Churchill on Islam

Since politicians and neocons like to make themselves seem strong when responding to Muslim terrorism by joining themselves to the ghost of Winston Churchill, it would be appropriate to see what Churchill himself thought about Islam. This is from his 1899 book, The River War, written when he was 24 years old:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities … but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. [The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pp. 248-50.]

Please note that the Islam that Churchill is describing as inherently a slave system, as inherently presenting an ongoing threat to Europe, is not “radical” Islam, not “political” Islam, not “Islamo-fascism.” It is traditional, normative, orthodox Islam.

Yet the very people who rush to put on Churchill’s mantle would deny this truth. Imagine if one of the speakers at that Claremont Institute dinner, where the Winston Churchill award was given to Mark Steyn, had read aloud this passage of Churchill’s. The room would have fallen into an embarrassed silence. The speaker would be seen as having committed an unpardonable offense against propriety.

An Indian living in the West writes:

What a beautiful passage. Thanks for posting that.

There is more to this passage than meets the eye. Note how Churchill separates the individual qualities of some Muslims from the nature of the religion and sees how the perversity of the religion often destroys noble qualities among its adherents.

This is a point that cannot be repeated often enough. I grew up with Muslims. My first friend in life when I was barely five years old was the son of a Muslim neighbour and family friend. And I can recount countless instances of warmth, hospitality, civility and tremendous respect shown by individual Muslims (and Muslim families) towards my family.

Which is why the characterisation of all criticism of Islam as “hatred” for every individual Muslims is so absurd. When the West opposed Communism and when Conservatives criticised Communism day and night, they didn’t do so because they hated Russians. And the confrontation with Nazism was not because of a hatred for Germans as Germans. So why should honest criticism of Islam be seen as “hatred” for Muslims?

Because 99 percent of all Muslims are not White (certainly the ones settled in the West). Therefore, criticism is automatically verboten.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 30, 2005 12:45 PM | Send