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Friday, January 21, 2005
The New Crusade
"Crusade" is one of those words, the ones you're not supposed to say. It bears a huge freight of connotations, most of which, thanks to the industrious resculptors of world history, are unpleasant. At the very least, like "faith" and "obedience," it demands that one commit to an arduous undertaking whose results are not guaranteed to be pleasant.
The word was coined to cover the military expeditions of the 11th century and subsequently, which were aimed at retaking the Holy Land from its Muslim conquerors. Those conquerors had subjected the population of the region to the usual Islamic barbarities. Most notable from a Christian standpoint was the imposition of dhimmi status on the "infidels" -- the non-Muslims -- of the land.
Under Islam, dhimmis are second-class citizens, subject to special taxes and sumptuary laws, required to give way to any and all Muslims in all circumstances, and forbidden to invite Muslims to their faith. Muslims may defraud them, visit all manner of insults upon them, and place them in a position that would require them to convert to Islam or be killed.
Dhimmis are not permitted to build new places of worship, and may be forbidden even to maintain their existing ones. Dhimmi children have routinely been conscripted to serve as sacrificial troops who, by marching ahead of Muslims, reduced Muslim casualties at the cost of their own lives.
Dhimmis are a little better off than outright slaves, but not much.
What large numbers of Americans have yet to accept is that dhimmi status for all of us "infidels" is the goal of the worldwide Islamic movement. As a matter of core religious doctrine, every Muslim on Earth is committed to bringing this about. Muslims are required to pledge themselves to the extension of Islam, both religiously and politically, over the whole world, by any means expedient, including force and fraud.
Shortly after the Black Tuesday atrocities, President Bush used the word "crusade" in one of his statements on the War on Terror. Muslims everywhere went ballistic over it. They outrightly accused Dubya of planning the conquest and forcible Christianization of the Islamic world. The president swiftly apologized for the use of the forbidden word, and hastened to emphasize, not for the first time, that "Islam is a religion of peace."
Before your Curmudgeon proceeds further in his explication, allow him to be perfectly clear about his own desires for the Islamic world:
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. -- Ann Coulter
There. For now, let that stand as a marker, to which we'll return shortly.
One of the necessary evils of government is that it requires one to treat with other governments. Every government on Earth is morally flawed, America's included. Yet there are degrees of moral deficiency. If such things are compared objectively, the government of the United States has far less on its corporate conscience than any other regime that's ever existed. With a few exceptions that no one is eager to condone, when our federal government has extended its powers beyond our shores, it has done so to protect Americans and their interests. It has made war reluctantly; it has preferred, perhaps naively, to cultivate good will with gifts of money and expertise whenever it appeared possible.
To a worldwide politico-religious movement that explicitly aims at world conquest and totalitarian dominance, American diplomatic behavior must look like buffoonery practiced by self-deluded idiots. The satraps of Islamic states must have laughed up their sleeves at Richard Nixon, at Jimmy Carter, at Bush the Elder, and at Bill Clinton. So pantingly eager to please Muslim autarchs were they that even multiple lethal strokes against American lives and property could not budge them from their conciliatory assumptions and deferential practices.
They're not laughing today. For all that President Bush continues to publicly soft-pedal the role of Islam as the fountainhead of international violence, there's no question that he understands the realities well. Yesterday's inauguration speech, replete with references to a worldwide campaign for freedom against all forms of tyranny, is all the evidence your Curmudgeon requires.
Further, the campaign for freedom is a Christian campaign, founded on Christian ethical precepts and conducted according to Christian moral strictures. Indeed, with or without Dubya at its helm, it could not be any other way.
Islamic doctrine is a code of enslavement. It prescribes total submission to the Will of Allah as set down by Muhammad, and a totalitarian code of conduct by which each man is expected to live his entire life, on pain of punishment in this world. Islam's rules cover everything from appropriate dress to how one is to sit on the toilet. Islam's shari'a law code prescribes punishments of unbelievable brutality for breaking the least of those rules, as was exemplified recently in Iran, where a preadolescent boy was whipped to death for breaking his Ramadan fast.
Christian doctrine is somewhat more compact:
- "What is hateful to you, do not do unto another. The rest is commentary; go and study it." -- Hillel.
- "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole soul, and your whole strength, and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself." -- Jesus Christ.
The Christian prescription is for individual growth, to become worthy of inclusion in the Body of Christ. Its concept of love is coextensive with such growth. The Christian grows by learning to embrace that which is good for his fellows as equal in importance to that which is good for him. Christian growth -- personal self-enlargement -- thus demands that the individual become more than he is not by predation, but by the willed extension of his priorities to embrace the well-being of his "neighbors": at first his family and those in his immediate proximity, but ultimately, if possible, the whole world.
He who seeks to enslave his "neighbor" risks more than he knows. Islam's campaign to extend its life-devouring creed willy-nilly across the whole world, reducing those of us who will not bend to its yoke to dhimmi subjugation, imperils its campaigners just as much as its targets.
To free one's "neighbor" is the deed of a Christian. "If you love someone, set him free." Free to confront reality on his own terms, to absorb the moral order of the universe without coercion, and to grow into someone who will someday free others in his turn.
Can America free the whole world? Perhaps not all at once, and certainly not by force. Force is useful for combatting excrescences of force: for bringing down specific tyrannies, for visiting justice upon those who have struck the innocent, and for undoing a "clear and present danger" before it can reap a deadly harvest. In other venues, example is a more potent and incisive tool. We have plenty of that, too.
Where we're vulnerable is in the confidence we must have in our convictions. We're given to self-questioning and self-doubt. In the main, this is healthful, a sign that we take little for granted and understand the dangers of hubris. But pressed to an extreme, it can undermine the precepts we require to remain as free and decent as we are. Certain propositions have been established beyond dispute: the rightness of individual freedom, the wrongness of slavery, and the fatuity of watching passively as wolves devour our neighbors in the hope that they won't turn upon us thereafter. These things are not open to question. As long as we remain within Hillel's ethical stricture as we promote them, we need not be embarrassed. Certainly we need not hesitate because those who condemn our ideals are unhappy about it.
Many in the Old Media have speculated in worried tones about whether the Bush Administration will soon launch another military expedition against Iran, or Syria, or some other Islamic hellhole. Let them natter. The Islamic world should be kept completely uncertain of what will come next. Our strokes to date have freed 50 million people from bondage. Fear of what we might do has cowed a dangerous dictator into surrendering his illegal weapons, and has persuaded the potentates of several other regimes to moderate their behavior and policies in various ways. If uncertainty and fear are capable of thus "Christianizing" the most ruthless and dangerous men on Earth, then play on! Give us excess of them.
Call it international behavior modification. We can't work directly on the totalitarians' convictions. For practical reasons and reasons of ethical constraint, we can't always break them by force. But tugging on their short hairs sufficiently to make them behave acceptably could be enough. It's already taught the Iranian resistance that dramatic change is possible, perhaps even in their country. They know the vast differences between their state and ours, and they yearn to enjoy what we've got. Their clamor has done naught but increase, these two years past.
In that sense, we have already invaded Iran. The ideas of individual freedom, of tolerant acceptance of human diversity, and of the potentials of peaceful intercourse with other nations are alive and afoot among the Iranian people. They are aware that Americans love their neighbors enough to bleed and die for them, that their masters cannot go any further in their aggressions and depredations without being hauled up short by American arms. The mullahs, faced with mounting pressure both from within and without, will eventually fall, whether to their own subjects or to us despised Christians.
As with Iran, so also with Syria, and Yemen, and Indonesia, and Malaysia, and so on, in the fullness of time.
A crusader need not always brandish the sword. Sometimes the Cross is sufficient.
Comments
Before your Curmudgeon proceeds further in his explication, allow him to be perfectly clear about his own desires for the Islamic world:
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.—Ann Coulter
All right, Francis—I, too, would vastly prefer that to exterminating every inhabitant of the 12-15 countries we’re at undeclared war with. That is, with my rational mind. My soul, well, it’s not a very evolved place.
Posted by on 01/21/2005 at 11:02 AMFrancis, magnificent work as usual. This is a “print and read more thoroughly” post, off to get coffee…
Posted by Head on 01/21/2005 at 12:34 PMYou are aware that Hillel was a Jew, yes?
Posted by on 01/21/2005 at 01:10 PMI second the Hillel comment—wasn’t aware he was a defining source of Christian doctrine. Read here for further info on the Hillel quote, including differences with Christian doctrine, and evidence the quote may have been “faked”, perhaps in imitation of Christ’s teachings.
Posted by Tim (Random Observations) on 01/21/2005 at 02:47 PMWhy, yes, John, I am aware of that. Were you aware that the young Jesus of Nazareth spent a term at the rabbinical school Hillel founded? That Judaic ethical thought is subsumed as a whole into Christianity? That Christ Himself said as much: “I come not to overthrow the Law, but to fulfill it”—?
As a general rule, I spare myself the burden of opinions on things about which I’m poorly informed. It’s a policy I recommend widely.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 01/21/2005 at 04:28 PMWhy no, I wasn’t aware that Jesus (who you miscall “Christ”, but that’s another rant) attended Hillel’s yeshiva. Neither is anyone else.
As for the subsuming of the ethics of Judaism into Christianity, how do you square your Jesus’ “Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’; but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39) with the Talmud’s “If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.” (Berakhot 58a) ?
Posted by on 01/21/2005 at 08:55 PMIt’s perfectly simple, John. Christ—don’t bother to try to “correct” me on this again, as you’ll find that I’ve banned you from commenting for your attitude—was not speaking normatively to all persons in all circumstances and times, but rather giving a specific instruction to those who followed Him at that time. It was essential that the followers of Christ be known and accepted as absolutely peaceable, because of the many attempts made during His ministry to characterize Him as a would-be political revolutionary.
Normally I enjoy exchanges on religious matters. I have much respect for the Judaic faith, just as my Jewish wife has for my Catholic one. (In fact, she works for various Catholic clerical orders as an accountant and financial planner.) But I will not abide an attitude such as yours. If you want to slather contempt on me, on Christ or on Christianity, you can do it at your own blog.
What’s that? You don’t have a blog? Hm. Somehow I can’t see that as my problem.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 01/21/2005 at 09:23 PMActually, he did have one at one time - the redoubtable Rat’s Nest - and at the moment, he’s blogging behind Mike Hendrix at coldfury.com.
Posted by CGHill on 01/22/2005 at 09:39 PMWell, bully for him, Charles. Until he acquires better sense than to denigrate my knowledge, my intelligence, or my religion when visiting my site, he won’t be welcome here.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 01/22/2005 at 10:10 PMYa know, it sounded like it might be an interesting religious discussion starting up when I read Johns first sentence (in comment #6). Then with his three word follow on sentence, he went an threw what little chance he had of civil discourse right out the window. And apparently, was seen exiting the same way not too long after that. Ahhh well, hope there was not too big a mess left on your (virtual) carpet. (And as an aside, hope a group of entrepreneurial youngsters show up to rid your walks and drive of the white stuff, before you are directed to take care of said matter yourself. Be careful out there my friend.)
Posted by GuyS on 01/23/2005 at 03:05 PMSome of the apparently wimpier parts of the New Testament make more sense in the context of the times. Jewish histories say that Jewish society of 2000 years ago was marked by the sin of causeless hatred. ("Life of Brian” was a documentary.) Statements such as “Judge not, lest ye be judged” become clearer if you think of the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea suing each other.
Posted by Joseph Hertzlinger on 01/25/2005 at 01:07 AM
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