Re: Even the Moslems have a concept of treason

Submitted by Reuben Horne (Australia), Aug 17, 2005 at 20:34

Dr Pipes,
This discussion raised an interesting thought. On one of Australia's public broadcasters I watched a documentary on Mohammed and it appears that he only too well understood the nature of a social contract - getting all the civilians (Jewish Moslem and otherwise), to sign a contract which obligated all of them to a joint defense of the city which he was made the administrator (possibly Medina). It is ironic that the philosophy that is the great threat (generally acknowledged by most who contribute editorials to this website) had a clear vision historically of the obligations of nationhood, one that we appear to have lost.

I would agree very strongly with the notion of reintroducing the offense of treason in some form. The moral authority to do so however has been so eroded by the neosocialists who came into power and preeminence around the 1960s. It is a convention aye even an expected part of academic life to hurl some vitriol in the direction of ones own country or better yet the United States. I can recall a friend of mine who was a lifelong conservative who upon joining the arts community underwent a tactical rennovation of all of his views, "Everything evil comes from America," he declared to loud gaffawing and general approval at a gathering I attended with him. Having spent a period of time with a Palistinean flatmate whose purpose in Australia was to quote unquote, "Kill Jews" his attitude did not change one iota towards the Israelis. But lets face it - it's no longer cool to love ones country or way of life - let alone express solidarity with those who share the same values.

The real disease may well be multiculturalism. We have stretched the boundaries of our nationhood too far to accomodate too many people carelessly. Now whenever we start a war or have one inflicted on us (the latter is perhaps a more apt description of our predicament) invariably we have some form of ethnic group within our country that sympathises to the extent of treasonous collaboration with our enemies (as they occur from time to time). Given the depth of self negation that is required to set out to achieve a modern multicultural society it is difficult to see any real appeal to outsiders in being assimilated into the predominant cultural norm. Many of the traitorous westerners who march off to join the ranks of the Jihadists would probably have been attracted by their assertion that they are right their and absolute belief in this. Compare this to wishy washy assertions of maybe being right or always being wrong. There may only be relative evils but this notion is not marketable.

We really have to rediscover a comprehensive collective and confident sense of self if we are to survive, let alone win.

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