Two points only

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Dec 7, 2006 at 14:41

Dear Noah ,

I also liked your post very much and totally agree with your analysis and conclusions. You speak like a true European (whatever your place of birth or habitation) , not like those Eurabians of today who are a disgrace and shame to this continent and the source of its moral and intellectual decay ! Thank you again!

There are just two points on which I have still my doubts.

You wrote :

1/ "I do agree that Islam is the third totalitarian ideology that's been ignored for quite some time."

Personally, I find this comparison (or sometimes equation) between communism =fascism=Islam rather unjust , if not not simply misleading . Communism and fascism were both born out of the misery of the first world war as a response to the chaos created by that European disaster. They were European phenomena and the populations that were forced to embrace them reacted this way to anarchy and disorder that engulfed the old civilized world. The Bolsheviks were the force which many considered as the only one capable of stopping the desintegration of Russia in view of military defeats between 1914-1917 and the duplicity and impotence of her Western allies. The Germans were given little or no choice after Versaille.

Islam was not produced as a result of a lost war. Byzantine and Persia didn't overrun Arabia and didn't drive the poor Beduins to despair by imposing horrendous war indemnities and by vast territorial extorsions of their deserts.

Communism and fascism were secular movements. As far as I know neither Lenin nor Hitler promised any heavenly paradise to his followers. Muhammad did and his montheism admits no secularity at all.

Communism and fascism could be defeated politically . Deafeating any Islamic state politically will change nothing as far as the aggressive faith of its inhabitants is concerned.

Communism and fascism were born and practised in countries which had a long tradition of Christianity and Enlightment . Neither eradicated them. With exception of short-lived anti-religious outbursts ordered from above Christianity survived under nazism and communism and with the enlightment values still cherished the countries were both far from barbarity . This is simply not the case with Islamic entities. They have nothing than Islam to reconstruct and come back to.

Nazism lived for 12 years. Communism for more than 70. Islam is more than 1400 years old.

These are but a few differences . I don't deny any superficial similarities. But despite them I can't agree to put Islam on a par with communism and fascism as "a third totalitarian ideology" . It is a totalitarianism of itw own , more archaic primitive and much , much worse than both fascism or communism.

2/ You wrote also :

" And yet if we look back at history, we see a long period of horrendous violence associated with the spread of Christianity. This includes the massacre and genocide of entire populations."

Actually in the Roman Empire and its neighbouring countries Christianity spread quite peacefully by dint of travelling apostles , missionaries and monks. It was not conquering armies or civil wars that brought Christianity to power , despite some urban disturbances here and there . When it eventually became the only religion of the empire - despite some negative side-effects which e.g. Edward Gibbon stressed - it had no nasty record behind and no genocide agenda to fulfill as Islam has always had. Even Christianizing the brabarians was done by wonder-doers and cunning knowledgeable priests and not by invading Christian armies. Thus some Arab tribes came to worship Christ who allegedly helped their sick kinsmen and promised more prosperity than their tribal deities. It was not at the point of the sword that Chrsitianity came to the peninisula in the pre-Islamic times.

As to the erratic history of the Vatican or the conquest of America we have to remark that it is a later history. After the fall of the Roman empire Europe receded into the new age of barbarity which was much stronger than the weak civilizing influence of Christianity. Life was - as Hobbes wold term it - "poor, nasty, brutish, and short" and this was well reflected in the beliefs of people living that life who happened to be Christians. With the general betterment of living conditions also Christianity was transformed the more so as its stifling dogmatism was finally broken first by internal strife ( reformation ) and then by rationalism and enlightment which made Christianity what we know now. Both helped Christianity to moderate. These two influences are totally alien to Islam and their lack guarantees in my eyes that no moderate Islam will ever emerge.

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