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22 Jan 2007 12:47 pm

Hitch on Steyn

One thing, it seems to me, that Mark Steyn, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and yours truly have in common - despite our many differences - is our loathing of politicized, Wahhabist Islam. On that, I think we all agree. But unlike Steyn, I'm not a believer in the West's inevitable demographic collapse or in its inability to defend itself in the face of this threat. What matters in a culture is the fight in a population not the population in a fight. I've also, like others, become far more aware these past four years of the limits of military force in countering the new religious fascists. The trick is exposing and countering the evil of Wahhabism, while not slipping into lazy hostility to all Muslims, or all Islam. Hitch reviews Steyn's Spenglerian book here. Money quote:

Steyn makes the same mistake as did the late Oriana Fallaci: considering European Muslim populations as one. Islam is as fissile as any other religion (as Iraq reminds us). Little binds a Somali to a Turk or an Iranian or an Algerian, and considerable friction exists among immigrant Muslim groups in many European countries. Moreover, many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes—seeking asylum and to build a better life. A young Afghan man, murdered in the assault on the London subway system in July 2005, had fled to England from the Taliban, which had murdered most of his family. Muslim women often demand the protection of the authorities against forced marriage and other cruelties. These are all points of difference, and also of possible resistance to Euro-sharia.

Agreed. The great risk is that, by our actions, we force sane Muslims into the arms of Jihadists. We have to get smarter than that, it seems to me. We have to see the divisions within Islam as our most powerful weapon, and our cultural diversity and political freedom as our greatest strength. Steyn, in my judgment, diagnoses the problem correctly, but his solutions are either too crude or too vague. He is too down on the West, and not subtle enough in the distinctions within the Muslim world.

Still, he gets what we're up against. Which is the precondition for everything else.

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