fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Radical Sheik Chic

My Cadogan Square flat in London is a stone’s throw away from the Danish Embassy, and recently I had the opportunity to observe some pretty unpleasant characters doing what comes naturally to them in this rather sedate and leafy corner of a once civilized city. As everyone knows, the demonstration was about cartoons, and the […]

My Cadogan Square flat in London is a stone’s throw away from the Danish Embassy, and recently I had the opportunity to observe some pretty unpleasant characters doing what comes naturally to them in this rather sedate and leafy corner of a once civilized city. As everyone knows, the demonstration was about cartoons, and the usually placid and peaceful Danes were on the receiving end.

Too much has already been written about this non-event, but let’s get a few things straight: the anger against the Danes had little to do with the cartoons and lots to do with Arab political and religious leaders for whom the whole episode was a godsend. Clerics and dictators cynically sought to manipulate the issue, starting, of course, with the Saudi friends of George W. Bush and Richard “Sharpshooter” Cheney. The Saudi kleptocrats, who have the gall to call themselves royal, are always worried about the Islamic fundamentalists whom they finance, and this was their chance to show their Islamic credentials. The fact that the ruling family has stolen the country’s oil wealth and invested it in palaces, yachts, private Boeings, high-class prostitutes, gambling, and Swiss bank accounts does not enter in the equation. I won’t even bother to go into why the Syrians, Iranians, and the Lebanese rioted. Orders are orders. The cartoon crisis was hijacked by Middle East leaders who saw a golden opportunity to get back at the West for, I assume, Thomas Edison, Marconi, Louis Pasteur, Fleming, and other inventive types.

What bothered me most while I watched these characters asking for death to infidels was not how outrageous and medieval their demands were but how weak and spineless the British response was. Masked maniacs were given a police escort to march through London preaching death and laughing at those who died in last July’s bombings. One who particularly stuck out was Omar Khayam, a 22-year-old Londoner who was dressed as a suicide bomber and who the next day was identified as a crack-cocaine drug dealer who was apparently radicalized while serving time for dealing. Allah, you see, works in mysterious ways. One deals crack cocaine to youngsters and, once jailed, one turns to the prophet and emerges as a disciple and a passionate Islamist.

Ah, but the beauty of Islam is that if Mr. Omar Khayam had been caught dealing in Saudi Arabia, for example, he would have been beheaded quicker than you can say Abdullah. It’s only in the decadent West that these freaks are allowed to run wild and are given license to interrupt our lives, blow up our properties, and kill our fellow Europeans.

What I’d love to see is a few Christians retaliating by torching the Saudi Embassy on Curzon Street or sawing off the head of some mad mullah preaching hate in Tottenham. This, of course, will never happen. If it did, you’d see Tony Blair’s storm troopers cracking heads and rounding up Christians at gunpoint. Last year, at a Countryside Alliance rally against the ban on hunting, the fuzz attacked well-behaved, tweedy types in a manner that German cops back in 1936 would have envied.

As the anti-Danish demonstrations were taking place, a fashionable “art” show was opening at the White Cube gallery, one I refused to attend but one that many of my friends eagerly flocked to. It was the latest work of a twosome called Gilbert and George, who have used coprophilia as a theme in the past but whose present show is mainly devoted to attacks on the Catholic Church. The show is called Sonofagod Pictures, and it features a slogan that says “God loves F***ing.” Like most Christians, I find this offensive to the extreme, but if I happen to pass the pair on the street, I will have to give them a pass in the interest of freedom of expression. This is what it all comes down to. Our so-called strengths have become our weaknesses.

There was also a great deal of talk about responsible journalism, gratuitous offense, and multicultural sensitivities, but if you put the three together they spell one word: fear. British politicians are scared to death of their Muslim constituents, all five, six, or perhaps eight million of them, and know damn well that Muslims vote as they are told to vote by their imams. The week following the riots, Cherie Blair, the wife of George W.’s poodle, Tony, had gone to court as a barrister pleading against a school rule that forbids head-to-toe cover for female Muslim students. Now what kind of message does the venal Mrs. Blair send to self-aggrandizing Muslim community leaders and extremists? If it’s good enough for the wife of Britain’s number one, it should also be good enough for the rest of us suckers. The Blair woman makes a very lucrative living out of human-rights cases, a fact not lost to the Muslim community.

The British government has played tough in Iraq, which it should not have touched with the proverbial ten-foot pole, but has appeased and has been cowed by extreme Muslims at home while it searches for Muslim votes. Anything the Brits get as a result they deserve. After all, unlike the brave Danes, they have voted for the criminal Blair regime three times running.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here