Fantasy vs. Reality

President Bush has repeatedly assured the American people that democracy is the cure for Islamic terror. On that basis, he has encouraged free elections (as free as possible) across the Islamic world and launched a "pre-emptive" (read: unnecessary) war against Iraq. Now, he is piling hundreds of billions of dollars in debt upon the backs of American taxpayers, and sending even more US soldiers to injury and death in that unhappy land in order to shore up the democratic government in Baghdad (a city the US has never truly controlled since Saddam was toppled). A successful and democratic Iraq will "transform" the Middle East, according to the White House and its ideological fellow travellers, spawing a new era of progress and peace and putting an end to the careers of Osama bin Laden and his ilk.

Unfortunately for the President (and for the American people), his vision is based almost entirely on intellectual confusion, misunderstanding of the region, its people and Islam, and a most unhealthy dose of pure fantasy. Elections throughout the Islamic world since the invasion of Iraq have only strenghtened the political power of Muslim militants, increased their general popularity, and actually brought them into full power in Palestine. Moreover, the purple-thumbs-in-the-air voting of the Iraqi people failed noticeably to draw appreciation from the Muslim masses, who actually hate the US (and the West in general) even more than they did before.

Still, it's a good antidote to the nonsense spewed by the White House and the remaining neocons to examine what Muslims living in an actual, functioning, liberal democracy believe and what they really want. Britain provides a very edifying example.

A growing minority of young Muslims are inspired by political Islam and feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents do, a survey revealed.
The poll found support for Sharia law, Islamic schools and wearing the veil in public is significantly stronger among young Muslims than their parents.

While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16-24 year olds, the survey for independent think-tank Policy Exchange found.

The percentage who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over 55 year olds to 37% of 16-24 year olds.

The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16-24 year olds.

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According to the poll, 74% of 16-24 year olds prefer Muslim women to choose to wear the hijab compared with only 28% of over 55s.

And while 7% of all those surveyed "admire organisations like al Qaida that are prepared to fight the West", the figure increased from 3% of over 55s to 13% among 16-24 year olds.

Add this poll to the others that find sizable and growing support for terrorism among Muslims living in the West, and you have your answer to the notion that democracy will cure Islamic terror. It won't. Islamic terror results directly from Islam itself and its fourteen century-long war against anything that isn't Islam (and often-as-not, things that are Islamic too).

But the West even makes the situation worse by its own irrational self hatred.

Munira Mirza, the lead author of the report, said the results suggested Government policy was to blame for sharpening divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

She said: "The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines."

The problem is that a shared national identity can only be maintained in a population with one overwhelming dominant (numerically) ethnic group that is willing to defend and impose its culture on the minority groups within the society. If there is no dominant group, or that group chooses to allow itself and its culture to be diminished (as in the current US and UK), rival ethnic groups struggle for dominance and the society fragments along purely ethnic or religious lines.

The current policies of the Anglo-American and Western nations - i.e. mass immigration from non-Western nations, multiculturalism - are designed to eliminate the dominant ethnic group and its culture. Chaos and violence will be the result. A foreign policy based on delusions and empty slogans ("freedom in every heart") will only make the West's decline even more preciptious.