In this short essay in City Journal, Dalrymple states the obvious (although frequently overlooked):
Like most people in Western democracies, Van Gogh, by all accounts a brash and combative man, took his freedom of expression for granted. Most of us most of the time do not reflect much on the fact that such freedom is an historical exception rather than an historical rule, a reversible achievement rather than a free gift of God. There are still many who would rather kill than brook any contradiction of their opinions or beliefs, even while they live in the most tolerant of societies.
He also points out something that many of us who do not live in Europe find surprising--that the Islam of many of Europe's ethnic minorities is not so much a passionate expression of religious belief (far from it--it is as threatened by secular society as Christianity is in Europe) as a means to very self-centered, non-spiritual ends.
In fact, Islam is as vulnerable in Europe to the forces of secularization as Christianity has proved to be. The majority of Muslims in Europe, particularly the young, have a weak and tenuous connection to their ancestral religion. Their level and intensity of belief is low; pop music interests them more. Far from being fanatics, they are lukewarm believers at best. Were it not for the abuse of women, Islam would go the way of the Church of England.
The abuse of women has often, if not always, appealed to men, because it gives them a sense of power, however humiliated they may feel in other spheres of their life. And the oppression of women by Muslim men in Western Europe gives those men at the same time a sexual partner, a domestic servant, and a gratifying sense of power, while allowing them also to live an otherwise westernized life. For the men, it is convenient; interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, almost the only openly hostile expressions toward Islam from British-born Muslims that I hear come from young women, some of whom loathe it passionately because they blame it for their servitude.
Dalrymple is in a good position to know; as a prison psychiatrist in London, he councils hundreds of disaffected youths, many of them from Muslim backgrounds. He also is in the process of moving to France, and has done his research there, as well.
If Dalrymple were to write more on this subject, I believe he might add that Islam also offers the often poor Muslims of Europe a gloriously different self-image-- rebels with God on their side struggling against the rich, decadent heathens. We can hope that the current situation in Europe will not devolve into cultural warfare (as we see stirring in the Netherlands now) or demographic jihad (low European birth rates and high Muslim birth rates and immigration resulting in the virtual disappearance of Europe as we know it), and that a Islamic middle class will emerge. This new face of Islam may be moderate, respectful of its host culture, and perhaps become the source of an Islamic Reformation that mitigates the extremes of secular Europe while it spreads values such as tolerance, love of knowledge, and separation of church and state to the core of the Arab world.
A guy can dream, can't he?
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