Dalrymple: Islam is the problem. Auster: Therefore, what?

(Further discussion has continued below.)

Theodore Dalrymple has another article on Islam at City Journal. His view of the issue is becoming more and more realistic, and I posted a response urging him to get even more realistic. After I posted it, however, I found that that City Journal only displays selected comments with their article, in fact just two comments with the Dalrymple piece, which was published on June 4. So why do they invite readers to send responses, if they don’t post them online?

In any case, here is mine. Nothing new here for VFR reader; this was intended for City Journal readers who may have never heard what I have to say.

Mr. Dalrymple says that the ills of Islam can only be healed if Islam becomes a private religion without claims to public sovereignty, in which case, he adds, it would no longer be Islam. In other words, the only way for the world to become safe from Islamic supremacism is for Islam to cease to exist.

I agree with Dalrymple that Islam itself is the problem. But that doesn’t solve OUR problem, since Islam is not about to cease to exist, nor do we have the remotest ability to make it cease to exist.

So the real question is, what do we of the non-Muslim world do to make OURSELVES safe from Islam?

And there is only one answer. We must confine Muslims to the Muslim world, where they cannot threaten us. This means stopping all Muslim immigration into the West, and initiating a set of policies leading to the steady departure, whether forcible or voluntary, of Muslims from the West. A cordon sanitaire must then be placed around the Muslim world to prevent it from having any power to endanger non-Muslim countries.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It is the situation that prevailed in the world between the 17th and the late 20th century. Islam was powerless, there were no Muslims in the West and the West was not in the slightest bothered by Islam.

In short, we must—to use an image from Islam itself—return Islam to the powerless condition that Muhammad was in when he resided in Mecca. Once the Muslims are confined in their own historic lands where they have no ability to wage jihad against us, they can pursue their religion to their heart’s content, or, if they want, give up their religion. We should have no global social engineering scheme to make Muslims give up Islam. That is an insane project that is utterly beyond our power. What is within our power is to make ourselves safe.

The plan I’ve laid out is not impossible. Once the non-Muslim world recognizes the intractable danger that Islam represents, the will and the means to make ourselves safe from Islam will follow.

* * *

Notice also the irony in the title of this entry. For years our side has been urging people to understand that Islam itself—not some concoction called radical Islam—is the problem. Dalrymple is now saying that Islam is the problem. Yet, instead of cheering him, I’m pushing him further. Why? It’s because recognizing that Islam is the problem is not enough. Even Daniel Pipes—on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, that is—recognizes that Islam is the problem, but then he goes on to say that Islam can be whatever Muslims say it is, that Islam can be changed into something nicer, an idea that, if we believe it, catches us in a hopeless ameliorative project to transform the whole of Islam. So Pipes’s apparently realistic assessment of Islam still leads him into a utopian fantasy world. Dalrymple is not, Pipes-like, calling for a new, moderate form of Islam. He says that Islam itself must end. But the trouble is, to call for Islam to come to an end is as utopian as to call for Islam to make itself moderate. It does not lie within our scope and power to make such a thing happen.

At the same time, no one wants to go near the proposal I’ve laid out above and elsewhere, because (1) it involves no ameliorative project aimed at rescuing the Muslims, and (2) it means treating a fifth of the human race as our permanent adversaries, removing them from our countries, and keeping them locked up in their own. And yet this is the only strategy that is doable and would restore our safety and freedom.

Some will say that my plan is utopian too, but it’s not. Consider this. Even if we had the will to make all Muslims give up Islam, we couldn’t make it happen. But if we had the will to make Muslims leave the West, we could make it happen.

Alex K. writes:

You wrote:

“Even Daniel Pipes—on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, that is—recognizes that Islam is the problem, but then he goes on to say that Islam can be whatever Muslims say it is, that Islam can be changed into something nicer, an idea that, if we believe it, catches us in a hopeless ameliorative project to transform the whole of Islam.”

Even if Pipes’ position were correct—that Islam can go moderate—your prescription would still be the best and really the only course of action, because it is insane to continue Muslim immigration while we’re waiting for the miraculous moderation to take hold. And even if the “moderation is possible” camp insists we actively try to force that moderation along through meddling over there, there are still two issues: 1) they have to make the case that this is a better way than merely leaving the Muslims to do it themselves. To date this camp has not done this, focusing instead on arguing that the liberalization is possible in the first place and that we have no choice due to the dire threat over here…which leads me to 2) it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s insane to continue Muslim immigration while we’re waiting for our ingenious forced-liberalization scheme to work…which the scheme’s diehard defenders are admitting will take decades.

The point is, whether they seem to get it like Dalrymple and some others, or they’re mushy like Pipes, or they dementedly consider it obvious that Muslims want freedom etc like the diehard Iraq war defenders, the immigration halt is an obviously necessary step and all debate on this is crippled by all factions’ unwillingness to even acknowledge the option. The closest I’ve ever heard is Hirsi Ali lamely making a brief reference to immigration into Europe being an economic necessity.

LA replies:

Absolutely correct. I don’t bring this point up often enough—the time factor. EVEN IF Islam could be moderated, the people pushing this still admit it would take a long long time.. So what do we do about Islam in the mean time? Just allow it to keep growing stronger? The fact that even the people who admit that moderation would take a long time nevertheless want to continue admitting Muslims into the West shows their fundamental concern is not realism and safety but liberalism and openness.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 13, 2006 01:37 PM | Send