Low Trust in Tribal Societies: Low IQ Makes it Even Worse

Society in general and the economic system in particular require trust built on ethical foundations and social norms as the basis for successful cooperation. Economic activity in modern society has become increasingly complex and lacking in transparency as a result of the rapid development of new technologies and new products and services and the globalization of supply.

....the more complex a phenomenon is, the more complex the regulatory system has to be that is supposed to solve it. Usually, any rules, laws and contracts leave scope for circumventing or undermining them and excluding such imperfections may be burdensome.

Trust therefore offers a shortcut solution, especially if it grows out of common ethical foundations and social norms such as professionalism (where people take pride in the quality of their work) and reputation. Ethical foundations and social norms may help society to protect individuals from serious damage.... _Ethics and Trust in Society

Trust is crucial for the smooth functioning of a society's financial transactions, economic markets, and social infrastructures.

Tribal societies -- or subcultures within a multicultural society -- tend to be inward-looking, exhibiting less trust to those outside the inner circle. When tribal societies are multiplied -- in a multi-cultural society -- the regulatory and legal infrastructure necessary to deal with a "low trust environment" can become so unwieldy as to exact inordinately high costs.

...the people in societies that are generally distrustful are less likely to enter into risky social interactions and more likely to interact in relatively closed circles, even at the risk of giving up new opportunities. Development of generalized trust under these circumstances, he goes on to argue, is not easy: not only does distrust breed distrust, but individuals in these societies must make conscious efforts to develop the social intelligence required for detecting risks and taking risks when appropriate. _Trust in Society Chap. 1 (PDF)

Such low trust tribal societies can make it almost impossible to carry out the most standard and straightforward business transactions -- unless either bribes or the threat of force are utilised. Poverty is generally rampant in such societies to begin with, and the lack of trust (or trustworthiness) only compounds the problem.

Tribalism tends to foster economic exchange within groups, because people trust other members of their tribe. The “social pressures” within a tribe are strong. In economic history, there are a number of well-known examples of minority groups that were important commercially. They were able to sustain trust in the process of trading among themselves because of strong within-group enforcement of ethical norms. The challenge is to go beyond within-group trade to broader commercial activity.

Schneier points out that Quakers played a role in the development of capitalism in the West because they developed a reputation for fair dealing. I would argue that one unusual feature of Quakerism is the importance of the belief that “there is that of God in everyone.” This means that Quakers would expect one another to obey their strongest moral codes even when dealing with non-Quakers. An extended capitalist order requires that individuals treat outsiders as moral equals in the context of economic transactions.

However, for the most part, the scaling up of cooperation beyond small groups requires legal incentives and institutions. In a large, complex society, in the absence of laws and enforcement mechanisms, individuals or groups would be too prone to defect.

...We no longer live in tribes. Instead, we are embedded in complex, large-scale social institutions. However, our basic tribal instincts have remained. _The Tribal Mind Arnold Kling

In multi-cultural societies, the "tribe" is embedded in complex social institutions as well. If governments show favouritism to one tribe or another, relations between cultures or tribes within a larger society can grow contentious.

In situations where the average IQ within tribes is seen to vary -- where professional and occupational aptitudes are not equal between population groups -- entirely new areas of contention are introduced. This is particularly true when societal institutions such as government, media, and academia refuse to accept the well documented innate differences which can exist between population groups, or tribes.

When low intelligence and high levels of violence coexist within particular population groups, cultures, or tribes, problems of trust can grow particularly acute -- especially when social institutions consistently fail to take these differences into account in making and administering laws, and in describing the reasons for societal breakdowns and disagreements.

The problems of low trust in multicultural societies -- and the tendency toward a rapidly growing, unwieldy regulatory and institutional environment to compensate for the low trust -- can put such societies at a distinct disadvantage against competing societies, all other things being equal.

For those who feel compelled to create "shadow economies," "shadow governments," and other backup institutions and cooperatives meant to compensate for the failures of a dysfunctional larger society, such things must be kept in mind in the planning and early implementation phases.

When it is impossible to avoid fractious multiculturalism altogether, lower overhead solutions to the inevitable problems inherent in multiculturalism must be devised. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

The Netherlands Finally Grows Aware of Multiculturalism Threat

Ms. Kuhlman has lived in the Slotervaart neighborhood for 36 years but says, “I no longer feel at home.” Built in the 1950s, Slotervaart is now about 60 percent immigrants or their children, most from Morocco or Turkey. Crime rates are high, especially among the second generation....Then she laughed bitterly. “He doesn’t work; I work. I work all shifts. I pay taxes. I work for them!”

Willem Stuyter, nursing a beer, broke in. “It’s already too late,” he said. “In 10 years this will be a Muslim state.” _NYT

The recent multicultural festivities in London may be added to the long list of reasons why the Dutch are feeling increasingly wary about creeping multiculturalism. And where the Dutch lead, much of Europe is likely to follow.

You know that the Dutch are getting serious about the coming war against the third world invaders, when their scientists are developing bullet-proof skin. Imagine the advantage in a firefight for any ethnicity possessing bullet-proof skin! Revolutionary.

Europe certainly needs something to knock it out of its twin funk of debt and demography. If core European populations would begin replacing themselves via higher birthrates, half their escalating economic problems would be solved. Many other problems could be solved by putting an end to the importation of future criminals and lifelong welfare recipients. You would think that this would be common sense, but in an era of political correctness, common sense has been largely stamped out.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

London Police More Laid Back Toward Multiculties than Vigilantes Are

A man in his fifties was badly beaten up after apparently remonstrating with rioters who had set fire to a bin; he is now fighting for his life. Police are unable to identify him because they suspect his attackers stole his wallet and any other items which might have provided information about him.

There were reports of hooded youths barging into restaurants and making off with diners’ wallets and credit cards. We were told about gangs roaming the streets carrying rolls of toilet paper, which they doused in petrol and set alight under cars. As far as the rioters were concerned it was a party; for the victims it was a nightmare. _EturboNews

Image Source
London multiculturalists decided to take a relative break from their festivities Wednesday night, generally satisfied with the quality of celebration. London police have taken a "live and let live" attitude toward the multicultural activities of the week, but the ugly face of vigilantism may be peeking round the corner.

After four nights of violence, many are saying enough is enough and they will stop the looters themselves if the authorities cannot.

Police have warned that vigilantes are putting their own safety at risk and could make matters worse. The risks were highlighted by the death of three Muslim men run over by a car while protecting their area in the central English city of Birmingham on Tuesday. _NP

The police are clearly taking the high road here, and if the rest of Britain would only follow the lead of UK police forces, the multiculturalists will eventually wind down their celebrations in good time.

Some outsiders are trying to paint this multicultural holiday as some sort of "failure of multiculturalism," but it certainly seems that the multiculturalists are having it mostly all their own way. What are these critics on about?

The death of multicultural society and the economic crisis are to blame for the riots that have convulsed London and other British cities this week, head of the Russian upper house's international affairs committee Mikhail Margelov said on Wednesday.

"I think the events occurring in the English cities have at least two reasons. One is fundamental: it's the death of multiculturalism, a eulogy which the heads of Germany, France and Great Britain have recently delivered. The value of tolerance, or in other words the value of difference, has been accepted neither by 'indigenous' Europeans nor by immigrants," Margelov said. "The two sides merely tolerate each other. And patience is the kind of thing that runs out from time to time." _rianru

Crazy Ivan clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. There is very little standing in the way of similar multicultural celebrations due to take place across European cities generally. Multiculturalism is far from dead, despite what those crazy Russkies may say.

Australians are similarly critical:

AT the risk of being politically incorrect, is it possible that the current rioting in England is a result of embracing a multicultural society at a rate faster than the Anglo-Saxon community can cope with? If this is the case, are there lessons here for Australia? _TheAustralian

No, John, there are no lessons for you there in Australia. Just relax and enjoy. Multiculturalism is already there and growing larger and more festive every night while you are sleeping. Resisting only makes you look like an old fogie who is unable to change with the times.

PM Cameron has pulled thousands of extra UK Police to London from other areas, to observe the multicultural festivities from a distance. These extra police have convinced many multicultural celebrants to relax and perhaps take a night off. Others may decide to take their celebrations to other UK cities, outside of London.

Some observers are comparing the mass celebrations in London with the mass killings that took place recently in Norway. If Anders Breivik was celebrating his own brand of multiculturalism, that would put the Norwegian police in the role of the vigilantes -- who took the law into their own hands to stop Breivik's celebration. That just doesn't make sense. And only a handful of people have died in the UK celebrations so far, as opposed to several dozens in Norway.

No one knows what is in store for the happy multiculturalists of the UK in the coming days and weeks. But we can be fairly sure that these celebrations will continue to pop up in cities wherever multiculturalists take their light-hearted approach to living seriously. Perhaps next week, in your home town?

Fun-loving UK multiculturalists of the muslim persuasion are hoping to revive the festivities, and spice them up with something "really special." To each multi-culti, his own reason to party hardy.

London Braces for Fourth Night of Horrors, Violence Spreads to Other Cities

Rioting in England’s biggest cities spread further on Tuesday night, with the first trouble in Greater Manchester.

Stone-throwing youths confronted police at the Salford shopping precinct near the city centre and looted shops including Bargain Booze and a pawnbrokers.

Police in Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham and Nottingham were braced for a second night of violence after shops were attacked and cars burnt. _FT

Rioting and mayhem is spreading across the multicultural parts of the UK, as a preview of coming attractions for much of the rest of the multicultural western world. Poorly considered immigration policies are beginning to bear a bitter fruit.

...city centres were also targeted with looting of shops including an Armani store in the Mailbox centre in Birmingham and a Tesco supermarket in Liverpool.

Shops shut early in Birmingham, Liverpool and Salford as police struggled to contain sporadic bursts of violence co-ordinated by mobile phones and Twitter.

After reports that some rioters were as young as nine, police called on parents to keep their children at home. Chief Constable Chris Sims of West Midlands police said some were “astonishingly young”.

...Shops in Birmingham and Bristol shut early on Tuesday for fear of further violence. West Bromwich, a town to the west of the city, saw a crowd of several hundred gather in the afternoon before police could disperse them.

In Toxteth, Liverpool, many youth and community centres closed and shops shut early. Andy Ward, assistant chief commissioner of Merseyside police, blamed a criminal minority for the violence. He said it would use CCTV images to track down offenders and asked for the public to send in any images taken of offenders.
_FT

Multicultural areas of western cities have always been the weak link of western civil society -- ever since these nations began importing uneducable, unassimilable third world migrants. When the human substrate of a culture cannot maintain the high levels of performance necessary for a high technology civilisation, the society begins to break down.

The ongoing UK rioting demonstrates how enthusiastically the multicultural residents of western cities will participate in the destruction of their host societies' infrastructure.

Be forewarned and forearmed. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Welfare States Must Choose Between Hard Landing and Crash Landing

The welfare states of Europe, North America, and Oceania, are growing old and unable to finance generous benefits to citizens. Hence the mounting crises of debt and demography which threaten to overwhelm these formerly prosperous and stable democracies.

America's multicultural crisis

Convulsions as the Welfare State Dies

How does a civilised society control its roving bands of young thugs?

It is becoming dangerous to go anywhere in multicultural cities -- either by day or by night. Roving bands of flash mobs may select you to make an example of, leaving you beaten, punched out, or worse.

Try not to go anywhere alone -- particularly in the city. But even in a quiet neighborhood you may be chosen to be a victim, for reasons which are not politically correct, and thus cannot be mentioned. Team up whenever possible, to watch each other's backs. Be careful out there.

Multiculturalism Meme: Lethal for the West?

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.___RichardDawkins

A lethal meme, analogous to a lethal gene, is a meme that leads to a certain level of lethality for the society or culture that is parasitised by the lethal meme. Meme-complexes are even more sophisticated than simple memes, and lethal meme-complexes produce more wide-ranging lethal effects to entire cultures and civilisations. Multiculturalism is one such meme-complex.

The idea that all cultures are equal in merit and deserving respect, an idea devoid of any historical perspective, could be seriously proposed and adopted only in western liberal democracies. And logically such an idea meant only one thing, the diminution of the West and its achievements in comparison to other cultures.

Multiculturalism institutionalized as a policy, run by self-perpetuating bureaucracies and sustained by entrepreneurs of a growing multicultural industry, became an easy ride for its proponents and clients.

Immigrants were not required to embrace the West's culture and complex history; and the West did not have to strain itself in instructing immigrants on the need or importance of embracing it, warts and all.

Multiculturalism worked so long as the illusion of cultural harmony could be maintained.

But once the sham of equality got exposed by the heat of Islamist violence -- once it became undeniable that a culture in which a woman, for instance, can assert her individual freedom without fear is not at par with a culture where a woman's worth is less than that of a man -- multiculturalism as an idea was dead.

Historians will note a period of confusion followed the death of multiculturalism before the West asserted its ideals of freedom and democracy, and moved on. ___TorontoSun

The West is confronted by more enemies than multiculturalism within, and Islamism without. The West is also confronted with China, Russia, and an unholy alliance of corrupt thugocracies that span the globe.

One thing is certain. As long as the killing meme-complex of multiculturalism is taught as dogma in the universities and lower schools of the West, the death of the West will continue to hang in the balance.

Men and women who love the hard-fought ideals of the West such as

• freedom of economy, thought, assembly, and religion
• limited, representative government
• individual rights of self-determination and self-defense
• separation of ideology and state
• the freedom to conceive and work toward a marvelous future
• and many more ideals of widespread non-violence, self-determination and well-being

will need to make themselves heard, leaving no doubt as to their intention and ability to defeat all enemies of these ideals. The West cannot be weak and passive to these threats from within and without. Never surrender these ideals.

Meme-Gene Coevolution PDF and streaming
Dawkins on Memes
The Meme Meme

You are Strictly Forbidden to Say a Single Bad Word About Islam, On Pain of Death

It seems that author Mark Steyn is an alarmist for pointing out a few things that are happening in Europe. Apparently, in Europe, telling an uncomfortable truth makes one an alarmist.

My book's thesis — that most of the Western world is on course to become at least semi-Islamic in its political and cultural disposition within a very short time — is "alarmist."...The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you?

...Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives.

...What does it mean when 57 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins and 70 per cent are married to relatives? At the very least, it tells you that this community is strongly resistant to traditional immigrant assimilation patterns.

...Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset.___Macleans

What about honour killings, stoning adulterers, killing of apostates, genital mutilation, and the general, run-of-the-mill religious bigotry, hatred, and failure to assimilate?

Without pressure to conform to the norms of a larger society, immigrant muslims will form their own internal power structures--a state within a state. It is inevitable, given the totalitarian nature of Islamic life. Religion, family, government--all wrapped into one set of rules, Sharia. If the secular western government is too reticent to insist upon compliance with civil and criminal law, Muslim law will fill the void.

Leftist multiculturalism claims to view all cultures to be at least as good as western culture. But the only way for multiculturalists to tolerate the misogyny, homophobic violence, and religious intolerance of Islam, is for them to pretend it does not exist. So they do--pretend. And pretend, and pretend, and pretend. But to what end?

Here is a simple multi-cultural math question. One million male muslim immigrants each marry four female first cousins, from the old country. Each wife has four children, and collects her own welfare check for her household. If the fertility rate for indigenous English girls is close to 1 child per woman, how long before everyone in England is muslim, and living on welfare checks?

Research shows that when third world people move to the first world, the fertility rate of at least the first generation of immigrants goes up. In the case of muslims in Europe, every generation is the first generation, since muslim males send back to the old country for girl cousins to marry.

Islam and Democracy

The question is: can Islam be compatible with democracy? The excellent essayist Fjordman, provides another installment in this series at the indispensable Gates of Vienna blog.

Occasionally I get annoyed over the fact that I am compelled to spend significant amounts of my time refuting Islam, an ideology that is flawed to the core and should be totally irrelevant in the 21st century. But then I try to see it from a positive angle: The good part about our confrontation with Islam is that it forces us to deal with flaws in our own civilization. It has already exposed a massive failure in our education system and our media, both filled with anti-Western sentiments and ideological nonsense. These legacies from the Western Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s have left us unable to recognize the Islamic threat for what it is. Thus, when we are confronted now with the question of whether or not Islam is compatible with democracy, we also have to ask under what conditions a democratic system is able to function.

....Although the potential for abuse of power and tyranny is indeed there in the democratic model, this potential exists in other forms of government, too. What Plato failed to see was that it could be possible to institute constraints on democracy that would limit some of its potential downsides, although not eliminate them completely. The American Founding Fathers, too, were skeptical of “democracy” in the meaning of unconstrained direct democracy, which they, like Plato, perceived could quickly disintegrate into mob rule. They outlined a constitutional Republic with indirect, representative democracy defined by a constitution. Citizens would be governed by the rule of law, thus protecting the minority from abuse and the potential tyranny of the majority. John Adams defined this as “a government of laws, and not of men.”

The Constitution of the United States was inspired by the French Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu, famous for his theory of the separation of powers into branches: The executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, with checks and balances among them. The USA has strong separation of powers, whereas many European countries typically have parliamentary democracies with weaker separation, since the executive branch, the government, is dependent on the legislature. Democracy strengthened by such constraints and individual rights has worked reasonably well, but like all other human inventions it isn’t perfect.

....It is obviously easier to establish democracy in a small and transparent nation state than in a larger one. However, Sweden - the Western country where people pay the highest tax rates - is also arguably the most politically repressed nation and has the least real freedom of speech. Sweden’s problem is not its geographical size, but the bloated state apparatus. Perhaps limitations on bureaucracy, government influence and intrusion are crucial for a functioning democracy, too. In a traditional pre-modern state, the ruler might not always have ruled with your consent, but he largely left you alone as long as you paid your taxes. Not so in our modern democratic nations. Our schools are increasingly filled with courses disparaging our own indigenous cultural heritage while they praise Islamic “tolerance.” We are barred from bringing up our own children and instilling in them our values. Is this liberty?

....There is a crucial reason why the European Union isn’t democratic: There is no European demos. Most people in Europe identify themselves as Italian, Spanish, Dutch or Polish. The notion of being a European is at best a very distant second. In contrast, United States citizens consider themselves Americans, although Multiculturalism encourages dual identities, in which individuals are African-American, Asian-American etc. This tribalization represents a critical long-term challenge to the continued quality of American democracy. It is conceivable that the backlash could cause the country to fall apart if the white majority, too, decides to view itself as a tribal group of European-Americans.

....For this democratic process to work there has to be a loyalty and identity that precedes political allegiance. We must have a community that has primary common interests. This has no real counterpart in Islamic countries, where the ideal is the global Ummah and the Caliphate. Concepts such as the nation state or territorial integrity have no equivalent in Islamic jurisprudence, which helps explain why democracy is so hard to establish in Muslim countries.

....Two central concepts in sharia are the notions of “blasphemy” and “apostasy,” both incurring the death penalty. These laws are incompatible with the ancient Western ideas of freedom of conscience and of speech. Thus, sharia is anathema to the goals of democracy. Sharia is also hostile to equality before the law, since Islamic law is based on the fundamental inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, men and women, free men and slaves. Moreover, it does not provide any protection for minorities, since non-Muslims are supposed to be unarmed and their lives and property subject to the whims of Muslims at any given moment. Although Islam does contain the vague Koranic notion of shura, consultation, this has never been formalized or concretized, which means that there are no formal constraints on the power of the ruler under sharia. The only thing an Islamic ruler may not do is openly to reject Islam.

....One great obstacle to establishing democracy in this cultural sense in Muslim countries is that Muslims have been taught from birth that non-Muslims can’t be expected to enjoy the same kind of rights as Muslims do.

....In Pakistan’s Sindh province there is an alarming trend: Muslims kidnap Pakistani Hindu girls and force them to convert to Islam. The worried resident Hindu community has resorted to marrying off their daughters as soon as they are of age. Alternatively, they migrate to India, Canada or other nations. Recently, at least 19 such abductions have occurred in Karachi alone.

....Underlying this Muslim supremacist mentality, there is also the idea of Arab supremacy. Again according to Qutb, “What are the Arabs without Islam? What is the ideology that they gave, or they can give to humanity if they abandon Islam? The only ideology the Arabs advanced for mankind was the Islamic faith which raised them to the position of human leadership. If they forsake it they will no longer have any function or role to play in human history.”

....Politiken, a left-leaning, intellectual newspaper championing multiculturalism in Denmark, argued that the principle of blood money might be worth considering. Luckily, they were met by an outcry from angry citizens. There are at least two major problems with this Islamic “justice.” The first is that it is settled between families, tribes or clans, not in a justice system administered by the authorities where it is a matter concerning the individuals involved, not the entire clan. We had similar tribal vendettas in the West at one time, but we left this practice behind a long time ago, as Muslims should have done. The biggest problem will come if this tribal system were to undermine the Western justice system to the extent that Westerners, too, would revert to tribal law in order to protect themselves.

Many commentators in Denmark failed to understand the worst part of the blood money concept. Not only is it pre-modern and anti-individualistic, but the compensation to be paid is fundamentally inegalitarian. Muslim men are the only full members of the Islamic community. All others have fewer rights due to their religion, their sex or their slave status.

....The largest student group on campus, the Muslim Students’ Association, has monopolized use of the multifaith room. Eric Da Silva, president of the Catholic Student Association, said the group looked into using the room for mass but was told by RSU front desk staff that the room was “permanently booked” by Muslim students. “No one is trying to take away the space from the Muslims, we just don’t want to be stepping on their toes,” said Da Silva. He stressed that the group found another space to hold mass and the conflict was quickly resolved. The space, which was divided to separate males from females, had rows taped on the floor for prayer and Islamic decorations adorning the walls, was only accommodating to Muslims. A Canadian Federation of Students task force tackling cultural and religious discrimination was brought to campus by members of the MSA, but it only addressed the problem of Islamophobia.

....The reason why many former Muslims such as Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq write under pseudonyms is that in a religion that is so hostile to both individuality and freedom of speech, there is no worse crime for a Muslim than to exercise both by criticizing and leaving Islam. Apostasy bears the penalty of death. In the book Leaving Islam - Apostates Speak Out, a unique anthology by former Muslims, Ibn Warraq writes that (p. 31):

“However, apostasy is a matter of treason and ideological treachery, which originates from hostility and hypocrisy. The destiny of a person who has an inborn handicap is different from the destiny of one whose hand should be cut off due to the development of a dangerous and infectious disease. The apostasy of a Muslim individual whose parents have also been Muslim is a very infectious, dangerous and incurable disease that appears in the body of an ummah (people) and threatens people’s lives, and that is why this rotten limb should be severed.”

The death penalty for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in Islamic texts - certainly in the hadith, but arguably also in the Koran.

....Islam’s hostility towards freedom of speech does not apply only to Muslims, but to anybody saying anything remotely critical of Islam, including non-Muslims. Muslims are already busy trying to shut down freedom of speech in Western nations through legal harassment and, increasingly, physical intimidation.

The body of Theo Van GoghMohammed Bouyeri, born in Amsterdam of Moroccan Berber parents, murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had recently made a film critical of Islam together with the Dutch-Somali former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the morning of Nov. 2, 2004. As Mr. van Gogh cycled to work in Amsterdam, the bearded young man in a long Middle-Eastern-style shirt fired at him with a handgun, chased him, shot him once more, slit his throat from ear to ear and plunged two knives, one with a five-page letter attached, into the body. “I did what I did purely out my beliefs,” Bouyeri told judges while clutching a Koran, because he believed van Gogh insulted Islam.

....According to Adonis, the underlying structure of Arab societies is a structure of slavery, not of liberty: “Some human beings are afraid of freedom. When you are free, you have to face reality, the world in its entirety. You have to deal with the world’s problems, with everything. On the other hand, if we are slaves, we can be content and not have to deal with anything. Just as Allah solves all our problems, the dictator will solve all our problems.”

....Freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental of all freedoms; it is necessary for a functioning democratic society. The Islamic world will never know true liberty until Muslim individuals may openly criticize their religion and even leave it without having to fear for their lives. This freedom must be established not just in Switzerland or the United States, but in Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. That vision of liberty so far remains a mirage in the distance.

....Perhaps the greatest idea of the Leftist factions after the Cold War was to re-invent themselves as Multicultural parties and begin to import voters from abroad. There is nothing new about buying “clients” by promising them access to other people’s money. However, this defect becomes more dangerous when combined with massive immigration. In Europe, Muslim immigration may turn democracy into a self-defeating system that will eventually break down because native Europeans no longer believe that it serves their interests.

....Certain observers mistakenly claim that “once Muslims become a majority, we will get sharia through elections.” On the contrary, sharia will arrive much sooner. Observe that relatively small percentages of Muslims can squeeze concessions out of democracies. Sharia has already been partially implemented in India, Thailand, the Philippines, and Britain. Islam’s inherent aggressiveness elicits appeasement from non-Muslims in order to avoid bringing down the democratic system through civil war.

....“The jihadists are not interested in winning in our sense of the word. They can succeed simply by making the present world order unworkable, by creating conditions in which politics-as-usual is no longer an option, forcing upon the West the option either of giving in to their demands or descending into anarchy and chaos. It is tempting to call this approach the crash of civilization.”

.... it is now a criminal act in several Western nations to tell the truth about the dangers posed by Muslim immigration. Hate speech laws amount to “sharia lite”: they are used to silence infidels such as Harding for criticizing Islam, which again corresponds to the workings of sharia. The sharia lite of political correctness is thus paving the way for the gradual implementation of full sharia in the West.

....Islam has always valued individual life inequitably. But now there is a creeping tendency within the West toward the same view. In the case of assault or murder, an additional sentence is added if the act is viewed as a “hate crime.”

Murder is murder, and all human life is to be valued equally. However, according to Multiculturalism we are required to treat all cultures and religions as equally valid, which they obviously are not. This perversion of reality indicates that the Western system of justice is regressing. As it does so, justice becomes vulnerable to exploitation and infiltration by Islamic law.

Source

I have excerpted perhaps 5% of Fjordman's excellent essay, available in its entirety at the link above.

Suffice it to say that Islam is a total system of living, including civil and religious laws and observances, and prohibitions that penetrate into every area of life. In other words, Islam is not compatible with any other way of life--secular nor religious. Islam is a world unto itself. It recognizes no equals, and enforces inequality in its judgments.

Whither America and the West?

Here are two fascinating but contradictory viewpoints of where America is going compared to the rest of the world. This one from the Futurist paints an optimistic picture for America, and a less optimistic picture for others. This one from Audacious Epigone paints a much darker prediction for the US, but a brighter picture for some surprising countries.

Curiously, both are correct, as far as they go. The complete picture is far more complex than any number of short blog analyses could portray.

The US is walking a tightrope of demographic decline, as are Europe and Russia. China is walking a tightrope of infrastructure rot, as are Russia and the oil states. India is walking tightropes of simmering religious war, impending war with Pakistan and China, antiquated and corrupt bureaucratic structures, and disintegrative multiculturalism. Latin America walks tightropes of cultural incompetence and acute social stratification. Africa continues to lose its human capital at a hopeless rate. Muslim countries are drowning in the barbarity and utter primitiveness of tribal and religious customs and demands.

The question might be: who can prop up their economy and society the longest? Neither C41 at AE, nor the Futurist, discussed the possibility of large scale warfare. In my opinion, there is at least a 50:50 chance of such a thing occurring in the next 20 years, involving China, Russia, the US, and large portions of Central and Southern Asia, and the middle east.

New Zealand would be a fine country, if the leftists would all stay in the North Island, leaving the South Island for rational, hardworking, future-oriented people. In reality, people looking toward the next level will need to establish invisible enclaves within the countries best able to enforce the rule of law for the longest period of time.

When the breakthroughs happen in molecular manufacturing, machine intelligence, genetic therapies, space launch and propulsion, etc. etc., the people who are ready to bypass the "clutter" of between level bureaucracies and cultures will be in the best position to establish the next level.

Darkness, Darkness, Hide the Light

The Anglosphere is the loose confederation of English-speaking nations. The traditions of the Anglosphere are perhaps the last barricade holding back the last stage of the clash of civilisations.

Roberts' focus is the core Anglosphere; i.e., the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. During the 20th Century, the Anglosphere faced four great challenges. Three have been successfully seen off, with the Anglosphere triumphant: Prussian Militarism in World War I, Fascism in World War II, and Communism in the Cold War. The fourth assault arrived on 9/11 when the true menace of Islamic terrorism was finally brought home to the cultural and financial center of the modern Anglosphere.

Indeed, just as Churchill's History was intended to rally the Anglosphere in the early days of the struggle against Communism, Roberts' intent self-evidently is to rally the Anglosphere against Islamofascism.

....If Roberts is right, whether the 21st Century extends the era of Anglosphere hegemony thus depends on whether the Anglosphere becomes a house divided against itself. The two great issues here are education and demographics. Most of the Anglosphere nations have seen a dramatic rise in Muslim immigration and population growth since the Second World War. This demographic reality has been coupled with the rise of multiculturalism as official state policy in much of the Anglosphere. Properly understood, the Anglosphere is not a collection of nations united by language and race, but rather a group of nations united by a common culture. Yet, in the name of multiculturalism, our political and educational systems have not pursued the goal of assimilation. To the contrary, throughout the Anglosphere, the notion that we should be inculcating the values of the Anglosphere among all our citizens of whatever race or religion has become anathema to the Politically Correct.

Source.

If political correctness allows the cultural threads of the Anglosphere to be torn apart, there is no hope for western civilisation and the western enlightenment. It will be lost history, a golden age looked back upon with an unutterably painful nostalgia. In its place will be bloody authoritarianism of whichever strain survives between the China-North Korea-Cuba-Venezuela-Bolivia axis, and the great Islamic Sharia Crusade. Shia and Sunni would need to temporarily put aside their differences in order to defeat the infidel authoritarians, but that could be done--as long as it was only temporary.

Eventually, after the blood of the infidels flows, the blood of the heretic--whether Shia or Sunni depends upon you point of view--must also flow to the glory of Allah.

Civil War in Europe, Londonistan, and Appeasing Barbarism

There is talk here and here, of civil war in Europe. This talk is at least partially inspired by this book review in Asia Times Online by Spengler. From Spengler's book review of Melanie Phillips Londonistan:

She [Phillips] warns that the West faces a religious war with Islam. I concur, and recommend Londonistan as indispensable background.

Britain, Phillips warns, is reaping what it has sown. A large minority of British Muslims are disaffected at best and seditious at worst. Phillips cites a 2004 Home Office survey finding that 26% of British Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 13% supported terrorism, and about 1% (up to 20,000 individuals) were "actively engaged" in terrorism or support for terrorism.

Another poll found that 32% of British Muslims agreed that "Western society is decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end". In the event of a violent collision between the West and Iran, for example, civil conflict might arise in Britain on a scale resembling that in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

Phillips accuses British security services with complicity in the gestation of a terrorist apparatus in London. Her documentation of overt terrorist activity centered in London is exhaustive, and raises the question of why the open scandal was tolerated. Saudi, Algerian and Egyptian requests for extradition of suspected terrorists were refused, and Arab diplomats vented their frustration over British recalcitrance in public.

A cynically narrow concept of national interest guided this policy, she argues, charging that MI6 (Military Intelligence Section 6, now officially known as the Secret Intelligence Service) believed "that if the Islamists were being left undisturbed to conduct their activities on the assumption that they would not then attack Britain".

But that can explain only part of the story, and Phillips searches for deeper causes of Britain's cowardice. "Denial" is a recurrent theme. She cites an unnamed "foreign intelligence source" as follows:

During the 1990s, many attempts were made to enlighten the British about what was happening. But they refused to see this problem as having a religious character. If this was a religious problem, it became a religious confrontation - and the specter of a religious war was too horrendous. A religious war is different from any other war because you are dealing with absolute beliefs and the room for compromise is very limited. Religious wars are very protracted and bloody, and often end up with a very high toll of lives.

That is not denial, though, but revulsion. The British establishment may have recoiled in horror from the prospect of religious war precisely because it has sufficient institutional memory to know just what such wars entail. Religious war, however, is precisely what it will have, on the worst possible terms, and with an extensive fifth column in place.

.... In any case, Western liberalism, including the sexual habits of English curates, does not appeal to Muslims. On the contrary, Phillips says:

British Muslims are overwhelmingly horrified and disgusted by the louche and dissolute behavior of a Britain that has torn up the notion of respectability. They observe the alcoholism, drug abuse and pornography, the breakdown of family life and the encouragement of promiscuity, and find themselves there in opposition to their host society's guiding values. What they are recoiling from, of course, is the breakdown of Western values. After a visit to the United States in 1948, Sayed Qutb wrote: "Humanity today is living in a large brothel!"

Revulsion and contempt color Muslim attitudes toward the British leftists who most desire to appease them. That is not a recipe for co-existence but for escalation, as last year's subway bombings should have made clear. But the issue now is not terrorism but rather outright war.

The British authorities may have turned a blind eye to terrorism directed against others, and may even have dragged their feet at confronting the terrorist threat at home that erupted in the July 7, 2005, subway bombings. Terrorism is dreadful but, like many nasty things, one can develop a tolerance for it. Now it is not merely terrorism that the West confronts but a strategic debacle of intolerable proportions in the form of Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.

In that sense Melanie Phillips' book comes too late, for it reports a set of circumstances shortly to be overthrown by events. She is writing about 1938, and we are entering 1939, when the West will have to respond to an external challenge in a way that it never could to an internal threat. Britain will have the religious war it sought to dodge.

Londonistan by Melanie Phillips. Encounter Books: New York 2006. ISBN: 1594031444. Price: US$25.95, 213 pages.

For more information by and about Melanie Phillips, read this interview, or this article by Ms. Phillips.

Here is a short excerpt from the excellent interview linked above:

FP: What is your perspective of the alliance of the Left and radical Islamism?

Phillips: It’s remarkable, to put it mildly, that the left – with its obsessions with issues like gay rights, equality for women and sexual licence – should have forged an alliance with radical Islamists who preach death to gays, the subjugation of women and the stoning of adulterers. It is an eye-opener to see, on the streets of London, so-called ‘progressives’ marching shoulder to shoulder with radical Islamists under the metaphorical banner of human rights and the literal banners of Hamas. Both the left and the radical Islamists have put aside their differences because they recognise the value of using each other in pursuit of their common objective, the destruction of western society.

In other, less topsy-turvy times, the rest of the country would have raised an eyebrow at such an alliance and at the noxious views it is spewing out, which in turn so closely reflect the views of neo-fascist groups and white supremacists: hatred of Israel, Judeophobic tropes about a global Jewish conspiracy that endangers the world, loathing of capitalism and America. But alas, such is the extent of Britain’s moral and cultural slide, and so poisonous has been the effect of the opposition to the war in Iraq, that far from being denounced such views are finding expression in mainstream society and public debate. Source.

She also comments in the interview about the link between political correctness, multiculturalism, and appeasement in the face of unspeakable barbarity.

Does Western Civilisation have a Multicultural Obligation to Commit Suicide?

The latest Fjordman Report is a hard hitting piece that looks at the political correctness and multiculturalism movements in the west, and traces their origins to the early part of the 20th century. Paragraph by paragraph, Fjordman exposes the ascendancy of this anti-western philosophy within key sectors of western societies, and the dangerous vulnerability it brings to the western world.

I have heard people who have grown up in former Communist countries say that we in the West are at least as brainwashed by Multiculturalism and Political Correctness as they ever were with Communism, perhaps more so. Even in the heyday of the East Bloc, there were active dissident groups in these countries. The scary thing is, I sometimes believe they are right.

....At the very least, the people living in the former Communist countries knew and admitted that they were taking part in a gigantic social experiment, and that the media and the authorities were serving them propaganda to shore up support for this project. Yet in the supposedly free West, we are taking part in a gigantic social experiment of Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration every bit as radical, utopian and potentially dangerous as Communism, seeking to transform our entire society from top to bottom, and still we refuse to even acknowledge that this is going on.

In Norway, a tiny Scandinavian nation that was until recently 99% white and Lutheran Christian, native Norwegians will soon be a minority in their own capital city, later in the whole country. And still, Norwegian politicians, journalists and University professors insist that there is nothing to worry about over this. Multiculturalism is nothing new, neither is immigration. In fact, our king a century ago was born in Denmark, so having a capital city dominated by Pakistanis, Kurds, Arabs and Somalis is just business as usual. The most massive transformation of the country in a thousand years, probably in recorded history, is thus treated as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To even hint that there might be something wrong about this has been immediately shouted down as “racism.”

....In Germany, Hans-Peter Raddatz in his book “Allahs Frauen” (Allah’s Women) dissects the destructive attitude of Multiculturalism that is shared by many civil servants, journalists, politicians and lawyers in Germany and the EU. In particular, he documents how the German Green Party has a program for dismantling and dissolving the Christian “Leitkultur,” or common culture, that so far has been the foundation of Germany and the West. Raddatz thinks that the decades of Muslim immigration are used as an instrument for breaking down the institutions, norms and ideas that the Left has earlier tried to break down through economics. From powerful positions in the media, public institutions and the system of education, these Multiculturalists are working on a larger project of renewing a Western civilization that, according to them, has failed.

....Much of the political Left is simply engaged in outing their opponents as evil, instead of rationally arguing against their ideas. Attaching labels such as “racist” or even “Fascist” to anyone criticizing massive immigration or Multiculturalism has become so common that Norwegian anti-Islamists have coined a new word for it: “Hitling,” which could be roughly translated to English as “to make like Hitler.” The logic behind “hitling” is a bit like this: “You have a beard. Adolf Hitler had facial hair, too, so you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler liked dogs. You have pets, too, you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. You like carrots, you are just like Hitler.”

Any “right-winger” can be slimed with such accusations. Curiously enough, the reverse is almost never true. Although Marxism may have killed 100 million people during the 20th century and failed in every single society in which it has ever been tried out, there seems to be little stigma attached to being a Leftist. The fact that Leftists can get away with this and claim to hold the moral high ground amply demonstrates that we didn’t win the Cold War. We let our guard down after the fall of the Berlin Wall and never properly denounced the ideology behind it. This is now coming back to haunt us.

One member of an anti-immigration party in Britain stated that to be called racist in 21st-century Britain is “the same as being branded a witch in the Middle Ages.” He’s probably right, which means that anti-racism has quite literally become a modern witch-hunt. Source.

It is a very long piece, but copiously documented, packed with links to important sources of information.

Just a few minutes of listening to the debate on the Islamist threat between the blase far left, and the concerned middle to middle right, will tell you that Political Correctness and multiculturalism are weakening the spirit of western civilisation against the primitive would-be conquerors. With universities and newsrooms packed with anti-western multiculturalists, clearly the underlying idea is to train future generations to despise the west in schools, and current generations to despise the west in the mass media.

Although no civilisation has ever been perfect, the incredible superiority of western civilisation over every previous and other current civilisations should not be in doubt by anyone with a knowledge of history and current events. Unfortunately, students are not being taught history or current events, but rather a pablumized concoction of multicultural fiction that bears no relationship to the real world. Mainstream media cannot afford to be so blatant as college professors, given the real world experience of most consumers, but still manage to achieve the same effect with time.