Excuse Me If I Resent You For Wanting Me Dead
Silly Ian Buruma op-ed whine in the LA Times. Buruma does his best to make the danger that is Islam sound like a mere pissing contest between the European right and left:
When "tolerance" becomes a word of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. The Dutch have always taken pride in being the most tolerant people on Earth. And in less feverish times, no one could possibly have taken exception to Queen Beatrix's speech last Christmas, when she pleaded for tolerance and "respect for minorities." But Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, was so disgusted by the queen's "multicultural rubbish" that he wanted her to be stripped of her constitutional role in the government.Wilders, a popular rabble-rouser whose party occupies nine seats in the Dutch parliament, has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf," wants to stop Muslims from moving to the Netherlands and thundered that those who are already there should tear up half the Koran if they wish to stay. In his eyes, tolerance toward Islam is cowardly appeasement. He thinks that Europe is in peril of being "Islamized." "There will soon be more mosques than churches," he says, unless true Europeans have the guts to stand up and save Western civilization.
Uh, yeah...isn't it obvious that's the case?
Ian, dear, tolerance=death, or doesn't the name Theo Van Gogh mean anything to you? I mean, I know you wrote a book with his name in the title (well, actually, it used to be in the title)...but have you actually connected with what was done to him? Hint: He's no longer with us, and it isn't because those tolerators of tolerators, those representatives of The Religion Of Peace, merely tickled him with their opinions.
Have you heard how Ayan Hirsi Ali must live like a caged animal, thanks to the barbarians who want her dead -- merely for speaking her mind about the primitive beliefs they cling to?
We need less "tolerance," not more.
Final line in the linked piece:
>>We must fight Islamic extremism, to be sure, but not by tapping into the darkest gut feelings of the unthinking mob. Nothing good ever came from that.
The trouble is that almost anything the West does to counter Islamic extremism gets counted as "the darkest gut feeling" by this 'professor of human rights'.
Ian Buruma should have no credibility, but it is the nature of human activity that we stop and listen to him, and try to tease out anything useful he might say. So he gets to spout on about a nice imaginary world where we are nice to everyone and they are nice to us.
Let me remind you of the Maori-Moriori: I would say Ian is a Moriori.
doombuggy
at February 6, 2008 5:11 AM
It's certainly not Wilders' fault if the two books are comparable...
We shouldn't be tolerant of intolerance. How many killings does there have to be before these idiots stop and say, hey, maybe there is a comparison to be made between them and the Nazis.
Donna at February 6, 2008 6:09 AM
One set of rules for everyone. If a law is broken, there should be punishment.Too much of this "tolerance" is allowing for bad behavior from other ,shall we say, cultures.
mbruce at February 6, 2008 6:30 AM
The problem is that the word "tolerance" in this sense has been redefined from meaning "we won't mess with you when you do weird but harmless stuff" to "we can't say or do anything ever that might possibly go against the most extreme elements of your culture." This isn't cool. For example:
My wife worked on a project with a Muslim woman from India last year. Tolerance in the first sense was doing things like not serving her a ham sandwich and not disturbing her when she prayed. Tolerance in the second sense would be we were expected to clear our house of pork products and booze before she ever got there (never!).
We need to reassert what tolerance actually should mean.
justin case at February 6, 2008 7:17 AM
I agree completely with Justin Case. I grew up Unitarian which teaches tolerance as one of its most important beliefs. I also studied anthropology which is largely about understanding the ideas of others. There is of course a limit to tolerance. The irony is the limit of tolerance is intolerance.
One cannot really be tolerant of those who are intolerant to you. Feel free to wear a head scarf if you so choose, but don't think you can force anyone else (in this country) to do the same. And "honor" killings - yeah in this counrty that's called murder.
On a national level, is we're tolerant of the wrong countries. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan aren't really our allies. They harbor terrorists and that's what shouldn't be tolerated.
flighty
at February 6, 2008 8:01 AM
And then we have this little gem off the Drudge Report.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3321637.ece
This woman was put in jail, strip searched, beaten, and likely raped, (the article doesn't say that but it's pretty standard of for these fanatics) and what was her crime. She was caught sitting in a Starbucks, next to a "GASP", Man! This is the kind of people who practice a 'religion of peace'? Horsepussy! Islam is an evil cult no different than nazism. Eventually, we will figure this out, question is, will it be too late?
Bikerken
at February 6, 2008 9:32 PM
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