Phillips on Phillips

On the British Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips’s recent contradictory remarks about the Islam controversy (criticism of Islam is leading Britain to disaster, but honest dialog between the non-Muslim and Muslim communities is necessary to save Britain from disaster), Melanie Phillips is much more alarmed and tougher than I was.

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Paul W. writes:

In the Melanie Phillips’s Diary item you discuss, she writes:

“In any event, such attacks are just as likely to be the result of frustration with the failure to address the problem; or (as [Trevor] Phillips himself also observed) the entirely separate influx into the country of East Europeans who are—dismayingly—deeply prejudiced against black or Asian people, and would be so whatever may or may not be said in public about them.”

It is extraordinary that an intelligent woman, who recognises the threat of Islam in the West, should be dismayed that Eastern Europeans are “deeply prejudiced” against blacks and Asians.

Firstly, Eastern Europeans are simply demonstrating nature’s survival instinct via a thought process unencumbered by fifty years of intense multicultural brainwashing and propaganda. Secondly, they are not pre-judging, they are après-judging and have logically concluded that what we have bought upon ourselves in the West is not something they wish for themselves.

Despite Melanie Philip’s vast knowledge of the nature of Islam, she still suffers from the liberal notion that to recognise one’s own culture as superior is invalid, whilst to accept other cultures is not only valid but moral. To argue, or practice against these liberal beliefs is what I believe she means by “deeply prejudiced.”

Deeply prejudiced Poland, Czech Republic et al have little or no Islamic problems, the deeply tolerant West is as we know, and may yet become, something barely imaginable. Melanie Philips obviously believes we can be nice AND survive which is of course a possibility afforded only in the darkest recesses of liberal utopianism.

Melanie Philips’s inability to accept a mindset necessary for our survival is a prime example of the triumph of liberal propaganda and brainwashing over knowledge and experience. She knows full well what our problems are—and also how to solve them—yet she cannot admit to herself that in order to solve them she must cease to be liberal.

I believe that this is Western Europe’s all important, crucial dilemma. Can we rid ourselves of our liberal Catch-22 in order that we can then take the steps upon which rest the survival of our children, our race and our civilisation?

LA replies:

I had noticed the remark you criticize as well as a few similar ones in that column, but let it pass. But you are right. Melanie Phillips wants to take a position whereby we strongly criticize and resist the aspects of Islam that need to be criticized and resisted, while at the same time we do not become in any way “anti-Muslim,” an attitude she will condemn as “dismayingly and deeply prejudiced.” Now such a position—criticize but don’t become “prejudiced”—would be possible vis a vis a group that had some differences with the majority culture, but not major or irreconcilable or existential differences. We might say, for example, that we should be critical of those aspects of Catholics or Jews that deserve criticism, without becoming anti-Catholic or anti-Jewish. That is because each of those groups ultimately can fit and does fit in Western society. But this reasoning does not apply to Islam, because Islam ultimately cannot fit in Western society. Any serious and honest criticism of Islam will lead to the insight that Islam is a threat to the West. Melanie wants people to criticize the bad aspects of Islam, but if they come to the conclusion that Islam itself is the problem she will condemn them as prejudiced. So, ironically, her position is analogous to that of Trevor Phillips. She wants honest dialog, but not too much honest dialog.

Here’s the question that needs to be posed to Melanie Phillips: If the Islamic community poses the kind of danger to Britain that you describe in such disturbing detail in Londonistan (e.g., up to 80 percent of Muslims in Britain want sharia law to be instituted in Britain in varying degrees), and if the supine British attitude toward Islam has allowed this dangerous force to gain power, aren’t those “deeply prejudiced” anti-Muslim Eastern Europeans closer to the truth of Islam than the British? And isn’t their “prejudiced” attitude against Muslims to be preferred over the British acceptance of national destruction at the hands of Muslims?

Also, it should be noted that this thorny question cannot be answered within the circumference of liberalism with its primary focus on the rights of individuals and tolerance toward out-groups. In order to answer the question, our concern needs to be centered on the nature and well-being of our own substantive society, and on what things fit with our society and therefore can be safely included, and what things don’t fit with our society and therefore cannot be safely included.

Jeff in England writes:

You’re missing or ignoring the crucial point that the prejudices of the Eastern Europeans against Muslims are often of a hateful illogical nature. The Eastern Europeans were and to some extent are still great Jew haters and in a sense they have transferred that hate to Muslims. Your writer makes Eastern Europeans out to be perfectly logical people, who, looking at Muslims, have concluded that they deserve to be disliked etc. It’s so obvious that the prejudice that the Eastern Europeans are putting forth is not of the noble sort but borders on hate. C’mon Larry, we talked about this. Many Muslims are very decent people. It’s just that their religion and culture has some pretty horrible parts within them which are incompatible with our Western society. But the type of emotions many Eastern Europeans are responding with are indecent and nasty and I hope you don’t fall for that.

LA replies:

I don’t know anything about the attitudes of Eastern Europeans in Britain other than what is referred to in Melanie’s column and by you. But let’s assume that the Eastern Europeans express crude, irrational, hateful things about Muslims. Obviously I oppose people saying crude, hateful, irrational things about anyone.

But that doesn’t resolve the question I have raised: What is the permissible boundary of Islam criticism? Suppose there was a group in England that did not engage in crude, hateful statements but said, “Islam represent a mortal threat to our society and our values. Also, there is no practical way to separate ‘moderate’ Muslims from ‘radical’ Muslims because of the solidarity of the Islamic community. We should stop admitting any Muslims into Britain and look for ways to make the ones already here leave.” Would that group have passed the line from legitimate criticism to illegitimate prejudice?

This is the sort of question that must be answered. And we cannot answer it so long as we remain within the assumptions of liberalism. We can only answer it from within a traditional moral framework that assumes the existence of objective right and wrong and the legitimate existence of national communities.

LA continues:

And here’s an even thornier question for you. Suppose that a purely rational, high-minded defense of Britain such as I’ve posited was not possible. Suppose that, in order to save Britain from Islam and sharia, there was no way to avoid the release of crude, hateful emotions among at least some Britons. Would you conclude that it is better to let the Muslims continue to gain power in Britain than to advance a policy that will save Britain but that also might lead some people to release crude, hateful emotions against Islam?

Jeff replies:

Very good points and questions that need thinking through by me. Sort of relates to the torture or not to torture terrorists quandary. I support torture by the way even though it is despicable. Therefore I might conceivably support certain types of hatred at times. Also reminds me of how we allied ourselves with the mass murderer Soviets to destroy the Nazis.

So sometimes the ends do justify the means though not necesssarily here. As I said it needs thinking through.

Paul W. writes:

Jeff labours under the misapprehension that the “crucial” point of Eastern European attitudes toward non-whites is due to a hateful or illogical nature. I would suggest that WHY they have a survival instinct is absolutely irrelevant. The only crucial point is that they DO. Having said that, I do not consider it to be an evolution of their traditional anti-Semitism. The 1938 Germany of Western Europe unleashed the grossest example of anti-Semitism in the history of mankind and having opened the floodgates France and other Western European countries, sadly, did not emerge with clean hands at the end of the war. I lived in the Czech Republic for seven years where the only examples of so-called prejudice I ever encountered were, perhaps unsurprisingly, anti Germanic. I never encountered anti-Semitism, whilst with regard to Muslims I think it is fairly safe to say that Czechs were not even aware of them, let alone hating them. The reason being; there were no Muslims in their country. This argument could be used not just for the Czech Republic but also the Baltic States, Poland and Slovakia. If it is prejudice today you after, look to the Muslim “stans.”

If I were in the mood for an argument I would suggest that Jeff’s sweeping assertions that Eastern Europeans harbour hate and illogicality to be a good example of real prejudice. C’mon Jeff, many Eastern Europeans are very decent people.

Stephen F. writes:

The “thorny question” you raise in the discussion reveals another aspect of liberal thought. Liberalism breaks down the powers holding society together by postulating that if a single bad result comes under a non-liberal policy, that policy is illegitimate, wrong, and “illegal.” It sets up an impossible standard, and shuts down rational debate and thought. This is why the liberal press today constantly inundates us with stories of drug addicts, prisoners, and “victims” of one kind or another who “slipped through the cracks,” proving that the liberal regime needs to be given further power. Similarly, if a single innocent person is executed, that invalidates capital punishment, and if a single abuse takes place in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Guantanamo, that invalidates the U.S. side morally.

The fact is that in the act of stopping the Mexican invasion, or disempowering Muslims in America, some people will get hurt. We don’t want this and will try to prevent it, but it will happen. An inability to accept this fact seems to completely paralyze any efforts to take commonsense efforts to protect ourselves.

LA replies:

What Stephen says reminds me of Alan Colmes’s interview of me last spring, when he acted as if a single generalization by me about the Mexican invasion that touched unfairly on a single Mexican individual was enough to invalidate my whole argument. His primary focus was not to protect the well-being of the United States; his primary focus was to search out and attack any instance of discrimination, anywhere. That’s liberalism.

(I see that I never had the Colmes interview and some other interviews posted online. I’ll have to take care of that.)

Paul W. writes:

One does not need to hate Muslims in order to conclude they should not be allowed to colonise Western countries. It is common sense, not hatred. To associate it as such is an example of how liberal propaganda has distorted reason amongst Westerners.

I have no doubt that the “prejudices” that Eastern Europeans have today are no different from the prejudices we had in an all-white 1950s Britain. These were brainwashed out of us as we were colonised. Let us hope that the Czechs et al. put up a stiffer resistance. Those countries could well become our crucial allies in years to come.

[See a follow-up to this thread.]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 24, 2006 11:54 PM | Send