state" (or, as Mark Steyn puts it: between First- and Second-degree priorities). Equality of all citizens before the Law, in political matters, is a primary concern to me.

This is the background, against which we have to see Hirsi Ali's and Pipes' call for a "popular rise" against Mosques and Muslims. They feel happy, not to be concerned by its expected outrages. They are concerned only by "grown-up" primary-degree policies, like "defense" (Hirsi Ali and Mark Steyn). They just want to pull the trigger, washing their hands afterwards in innocence.

Vik, however, is completely won for the cause:

As soon as Pipes said it I knew I'd heard something tremendously significant.

The Europeans can benefit from Pipes' insight by considering what their national goals can be.

Well, yes. As Second-degree players on the world chess board, we should foment popular pogroms against Mosques and against Muslims. Pipes and Co. will do the rest for us. And, do not forget to indulge in "reproductive activities" (Steyn)! Within the family, of course. Women should return to the sacrifice of motherhood (as has been advised by two Dutch CDA politicians lately in NRC-Handelsblad (Rotterdam) in an opinion article leaning heavily on Mark Steyn's 2003 book "America Left Alone").

All in all, we have to do with an US-Government supported (but not officially subscribed) agitation against Europe, only to nail US (and Canadian) "second-degree" politicians to a supposed European "appeasement" with terrorism.
As we observed in Hirsi Ali's and Steyn's conflicting advice to the Turks, this is not a serious proposal to the European Union. It is American home policy.
That doesn't mean, that there will not be any European fall-out. We spotted already Swiss (French) lawyer Montézac (another European featured in Pepperdine), who proposes "advocacy" against Muslims, by taking "precautionary action" against them, by imposing stickers on Islamic property saying that "Islam is illegally calling for Jihad". Henryk Broder, Germany, on returning from Pepperdine, prefers obligatory reading of "The Devils' Verses" in Mosques. Which boils down to the same. A Dutch connection was already mentioned here.

An example of the intimidating habits of Mark Steyn's friends, we experienced already here, on "A Legal Alien in New York", when he called his own "popular uprising" against us, encouraging his "Campus Watch" pupils to visit this blog and comment on it. Out of the more than 1.000 visits to our blog on 11 and 12 June, only three comments were sent in (all published). Two of them wrote only to warn us, that the tsunami of visits would end as soon as Steyn would put an end to it. Which happened indeed. The third one was concerned about our lack of sleep, which I can but appreciate. Most unsolicited visits came, of course, from US campuses and firms. But not a few originated in the UK, Australia and other English-speaking countries.

Conclusion: A "social", "second-degree-" network is being created in order to apply Steyn's and Pipes' prescriptions. That is what Hirsi Ali "learned" about in the US.

What can we do against these attacks, here in Europe?

I will develop some ideas in a post on "At Home in Europe" and its European sister blogs.

Pepperdine Conference 3: European stooges enter the scene...

As we could not participate ourselves in the Pepperdine 'Collapse of Europe' conference, we continue with the truthful reports by Vik Rubenfeld in his Blog 'The Big Picture', adding our comments, where it seems appropriate. His second report starts like this:

Conference on the Collapse of Europe: What Makes Jihad so Effective - and What to Do About It

Leon de Winter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Henryk Broder, Andy Bostom, Daniel Pipes and Greg Davis

(This photo is merged from two smaller photos. [By Vik, HR])

(This is the second in a series on the international conference on the Collapse of Europe, organized by Avi Davis of the American Freedom Alliance, and the Council for Democracy and Tolerance, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. The first article is here.)

At 11:30 am, the event divided into a number of panels taking place simultaneously. I opted for the one titled "Eurabia: Is Muslim domination of Europe inevitable?" particularly in order to have a chance to see the courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Born a Muslim in Somalia, Ayaan was raised with terrible violence directed against her in her own home, as is not uncommon for children born into the Islamic culture.

I would have done the same. But for reasons opposite to Vik's. Ayaan Hirsi Ali developed in time a Manichean vision on Islam, attributing all imaginable wrongs in society to Mohammed. She exaggerates, even in the eyes of the genuine NeoCons, who forbade her to speak in the name of the American Enterprise Institute about Islam, imposing an obligation to furnish proof of what she has to say about it. That is why her publication about Mohammed, several times announced, did not see the light of edition yet. Apparently, she did not speak in Malibu as an AEI-collaborator. She just repeated her Shura against everything Islam. To the greater joy of the conference initiators.

[Follows a summary of her suffering at the hands of family in Kenya, where she grew up.]
Vik continues:

Her [Ali's] mother found Christians, with their beautiful Judeo-Christian culture of "love they neighbor", despicable - but not the evil all around her and in her own home, of family members beating, torturing and killing other family members. That is a crushing, devastating indictment of Islamic culture.

Where do 'honor killings' occur in Europe, and where are they accepted, tolerated? Answer: Nowhere. In my country of origin, Holland, honor killings, or public humiliations of women who had intercourse out of wedlock, occurred still during the sixties. In the name of Christian values, in some localities, women and girls who were accused of extramarital relations, were exposed on charts, drawn by easels, to the whole community. A despicable tradition, that was forbidden and generally condemned later on. The more so, why the male participants in that kind of activities generally went unharmed. I am proud of that progress of civilization and I am proud of the fact that it is considered now as an inextricable part of our 'culture'.

Most Muslims in Europe are of the same opinion. Some indulge into nostalgic maintenance of what they consider as traditional morals. Like for the Christianist fundamentalists, their practices have to meet with condemnation and punishment. That is what the European authorities do. Everywhere, without exception. Most Muslim countries (with the exceptions of Saudi-Arabia and Iran), do not differ from European law in this respect. So, where is the problem? In the US, the Mormon majority in Utah is allowed to abide to its own laws, that permit men to marry multiple women. No protection of their person, their integrity, their rights as parents of their children is provided. They are left behind. So, what permits American isolationists to condemn such practices, when applied elsewhere in the world? And, still more convincing, what allows them to depict a picture of European tolerance, that is utterly untrue? Even in culturally backward regions like Bavaria in Germany, or in the Polish countryside, the law is maintained and women are protected against male pretensions. I do not know of any European authority, leftist or not, who tolerates depreciating behavior onto women, like it is tolerated at some places in in the US.

But, let us listen to Vik, who recorded all on his recorder:

After introducing the panel, moderator Andy Bostom asked Ayaan to speak first. She detailed what Europe can do to avoid Islamic domination. (All quotes are transcribed from audio recordings.)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Is Muslim domination of Europe inevitable? I can't predict the future. But looking at the way things are in Europe, at least what we see is that it is urgent to address this issue. And probably now in some neighborhoods, in some cities in Europe, Islamic domination is visible. Europeans have a taste of how things can look like if Islamic domination becomes Europe's future. I think it's avoidable. And it is avoidable, if European leaders and European civil society at least approach four policies in a radically different way than what we see now.

The first is of course the immigration policy. The EU have removed the borders in between the countries, without thinking about the consequences of that, inviting the people to come from other countries, mainly Muslim countries, and even those who are not invited, when they came still. The immigration laws that made it possible for a large number of people to come to the EU have not been reformed. There is no central EU policy, even though the member states no longer have borders. So either you have a planned European immigration policy, or the member countries go back and say, "You know what? We are going to take care of that part of our problems."

Now what? Is this a liberal, speaking? Abolition of borders between countries, I have always heard, helps creating bigger, more competitive markets. Cheap labor, provided by immigrants and transmigrants from eastern Europe, is good for employers. That is how Michigan and Chicago became great in industry and wealth. A 'large number of people' migrated during the thirties from the plains to the new industries. It saved America from the woes of depression and crisis. Why should Europeans not be allowed to do the same? And a common European immigration policy, who is against it? Answer: Hirsi Ali's Conservative Liberal Party of Holland, led by her "friend" Rita Verdonk, who featured a restrictive (very restrictive and discriminating) immigration policy for Holland exclusively. As usual, Ajaan is mixing up contradictory statements, only to please the audience.

The report continues (Hirsi Ali):

..The next policy that should be approached differently is what is now in many European countries called, the integration policy. Integration is just another euphemism for multi-culturalism. I think we should be honest about this and I think if Europeans adopt an assimilation policy, that that is going to prevent a complete Muslim domination in Europe.

Now that assimilation policy, should not be left to government. I think that civil society - that's the main thing that I've learned from the United States - is that civil activism is the thing that needs to change, and not top-down change. As the guiding of the Muslim movement in Europe is a grass-roots movement, not coordinated from a central command somewhere, so I think the reaction to it must be also grass roots, civil activism, and where the government should do its bit, the government should do its bit, which is [indistinct on audio].

And that policy is economic reform, meaning, to reduce government, where government is unnecessary, and especially the welfare state. You don't need Islamic domination - look at the aboriginals in Australia. If you have generations of people depending on welfare, you're just freezing them in poverty. It's an inhuman policy, I think. It's been instigated by compassion, but it's very inhuman. And if you have generations of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants, on welfare, feeling alienated, then the agents of radical Islam just target that group, and take advantage of that resentment.

The news is, that Hirsi Ali now condemns "integration" policies as a giving in to "multiculturalism". Forced "assimilation", an authoritarian policy, is what she demands now. That policy should not come from government, but from "civil society". She claims, that she has learned so in the US.

Southern 'civil society' indeed has blocked black emancipation, justice for Afro-American people, until deep into the sixties. The Ku-Klux-Klan gets belated support from an unexpected side!

This dangerous nonsense is supported by references to libertarian views: Do away with the welfare state! Leave pregnant young women alone! It is their fault. We do not want to pay for the upbringing of new dangerous Muslim babies!

Development aid to third world countries is a devilish idea too:

And the fourth, and that's where I'm going to end, is an intervention policy, what today in Europe is known as, development aid. So the idea is, we are going to help Muslim countries, or countries where immigrants come from, and trade with them through aid. But we are not going to reform our own markets. We are not going to have crops grown in Africa, we are not going to allow them into our countries, but we are going to give them some money. And when we need oil, instead of having our defense system up-to-date, we are going to persuade them to do - we are actually going to bribe them. That's what it amounts to. And I think that approach - bribing nations where immigrants come from, should change. I think we should adopt a carrot-and-stick, the old carrot-and-stick approach, where help - I'm not a proponent of indefinite help - I think that a nation should help themselves. But ultimately, the idea that military intervention is unavoidable and that before that you need a proper defense system.

She stops just before pleading for a preventive military occupation of Muslim countries. But that is where it amounts to. Ajaan craves for the 'stick' to discipline countries like Somalia. The US provided a "proper" defense system to Ethiopia, that willingly went murdering in Mogadishu, in order to impose a government lead by her Darod-clan uncle. Carrots have not yet been spotted in the ruins of Mogadishu.

Finally, she sets her hopes on two old friends, who are expected to sell those policies in Holland and in Germany:

If all those policies [change, HR] - and some of them are changing. The debate is open. There are people like Leon de Winter and Henryk Broder and many other Europeans who are debating this, and I hope that that's going to lead to something more positive. If that has not happened, then yes, the Muslim domination of Europe is unavoidable, but it's something that Europeans have to take upon themselves.

A heavy burden on the weak shoulders of De Winter and of Broder. Hirsi Ali herself is no more to be counted upon. They have to work for it themselves. Lady-friend is occupied in the Promised Country. Europe is given up.

[..]

Leon de Winter spoke next. (Bios of the panelists are here.)

Leon de Winter: ...There is absolutely no Islamization of Dutch society. Can you imagine? Okay, Amsterdam changed, to some degree. We have areas now, which we didn't have 20, 25 years ago, that are more or less, no-go areas. Especially when you're a Jew. This is worrying. It's of great concern to all of us. The general public is as tolerant, and at the same time, as - this sounds paradoxical - as Calvinistic as it has been since centuries. We are not changing. On the contrary. There is a vast undercurrent among the general public of the feeling that we have had enough of it. We are fed up. We want to stop it.

I do not think, that our friend Leon made his point very clearly. He apparently intends to counter the Pepperdine axiom of an Europe that has already been lost to Islam and its perverse leftist friends. But he did not dare to dissent too ostensibly from his friend Hirsi Ali. Therefore, I think, this muddled statement about the specific Dutch tolerance traditions, concluding weakly into a description of the Wilders mood, shared by (too) many Dutch citizens. In an effort to abide by the Pepperdine lesson, he refers to the xenophobic masses as "we". A lamentable performance. His reference to the imaginary specific dangers for Jews in Amsterdam is particularly despicable, when you realize, that the only antisemitic threats he received in his life, came from the murdered Theo van Gogh. Now his hero and martyr.
The Jewish mayor of Amsterdam City, Job Cohen, who managed to "keep the city together" in spite of the tensions provoked by islamist terror and xenophobic reactions against it, would never accept "no-go"-areas for non-muslims in the city, and he hasn't. But that is a truth that is not welcome in the Pepperdine world. (The audience would have liked his german shepherd-dogs proposal (link to a Dutch site) to discipline young Dutchmen of Moroccan origin. But it seems, that he did not repeat his outrageous proposals at Pepperdine...)

De Winter's co-referent, however, the virulent anti-islamic German columnist Henryk Broder, managed to deliver his message loud and clear:

Henryk Broder.

Henryk Broder then described in detail how jihad functions, that is, how it can be effective in destroying a culture from within:

Henryk Broder: ...Our best allies in this in Germany, the same is the case in Holland, are secular, united, Liberal Muslims who come out and defend our civil rights. And they are much more reliable than my colleagues from the liberal German daily newspapers. But what happened all over Europe after the attacks in Ankara, in Madrid, in London, after some attempted attacks in Germany - there is now a culture of angst established, all around the world - a culture of fear. [..]

Stop, Mr. Broder, prize-winning writer!

Germans used to make a clear distinction between "Kultur" and "Zivilisation", at least at the moment, when when I got acquainted with Germany and its great philosophers, literature and science.

What, in Gods Name, is an "Angst-Kultur"?

I can imagine, that people's thinking is dominated by fear of the strangers in the house.

But that is not a culture. That is a state of mind that can happen in any culture, and become a threat to civilization, i.e.: to the rational behavior of citizens as such.

Some people may draw upon those fears, fomenting a cult of fear and its corollary: blind hatred. That, in its turn, may develop into an ideology, an "-ism".

In this case, we are present at the birthplace of an ideology of anti-islamism, based on fomenting fear and hatred. Or, to say it otherwise: a simulacrum of ideology is developed, in order to mobilize a "grassroots movement" against Islam, Muslims and their property.

Adolf Hitler's first and only book (1928: Mein Kampf) opens with a description of how a Jewish boy is leering at blond German girls, with an intention to abuse them. This was to be considered as part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to spoil innocent people, in order to dominate them (Proof: The protocols of the Wise of Zion, a 19th century forged document). We all know, what has been the outcome of such a cultivation of fear.

Isn't the suggestive storytelling about Muslims like the ones Broder and other Pepperdine speakers indulge in, unsettling similar to what antisemites used to do (and still do)?

The following statements of Mr. Broder in Malibu do not take away MY fear, that this man is indulging in racist agitation:

And things are happening now in Germany that could not have happened 10 or 15 years ago. I will give you a couple of examples to illustrate the situation. Protestant churches are celebrating this year and last year, Mohammed's birthday. This was unheard of. [.....] So on the grass roots level, church and state, it's a good idea to celebrate Mohammed's birthday, together with our Muslim citizens, simply to appease them - to accommodate them - to make them feel better, hoping that they will not let out any aggression on us.

Most Europeans do not know that Christmas is Jesus' birthday. Nor do many Americans. To me, that is no problem. Everybody is allowed to access to happiness in his or her own way, if I may paraphrase a well-known Prussian King, a son of Enlightenment. Why not celebrate Mohammed's birthday too? And Buddha's and Moses'? More holidays for all the workers.

It is absolutely unconceivable, that the German Protestants, who headed the most courageous opposition to Ulbricht and his surrealist brand of socialism, have decided to include the prophet Mohammed in their celebrations because of FEAR, resorting to "accomodation". They just want to bridge irrelevant cultural differences with their Muslim co-Germans. An intelligent and humanistic way to quell the same popular fears that Broder ignites!

Those Protestant communities just do what President Bush did, when he organized an Islamic service in the White House, in order to show, that the US are not against Islam as such! Is Henryk Broder accusing George Bush of "appeasement" and "accomodation" policy? THAT would have been interesting to tell at Pepperdine!

After having ridiculized a German paper that (ironically) deemed the hanging (in stead of stoning) of an Iranian girl as "progress", Broder continues:

I'll give you one more example, because it is so unbelievable. There was an auction recently at Christy's in London. A couple of days ago. There was going to be an auction, but there was already a catalog out for this auction. And two pictures in the catalog have been worked on in some detail, and intimate details were erased. And there was a footnote to those pictures saying, 'out of respect for cultural sensibilities, this image has been distorted. Please refer to the department of Christy's, for an accurate representation.' [Laughter.] Out of respect for cultural sensibilities, they distorted some classical pictures, with the great titles, "In the Harem," and "The State Market," showing some naked women.

The Christie's website learns us, that they do not eliminate specific physical details on their representation of paintings because of Islam, but... because of US rules, that forbid their representation. The 'Madonna' Brooklyn incident under former New York Mayor Giuliani (2002), who retired city funding, because of a representation of the Virgin with naked breasts, has been (a.o.) at the origin of stricter US rules for artistic expositions.

Broder doesn't SAY explicitly that it were Islam, that provoked this outburst of Victorianism. Maybe, he even knew, that Islam has nothing to do with Christie's sudden puritanism. Then it was just a joke, to show his independence from the fundamentalist Christian environment (like Voltaire used to do in his time), but our Vik has no doubts:

So that's the way that leads us into submission, into surrender, into capitulation - without any pressure applied on us! It's enough to keep them in this culture of fear, where you know there may be a kind of violent attack happening next day or next time. That's enough! That's enough to exercise this terrible amount of discipline on you and to make you surrender, before the crisis occurs.

I do not see, if it was Henryk Broder himself, recorded, here, or our reporter jubilating about this ultimate confirmation of his prejudices, but I cannot appreciate the utter cynicism that made Mr. Broder make this last statement.

And now, we are getting serious. Daniel Pipes himself speaks:

Daniel Pipes: [..] Through these speakers we have had something of a virtual tour of Holland, Germany, and England, and have seen how in each nation Western freedoms are being attacked by the cancer of jihad. The Islamist culture preaches - to Muslims - hatred of all things non-Islamic; so much so, that there are always a sufficient number of Islamists ready sacrifice themselves in a violent attack. The Western culture is paralyzed, thinking that it cannot identify which Islamists are about to attack, and believing that as a result, it cannot do anything.

Pipes has got what he wanted and paid for: 'Europeans' who are ready to smear their countries of origin, telling lies, summoning fear.

[Pipes gives a long description of a Government program to infiltrate dangerous mosques. Some mosques have to be 'eradicated':]

Such a crackdown is to be accomplished, not merely by the government, but primarily, by a grass-roots movement - by the people. As Ayaan is quoted above: "...that's the main thing that I've learned from the United States - is that civil activism is the thing that needs to change, and not top-down change. As the guiding of the Muslim movement in Europe is a grass-roots movement, not coordinated from a central command somewhere, so I think the reaction to it must be also grass roots, civil activism..."

Pipes preparing an American "Kristallnacht" (1938: Germany - indoctrinated "grassroots" civilians attack synagogues, Jewish property, rape Jewish girls, destroy houses and steal household goods). The Hitler government would greedily have done so itself, but preferred to disguise it into a grassroots-, "civil society"-pogrom. I cannot but wonder, if Leon de Winter has felt at ease at Pipes' call for an unleashing of popular hatred against foreigners. Government (and Justice) to be overrun at the same time ...

[Pipes continues with his story of a man named Gaubitz, who infiltrated radical mosques as an US Government spy, only to resume finally his call:]

As Henryk Broder showed, this [Islamist] strategy can be very effective in getting a Western culture to surrender its freedoms. Why should we tolerate these bomb factories, that produce walking, human time bombs, intended by their leaders to kill us?

We must shut down the mosques that instill this hatred into Muslims, in order to protect our freedoms.

Mr. Pipes is a dangerous extremist.

His text is intentionally equivocal: At first sight, he only asks for closure of mosques where terrorism is fomented. Few people will disagree with that.

But Hirsi Ali, Greg Davis, Ibn Warraq, Broder and others have been arguing that all Islam is about hatred of non-Muslims and "dawa" (viz. the "protocols"), a Macchivellian strategy for underhandedly getting power, posing as "integrated" and respectful citizens.

If all the mosques are to be considered as potential centers of terror, and Pipes did not contradict that with one word, his last statement should be read as a call to shut down all of them, to the last one.

Knowing, that the US government and Justice never would accept such a policy, another new (new to me, at least) element put forward at the conference by Hirsi Ali and explicitly underwritten by Pipes himself (see above), stands out in all its evil consequences: The attack on mosques should be the work of a "popular upsurge"...

Can you imagine a Ku-Klux-Klan like popular US pogrom against Muslims, that would make distinctions between "good" and "evil" Islam? Wouldn't popular outrage develop into a witch-hunt on "dhimmis" too? - Pontii Pilati like Pipes would afterwards wash their hands in innocence. De Winter would deplore the "excesses", but ask for understanding the desperation of the common people, caused by "criminal" neglection by liberal (leftist) politicians. And Pepperdine University would, I imagine, piously say, that among the dead victims, God will make a distinction between his people and the others...

The perverse call by Daniel Pipes and his friends for a 21st century version of pogroms against Muslims should meet a firm response. In the US as well as in Europe.

I will develop some ideas for a counter-offensive at the end of this reporting about the Pepperdine Conference. In the mean time, let there be no misunderstanding what the debate is about:

Of course, Muslim preaching of hate and destruction should be countered by all (legal) means. Like every terrorist agitation, such as the American neonazi movement, the terrorists who blew up a government building, only because it was a government building, representing the federal state, and without any care for the children who died under the blaze, in their kindergarten.
Of course, fundamentalist Christian movements, who attack abortion clinics, should also be infiltrated and made ineffective. Authoritarian sects, that proceed to kill their followers and bystanders, as they are expecting the redemption by a glorious Christ, coming from the moon or from Mars, should be stopped by all means.
But all that is not what Pipes intends to say. What he is provoking, or trying to provoke, is an attack by unlashed citizens on all Islamic property, on all what he deems "un-american", including what his stooges call the (European, or liberal-democrat) leftist, welfare-state traitors.

A new and dangerous stage in the struggle for a humane, civilized western society has been opened. Pipes and co have government money to spend. Their attack on Europe is, and will be, shameless and pitiless.
A united stand is necessary, now more than ever before.
The real traitors in this Spiel are the European opinionmakers who accepted to serve as (false) witnesses for the prosecution in Malibu.

I am not in a mood to forgive them.

Pepperdine 2: "Ibn Warraq" tells his tale.

Something kept me from continuing the sad story of the Pepperdine "Collapse of Europe" Conference. I think, it is too bad, too villain, to be true.
A host of academicians, scientists, public personalities from Europe and from the US, coming together, just to smear efforts of Europeans to come to grips with immigration, maintaining humanist policies, offering a decent living to foreigners.

Finally, I understood, that all this is only set up, to galvanize a popular upsurge in the US against foreigners. It is no matter of concern, if the informations about Europe are true or false. The selection of European speakers guaranteed a confirmation of the Steyn-inspired axiom: "The European left, the European Liberals are betraying Christian (Judeo-Christian) 'culture' (whatever that may be), as they are creating 'Eurabia'".

The next speaker, 'Ibn Warraq', is introduced by Vik Rubenfeld in 'The Big Picture' as follows (My comments are in red):

Ibn Warraq discussed the brief history of secular Islam, and then gave an example from his own experience, of how the supremacy of Islam is taught to Muslim children.

Ibn Warraq: Although I think, doctrinally, there is no separation of state and mosque, I think there was a de facto separation according to some scholars, within the history. [..] If, as many of us fear, Europe does collapse, in the next 10 years - if for example, by giving into demands from Muslims for a greater introduction of Islamic law, for greater autonomy within the European nation states, forming in effect a nation within a nation, and by continued immigration from Muslim countries, and a higher birthrate from the Muslims already living in Europe, the collapse will be very largely due to at least - this is a very rough figure, of course - at least 6 factors:

1. The denial of reality.
   
2. The spirit of appeasement.
   
3. The loss of national identity.
   
4. The loss of cultural confidence.
   
5. A willingness to grovel before the Arab League for short-term economic gains - for oil, gas, and markets.
   
6. And the nature of Islam itself. [.....]
   

Since we will be discussing multi-culturalism later on today, I will concentrate perhaps on the nature of Islam.

As I told you before, 'Ibn Warraq' doesn't exist. The 'Religion Report' of Radio National (Australia) reports on 10/10/01:

Secularist Muslim intellectual Ibn Warraq - not his real name - was born on the Indian subcontinent and educated in the West. He believes that the great Islamic civilisations of the past were established in spite of the Koran, not because of it, and that only a secularised Islam can deliver Muslim states from fundamentalist madness. Little wonder that he chooses to keep his identity secret.

Warraq is a pet of Daniel Pipes. He appears everywhere, when Islam as such has to be smeared. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was apparently not enough. The parrot explains his role and his obedience to the rules set by the American Freedom Alliance President:

Last night Avi Davis was telling us that we should anchor our accounts in some personal experience. I had to go to Canada, Toronto, to renew my work visa, about 8 months ago. And I went through Minnesota and I stayed with a niece of mine. She came to Canada about 9 years ago from Zimbabwe. She's married, and she has 4 children. All four children were born in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. She was telling me - she told me this story herself. One day in the kitchen, her children were all very excited, because there was a big ice-hockey match, between a Canadian team, and the Sabres, I think, in Buffalo. And they were all very much, of course, for the Canadian team. They were saying, "Mama, we are really going, we are really Canadian, we really want the Canadians to win!" And she said she brought all the kids into the kitchen, and said, "Listen. Don't you ever forget. You are not Canadians. You are Muslims." This was their primary identity. And you can imagine the conflicts this must have engendered in the children. What they will be going through in the next few years, I don't know.

Why do I think, suddenly, of a parent, who wants to shield her/his children from stupid hooliganness? Why do I think of a good Christian mother, who educates her children to make a distinction between matters of the commerce and matters of the mind? Why do I remember, that I ask my daughter, to look with a critical eye on television to a-cultural, commercial programs? Why do I suggest to go and look together at cultural events, relayed by European programmers? - Maybe, I am educating wrongly my child, introducing her to the "ummah" of European, Western culture?

Ibn Warraq:

All Muslims swear allegiance to the ummah, the worldwide Islamic community. So the dangers don't come, won't come just from suicide bombers, but ordinary Muslims, who just somehow have been taught, from a very early age, to shun Western values.

[..] And there they are: "Ordinary Muslims", who, doing just the same thing as a Christian mother in the Midwest would do to her children, are being depicted as a permanent, hidden, danger to society. Don't Christians swear 'allegiance' to Christ and to the Bible? What is wrong with that? As long as they do not impose the ten commandments in courts, as long as they do not forbid the teaching of Darwinism in schools, I am sure, the American Constitution is on my side.

In Europe, Christian sects nor Islamic fundamentalists are allowed to pass laws (like it has happened in some US states) forbidding the teaching of science in schools. Who is 'collapsing' here?

Mr. 'Ibn Warraq' knows best:

[..] for example - I think this example comes from Eurabia, Bat Ye'or's book - a contemporary Iranian shiite scholar, Abbas Ali Ahmed Sanjani, expressed the Islamic position when he stated that Islamic law forbids cultural dependence, or any cultural accord that subordinates Muslim culture, to that of foreigners. He wrote, quote, "Islam strongly rejects such a friendship, and forbids Muslims from engaging in such a treason."

Is it permitted to ask: Which European country or region has copied that Iranian fundamentalist Shiite ruling? - Answer: NONE.
Second question: Who is the American army general, who forbade any cultural communication between Christians and Muslims, considering it a "treason"?
Every informed American knows the answer. And we are happy to note, that he was reprieved. What he did, was unconstitutional. Mr. Warraq does the same as he did. And worse. - Look how he concludes:

The European establishment turns a blind eye to mullahs in mosques in Western countries, preaching hatred of Western ways, of Jews and Christians, and who strongly advise Muslims to educate their children in the spirit of jihad.

Pipes himself, nor Avi Davis, would have said anything like that in public. They have their agitprop-stooges like Warraq and Hirsi Ali for that job. But our source, the eagerly listening Vik, takes it all at face value:

Two observations: first - the Sharia Court of the United Kingdom? [Ibn Warraq mentioned such an institution, HR]Is there really such a thing? Has the Islamic cancer-like strategy of dawa, hejira, and jihad, been so effective, that there is now such a Sharia Court, and the British have permitted it? A quick search brings up confirmation of this via an article from the U.K. Daily Express, posted to LiveLeak on May 3, 2007:

UK: NOW MUSLIMS GET THEIR OWN LAWS IN BRITAIN

MUSLIM radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain.

Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system. [..]

Does Vik really believe, that the Blair Government would allow such 'courts'? Even the Daily Express, a conservative sensational paper, does not say so. But Americans are lead to believe, that British Justice has been outlawed by Islamists. Vik cannot wait to conclude:

The effectiveness of cancer-like strategy of dawa, hejira and jihad, in seeking to subvert, dominate, and destroy, the host non-Islamic culture.
This cannot be permitted in the West. We have to recognize the phenomenon of dawa, hejira, and jihad, study it, and act to put an end to it within our borders, in order to defend our freedoms.

And this is only where we are arrived at the intermission of the afternoon session on 'Eurabia'. It continues in the next post.

Europe's reception of the Pepperdine Smear: Gideon lachman in the London Financial Times.

Ah, I'm not alone in my disgust about the Pepperdine Conference.
Listen to Gideon Rachman of the London Financial Times, who chastizes Mark Steyn and Ajaan Hirsi Ali even more than I did:

The collapse of Europe

If you happen to be passing though Malibu next month, why not pop into an intriguing-sounding conference at Pepperdine University on "The Collapse of Europe". One of the early sessions is entitled - "Eurabia: Is Muslim domination of Europe inevitable?"

My answer to this is "No" it's not inevitable. In fact, given that the Muslim population of Europe is just 4% at the moment, I would say it's highly unlikely. But don't trying telling that to an audience of American conservatives. The idea that Europe is about to be submerged by the Muslim hordes seems to be almost recieved wisdom over there. It is certainly a notion that has launched a great many books. There is “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis” by Bat Ye’or; “While Europe Slept – How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within” by Bruce Bawer; “The Death of the West” by Pat Buchanan; and “The Cube and the Cathedral” by George Weigel.

I was depressed to see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician is taking part in the Pepperdine conference. She is a highly intelligent and courageous woman, so it's a shame to see that she is mixing with buffoons like Mark Steyn, who is giving the keynote address at the conference.

Steyn is the author of the most successful recent book about the alleged Muslim takeover of Europe. “America Alone” earned its author a place in the New York Times best-seller list and praise from President Bush.

Mr Steyn argues that – “Europe has all but succumbed to the dull opiate of multiculturalism.” Indeed “a fearless Muslim advance has penetrated far deeper into Europe than Abd al-Rahman” – a Muslim general who made it to the outskirts of Paris in 732. With apparent relish Mr Steyn predicts a “Eurabian civil war”. The weak-kneed elites will succumb to militant Islam. But an “unreconstructed minority” will turn to “neo-nationalist strongmen”. The poor old Europeans can’t win. It’s either appeasement or fascism.

It is alarming stuff. So it is comforting to recall that Mr Steyn has been disastrously wrong about many things in the past. I've just looked up a piece that he filed from Iraq in June 2003, in which he confidently informed his readers that everything was fine - "a vast number of bureaucrats are running around Iraq with unlimted budgets in search of a human catastrophe that doesn't exist." This is vintage Steyn - jeering, complacent and utterly stupid.

Steyn's Iraq epic ended with him sitting in an Iraqi cafe, watching a BBC television report suggesting that there was a crisis in Baghdad's hospitals. Once again, Steyn knew better. He sneered at:

"the blazing lights of round-the-clock CNN and BBC camera crews filming their reporter yakking away in front of a telegenic moppet whose acute tonsillitis is somehow all Rumsfeld's fault. These days, I always laugh my head off at BBC World reports. And, in that Ramadi cafe, I was touched to find that, even though most of them hadn't a clue what he was going on about, within half a minute, the rest of the crowd was roaring along with me."

Ah Iraq - if only the rest of the world could see the funny side. In fact, I have a suggestion for Mr Steyn. When he has finished lecturing the inmates at Pepperdine, perhaps he could repeat his trip to Iraq and see if it's still as hilarious as the last time.

Nothing to add. My analysis is upcoming...