Henri Rousseau, Tour Eiffel, 1898, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, via
Editor’s note: As much as we’d like to use this space to dilate on the fripperies of the art world (as we did last week), it seems inappropriate to discuss anything other than the disgusting acts of violence perpetrated last week in Paris. And so in this edition of Friday links we’ll present various viewpoints on what transpired and what’s to be done.
Recent links of note:
How many more people have to die before we stop appeasing Islamists? Why aren’t we standing up to the enemy within?
Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph
Writing the Monday following the Paris attacks, Charles Moore elucidates clearly the failings of the West in its response to Islamism, which he defines as “a highly political version of Islam which cleverly mixes the modern blogosphere world of grievance and conspiracy theory with the sanctity of ancient texts ill-understood but passionately invoked.” The rise of Islamism is no secret to the enlightened minds of the West and yet nothing has been done to stop the ever more-realized threat. Moore writes, “no civilization can survive without the means of defending itself.” As the West refuses to do so, we can only expect more of the same.
A Pearl Harbor à la Française
Pascal Bruckner, City Journal
In City Journal, Pascal Bruckner, the French public intellectual writes warily of the “blue-eyed emirs,” those who have naturalized into European countries and managed to maintain their radical, exceedingly dangerous beliefs. At heart, they cannot “tolerate the West,” for that would be to “come to terms with . . . reason, free thought, and individualism.” So “what, then is to be done?,” Bruckner asks. His stirring words point to a way forward. “We change nothing of our habits . . . We neutralize the militants . . . unceremoniously expel questionable imams and preachers of hatred, and close Salafist mosques. . . . We must spread terror in the fiefdom of terrorists.” Quite right.
The Vicar of Baghdad: ‘I’ve looked through the Quran trying to find forgiveness . . . there isn’t any.’
Mary Wakefield, The Spectator
The Spectator presents a conversation with Matthew White, known as the Vicar of Baghdad, a man who once presided over a congregation of 6,000 and now cannot return to Baghdad over safety fears. ISIS has decimated his flock, killing over a thousand of them. The rest have fled. One would think a man of the church would fall in line with the current liberal consensus; namely that the phenomenon of ISIS is bolstered by misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Quran. Not White. “The trouble is lack of forgiveness in Islam. . . . This makes it very difficult to talk to ISIS because they can show you quite clearly that it is what Allah wants.” To combat Islamism we must understand it; men like White should be listened to, not marginalized and maligned because their views don’t agree with soft liberal orthodoxy. We ignore him at our own risk.
The Islamist Tantrum
Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal
Writing in Monday’s WSJ, Bret Stephens connects the outburst of violent Islamism in Paris with the collegiate disturbances making headlines on our shores. Though differing in magnitude, all bear the mark of the “sanctified tantrum—the political and religious furies we dare not name or shame, much less confront.” It is not that we do not recognize the threat of radical Islamism; just that we indulge it. The Paris attacks, and those to come, are the result of “Europe [deciding] to make a fetish of its tolerance for intolerance and allow the religious distempers of its Islamists communities to fester over many years.”
From our pages:
Free speech on campus
Has the First Amendment completely disappeared from college campuses?