A Tale of Two Empires

An Illustration of what happens when a host country to Islam just begins to see the enemy for what it is, and decides it may have had enough. But is it by then, just too late?

By de Andréa

Western Europe and Great Britain may be just beginning to push back against the rising tide of Islamofascism – and the future that may hold the Islamist response to this push back.

Below are two articles, the first depicting the rejective response of some in Europe to the encroachment of Islamofascism, and the second the response of Islam to this possible rejection.

Note the comment at the end of the first story below, by the Assistant Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, the British equivalent of CAIR, who levels criticism for “narrow-mindedness” and “bigotry.” This is the standard response by Islamists, attacks intended to play on the fears of people being labeled “intolerant” or “bigoted.”

The second story refers to Osama bin Ladin’s recent call for Jihad against Europe, apparently in response to the early signs of push back coming from Europe.

A senior Church of England member called yesterday for the building of mosques to be banned, because of risk 'Britain will become an 'Islamic state'

Alison Ruoff said more construction would lead to Islamic no go areas dominated exclusively by Muslim populations living under Sharia law. Mrs. Ruoff, a member of the General Synod, the Church's parliament, added: "If we don't watch out we will become an Islamic state. It's that serious."

Leading clerics have been divided over how the Church should respond to Islam. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams caused controversy by calling for Sharia law to be given full legal status. He later told the Synod he took the blame for "distress and misunderstanding" that swept through the Church in the wake of the speech.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali a Christian, and Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, has warned against the spread of Islamic no-go areas and said amplified calls to prayer at mosques impose an Islamic character on nearby areas. [This indecently is already happening in two cities in the State of Michigan, as well as Islamic districts in Washington D.C.]

Mrs Ruoff, a former nurse and magistrate, is a conservative evangelical regarded as one of the more outspoken Synod members. She responded to Dr William's Sharia lecture by calling for the Archbishop's resignation. Speaking on Premier Christian Radio, she said: "We are constantly building new mosques, which are paid for by the oil states. “ There are enough mosques for Muslims in this country. "You build a mosque and then what happens? You have Muslim people moving into that area, all the shops become Islamic, all the housing will become Islamic and that will be a no-go area for anyone else.

"They bring in Islamic law and they enforce it... We cannot allow that to happen. "We are still a Christian country; we need to stop Islam if we want to hold on to that."

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "These are very narrow-minded and bigoted remarks. "As a Christian, she surely ought to be working to build good ties between different communities." What Bunglawala doesn’t recognize is that a Christian cannot make “good ties” with evil.

Is Britain just beginning to comprehend what took the Crusaders of history 300 years to understand, that Islam is not going to assimilate?

The response
Osama bin Ladin’s Warning to Europe: Jihad Means Offensive War to Spread Islam
Just in case Europe didn’t catch his drift with this new message, the self proclaimed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin launched two audio taped broadsides on the Internet during the third week of March 2008. In them, he specifically threatened Europe with Jihad, apparently in response to recent stirrings of self-assertion on the Continent. It would seem that the republishing of some of the Danish cartoons, the release of a short film about Islam by Dutch filmmaker, Geert Wilders, and a sterner approach to the expansionist Islamist agenda by a crop of tough new European leaders have sparked a yelp of protest from the al Qaeda leadership.

The forgotten history repeats itself
To the Jihadi vanguard, it must have looked like Europe was well on its way to slipping back into a dhimmitude last seen centuries ago, when Jihadi warriors overran much of southern Europe, white women were prized features on auction blocks across Europe, Christians and Jews knew their places in societies dominated by Islam, and it was ransom and tribute (the Islamic Jizya tax of protection) that flowed out of Christendom’s kingdoms.

Today France already has cordoned off over 700 no-go zones where neither Napoleonic Code nor police are welcome. There are districts where French Parisian women are afraid to go out in public without the hijaab, a covering for their head, for fear they will be beaten or worse. Belgian bishops have permitted North African illegal immigrants demanding sanctuary from threat of deportation to hold Muslim prayer services in beautiful Brussels cathedrals. A German judge has refused the desperate plea of an abused Moroccan-born woman for an expedited divorce, because, as she intoned from the bench, in the culture of Islam, it is permitted for a husband to beat his wife. The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged Britons to just accept the coming of Islamic Sharia law in the UK. Theo van Gogh has been shot and stabbed to death because he stood unrepentantly for free speech, and his colleague, Ayan Hirsi Ali, has been hounded from the Netherlands altogether. Taxi drivers in Norway, the UK, and elsewhere are refusing blind passengers with Seeing Eye dogs, because they say dogs are deemed unclean animals in Islam. The newest architectural trend from Oxford to Cologne is the building of mammoth, Saudi-funded mega mosques. Yes, the establishment of Eurabia must seem well underway.

But then Europe is beginning to push back and a new Pope mounted the throne of Peter, a “Panzer Pope” he’s been called, and gave a 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg in the sturdy Teutonic heart of this continent. He didn’t actually say anything about a crusade; in fact, Pope Benedict XVI, at Regensburg and since, has sought quite sincerely to present Christianity as a vehicle for discourse and reason among faiths. The 2008 establishment of a permanent council for dialogue between the Vatican and Islam was meant to build bridges, not spark fury and menace.

This is where the well-reasoned temperance of the Enlightenment falls flat, however. For the Islamic Jihad is not about reason, or temperance, or enlightenment. It is about conquest at everyone else’s expense. And right now, al Qaeda and its Jihadi cohorts both home-grown and international, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Union of Islamic Clerics, the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and their smooth-talking spokesmen such as Dr. Mustafa Ceric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Tariq Ramadan, have set their sights on Europe. Europe is too liberal, too free, too open, too outspoken, too rich, and also nicely softened up by decades of inroads by concepts like multiculturalism, a paralyzing antipathy to discriminating judgment, the disarming of citizens because of the abhorrence of self-defense.

Don’t be Deceived
Osama bin Laden’s threat is real. Al Qaeda and the Jihadis, whose cultural references were formed in the searing sterility of the 7th Century Hijaz, are coming for Europe. In the Arab desert where Islam was born, the code of the tribes demands challenge, honor, and spoils. A society raised on the values of the strong, where nothing is ever produced but only seized from the weak, where concession and compromise are considered weakness and met with contempt, where revenge and retribution define human interaction – a society such as this cannot abide a civilization of uninhibited intellectuality and tolerance. In such a milieu, Islam developed, inextricably, as both socio-political system and monotheistic faith. Both remain hard, unforgiving, and bent on global domination. The sacred and immutable doctrine of Islam is laid out for all time in the revealed demonic writings of the Quran, the hadiths (or sayings of Muhammad), and the Sunna (or accounts of Muhammad’s deeds). There is nothing in any of these about turning the other cheek, loving one’s neighbor as oneself, or the inherent equality of all human beings, Islam is simply more equal than the rest of civilization. Neither will you find virtues of non-violence, self-sacrifice, or truthfulness applicable among any people not even Muslims themselves. For the infidel, there is only the choice of three: convert, submit, or die.

Europe needs to wake up, and quickly, they may now just be approaching the yawning stage. The obligatory Islamic warning has been given, the Continent put on notice that unless it agrees to compromise (and trust me, compromise is just a step toward total Islamic theocracy) on its liberal lifestyle and legal system, al Qaeda will unleash its Jihadi attackers. The Vatican, too, notably accused of inspiring another crusade only after the conciliatory announcement was made about the new council for interfaith dialogue, will need to muster all the stern resolve and brilliant theological command of its current Vicar if nearly-spent Christianity is to help lead Europe’s defense. For in the end, while its population may well exhibit the studied ennui of a post-faith-based society, and may have lost much of its pride and courage, Europe nevertheless has much to be proud of and plenty to defend. And even though its advanced technology, orderly and educated native citizens, magnificent artistic expression, complex economies, and sophisticated political systems elicit scant acknowledgment from the savage Jihadis sworn to destroy it all, these are accomplishments that represent a pinnacle of human development. Europe is the well-spring as well as the front line of defense for modern concepts of liberal democracy (except for the Arab/Muslim part of it) is now spreading inexorably the world over

THE BOTTOM LINE: Unless Europeans at every level, from the small village grocer to the leaders of academia, government, labor, and media, somehow grasp that the world view driving al Qaeda’s warnings shares virtually nothing in common with their own and adapt their defenses accordingly, it is completely conceivable that Bernard Lewis’s dire prediction about the likely Islamization of Europe by century’s end could prove true. Or, as Daniel Pipes put it some time ago, Europe must either somehow assimilate its burgeoning and increasingly hostile Muslim elements, adopt a draconian program of expulsion and immigration control, or acquiesce to Muslim dominance. The latter has already been the passion of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Islam does not really mean peace and Jihad is not inner yoga. Islam means submission: submission to Allah, to Islam, and to Sharia law. The only peace being offered by Islam is under the shade of the Quran and the sword. Whether by da’wa (preaching and persuasion), infiltration, (‘Cultural Jihad”) and destruction of faith from within, or the outright terror that al Qaeda promises its enemies, it is not just Europe that faces the Jihadi onslaught. It is every society that dares to be free to choose its own way of life, elect its own leaders, and enact its own laws. It is Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and the United States of America.

Knowing the enemy, naming the enemy, and mastering the understanding of the enemy’s culture, history, ideology, and tactics are essential to meeting and defeating his challenge. Only by frankly facing the Islamic Jihad and resisting every urge to dismiss it as primitive, already defeated, or somehow unequal to modern civilizations such as our own, will we have any chance of prevailing. The enemy is not terrorism; the enemy is evil, and the Nation of Islam is its perpetrator…

de Andréa