Friday, January 30, 2009

Billions and Billions Served!   [Mark Steyn]

Ian Buruma is one of those impeccably reasonable moderate Eurotypes, so naturally he was The New York Times' go-to guy when they wanted something on the Geert Wilders case—Wilders is the Dutch Member of Parliament about to go on trial for offending Muslims. Buruma has one goodish point:

He is now world-famous, mainly for wanting the Koran to be banned in his country, “like Mein Kampf is banned...” Whether Mr. Wilders has deliberately insulted Muslim people is for the judges to decide. But for a man who calls for a ban on the Koran to act as the champion of free speech is a bit rich.

Well, yes. For my own part, I'm Mister Consistent: I don't want to ban the Koran, I don't want to ban Mein Kampf, I don't want to ban Geert Wilders or even Ian Buruma. In fact, it's Continental nations' urge to ban Mein Kampf —a bit of showboating decades after it might have made any difference—that's left them without any coherent response when Muslim groups say, "Well, if you're so sensitive to Jews' feelings, why not ours?" (Incidentally, the last time I was in the Edgware Road in London I noticed the handsome new Arab translation prominently displayed in a bookstore window—Kampf conveniently translates as Jihad.)

But, if we're going to primp and preen over exquisitely delicious ironies, I'd say Buruma's fellow Brit Pat Condell has a more pertinent one:

Look at what you're doing: you're prosecuting a man who is under twenty-four hour protection from attack by violent Muslims - yet he's the criminal for expressing an opinion.

Readers can judge Ian Buruma's piece for themselves, but I'd just like to note a couple of asides:

When the British Parliament refused to screen Mr. Wilders’s film at Westminster this week, he cited this as “yet more proof that Europe is losing its freedom.”

Well, that's one way of putting it. As I understand it, a member of the House of Lords had arranged a screening of Wilders' film for yesterday (January 29th). When the famously "moderate" Muslim peer Lord Ahmed heard about it, he kicked up enough of a fuss (including the threat of mass demonstrations) to get the screening canceled, telling the Associated Press of Pakistan that it was "a victory for the Muslim community".

Indeed. The British Parliament is conceding that Muslims have the exclusive right to set the parameters of any debate on Islam. Buruma further adds:

Comparing a book that billions hold sacred to Hitler’s murderous tract is more than an exercise in literary criticism.

"Billions"? After 9/11, we heard a lot about "one billion Muslims" around the world. Then it upticked to 1.3 billion, 1.5, 1.8... Now The New York Times tells us more than two billion people in the world hold the Koran "sacred".

The issue is this: Islam is not merely a faith, but a political project. It'd be nice to talk about it, while we still can. But in the Mother of Parliaments that moment seems to have passed. Does that two billion include the population of the European Union?

01/30 01:11 PMShare