I happened across an extraordinary article this morning in the Spectator, an English weekly magazine, entitled: The triumph of the East (registration may be required). It is extraordinary to me because I don't often see articles like this in mainstream publications. The premise of the article is that we in the West are deluding ourselves about Islam's expansionist and imperialist aims. Reassuring ourselves with our bland pablum of multi-culturalism, our fevered insistence that we are all the same with the same interests and the same needs and motivations, we are blind to the fact that the conquest of the West is a central topic urged on the main Islamic media sources. It is a central topic of discussion in the most prominent mosques and it is ignored in the West.
The most popular tactic is immigration. I must admit that this sentence jumped off the page at me: "In Brussels, Mohammed has been the most popular name for boy babies for the last four years." I don't know if it's true, mind you, but it startled me.
Contrast this with the upbeat article that the NY Times ran today on how woman are agitating, albeit with no organization, for more rights to pray in the mosque. This is a "feel good about Islam" article that the Times likes to run from time to time. However, someone gave us an interesting juxtaposition by running this article right under the picture in this article of six kidnaped civilians in danger of having their heads chopped off by the three hooded terrorists, whoops, I mean "insurgents", in front of them (scroll down to see the picture). Like I said, interesting juxtaposition.
At some point we are going to have to confront the fact that not all people want the same thing in the West, that even those who immigrate here don't necessarily share our values or even respect them, and that we are in a conflict of cultures. I hope we do it soon. I for one do not want my daughter to wear a veil except on her wedding day.
Posted by Random Penseur at July 22, 2004 10:38 AMRandom Penseur,
"In Brussels, Mohammed has been the most popular name for boy babies for the last four years." I don't know if it's true, mind you, but it startled me."
Just read your post now...well, only three months late!...you wanted to know if this is true. It is almost true: it is in fact true for the last 5 years not 4. And it refers to the central district of Brussels (postcode 1000 Brussels).
I know because I lived there until recently.
As a gay man I had become increasingly concerned by the regular insults and threats that I and many of my gay friends routinely get when walking in the streets of central Brussels from groups of young Muslim men. This is a growing trend in many cities in Belgium and the Netherlands where the proportion of Muslims continues to grow rappidly. Current projections for Amsterdam and Rotterdam are that the majority of the populations of those cities will be Muslim by 2010.
It is very worrying because, as Pim Fortujn pointed out, many of the Muslims have arrived from rural parts of Morrocco and import their own beliefs and lifestyles which tends to mean: extreme dislike of homosexuality, women kept at home in suburdinate position, antipathy towards Jews. All very worrying...
Posted by: David at October 14, 2004 08:22 AM