That Explains Everything

Ever wondered why it is that some people will go through the most astounding contortions of reasoning to avoid facing the facts about mainstream "moderate" Islam and what its strictures demand? Well, you needn't scratch your head in puzzlement any longer: via Harry's Place comes the following explanation which resolves everything.

Here's SWP leader John Rees, forgetting all about Marxism and telling us how to choose one's political orientation the modern way:

“there are some religions that are overwhelmingly held by the poor and excluded and there are some religions that back up the establishment, the rich and the powerful. So when the rich and the powerful attack the religion of the poor and excluded, then everyone should know what side they are on”.

That's it in a nutshell: the "poor and excluded" Muslims, by virtue of being "poor and excluded", are necessarily saintly figures, forced by circumstances imposed by the "rich and powerful" Westerners to indulge in the acts of barbarism which plague our airwaves and newspapers on a daily basis, and this is so even if the primary victims of their brutality are even more poor and excluded than they are - but then again, who cares about Muslims attacking Christians who, having adopted this most terrible of Western religions, are by definition stooges and running dogs of the evil capitalists?

On a somewhat tangential note, there's a certain oddity I'd like to point out, namely the tendency of those who want to play apologists for Islamic violence to attack those who refuse to shut their eyes to reality by smearing them with the "racist" label: it is true enough that many racists vocally proclaim their hatred of Muslims (which is not the same as hating Islam), but if the majority of those who are antagonistic to Islam are so on the basis of race, why is it that no similar opposition is meted out to Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism or any other creed practiced almost entirely by non-white people? Where is the LGF keeping tabs on rabid Taoist preachers of hate? Where are the sneers at Zen or Mahayana as a "Religion of Peace?" Why is no one talking about a Hindu threat* to Western civilization? Islam is not the only faith with a non-white face, but it certainly is the only one which strikes fear into the hearts of those who must live with its adherents everywhere they are to be found, and the explanation for this lies in the religion itself, not in the skin color of its adherents: Buddhists don't burn down embassies and lynch random strangers simply because some faraway individual drew cartoons they don't like, and they don't even do such things when adherents of a certain Religion of Peace™ dynamite highly regarded Buddhist symbols like the statues of Bamiyan.

It may please those too ignorant of the Islam they're defending to know what it's really about to resort to flinging the epithet "racist" at anyone who brings before their eyes evidence they can't sensibly refute, but no one else should be taken in by such nonsense: if Nick Griffin and the BNP were to suddenly say communism was an evil ideology, it would not thereby automatically become a good one, and the same is true of Islam.

*even if some people do think super-competitive Hindu IT wizards in Bangalore are threatening their jobs ...

Comments

[J.Cassian]

"there are some religions that back up the establishment, the rich and the powerful"

That sets off a few warning bells. The religion to which Rees is referring is not necessarily Christianity. On the other hand, there's no way "the socialism of fools" could have any appeal to the deep thinkers of the SWP, is there?

And, lest we forget:

"Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.

"What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money."

[dsquared]

[Ever wondered why it is that some people will go through the most astounding contortions of reasoning to avoid facing the facts about mainstream "moderate" Islam and what its strictures demand?]

In my case at least, it's because we don't think that they're facts. By the way, if you're going to characterise the views of other people as believing that Muslims are:

[necessarily saintly figures, forced by circumstances imposed by the "rich and powerful" Westerners to indulge in the acts of barbarism which plague our airwaves and newspapers on a daily basis]

then you are going to find it hard to insist that other people pay very much attention to the fine distinctions you want to draw between "not being opposed" to mass deportation of Muslims and being "in favour of it if it were feasible". If you're actually interested in the answer to the question that forms your first paragraph, then it would make sense to keep the rhetoric and the logical argument separate.

The reason I don't believe that these facts are facts is that I'm one of

[those who must live with its adherents]

because there are loads of Muslims in the London Borough of Camden (they even have a mosque in Finsbury Park) and they don't strike fear into the heart of me, or anyone else for that matter. This is because they're actually quite a sensible community who do a fair to reasonable job of policing the nutters in their midst and try to go about their lives in a sensible and adult way, in the face of some fairly severe and fairly constant provocation. They certainly cause less trouble these days than the Irish did in the 60s and 70s when they were the local despised minority.

[everywhere they are to be found]

they are "to be found" in Hampstead Garden Suburb these days, you know.

And I do still think that you in turn, are not taking remotely seriously enough the proposition that part of the reason that a lot of Muslims across the world don't like the "Culture of Enlightenment (TM)" is that over the last hundred years, the CoE(tm) has behaved pretty abominably in a lot of parts of the world where lots of Muslims have been living.

[Frank McGahon]

[are loads of Muslims in the London Borough of Camden (they even have a mosque in Finsbury Park]

Hmm. Last time I looked, Finsbury Park Mosque was in the London Borough of Haringey and had acquired some sort of notoriety precisely because of the "nutters" it hosted. If it hadn't been for some robust "policing" from without the community, the community would never have gotten round to a "reasonable job" of policing those nutters themselves. Perhaps a better example might have been Regent's Park mosque which is a short (and pleasant) stroll from the London Borough of Camden.

[dsquared]

sorry, I meant Regent's Park obviously, my mistake. Although Abu Hamza had, by the time the Met got interested, already long since been prevented from preaching at Finsbury Park Mosque by the Charities Commission (who apparently regulate who gets to be an imam in the UK, who knew) at the request of the mosque's trustees who got sick of him making the community look bad. For the last two years he was hosting his sermons on the street outside the mosque, and regularly getting into scraps with local Muslims.

[dsquared]

(for what it's worth, the story I have heard from mates who go to that mosque is that Hamza showed up in the 1990s with his hook, some dodgy credentials as a Muslim scholar and a ton of useful cash from somewhere. The mosque needed the cash so it let him in. By the time they realised he was a bad 'un it was too late, because it is surprisingly difficult under either Islamic or British law to remove an imam from his position; it's kind of like tenure. He was so unpleasant that normal people just stopped going to the mosque and it became a magnet for loonies. After Sept 11 obviously this could not be tolerated at all and locals started prevailing on the trustees to do something. Hamza has always had good lawyers so it took six months to find some way of getting him out but he was suspended in March 2002 and eventually forced out a year later. To my certain knowledge this phenomenon (a small group of loonies ending up, by a self-reinforcing process, taking complete control of a religious institution which properly belongs to a much larger group of sane people, and it being very difficult to get rid of them when they do) is not a purely Islamic phenomenon because it happened to a nearby chapel when I was growing up.

[Ajak]

Adding to the Marx quote above, he was also right when he wrote: Religion is the opiate of the people. I am sure those seasonal rioters and masters of genocide--all peoples of the book plus Hindusim, etc--- must be stoking their brains with some kind of opiate before they burst forth to riot, burn and loot.

[Charlie]

dsquared's pathetic attempts at relativism washes with no one. He can wriggle and squirm as much as he wants but for some of us(who hitherto were sceptical but not necessarily antagonistic towards Islam) the mask has truly finally slipped.

[dsquared]

I suspect that the above comment timestamped February 25, 2006 at 12:31 AM, might be the output of an automatic text generator. I certainly seem to remember for a college project writing something that would put together phrases like "washes with no one" and "the mask has truly finally slipped".

Assuming the opposite, what point are you making Charlie? Are you saying that I'm "a relativist" and that's bad? Or that I attempt (pathetically) to be a relativist but fail and end up endorsing some absolute standard? Or that I am actually a dhimmi fifth columnist who only pretends to be a relativist in order to advance the agenda of my Islamist masters? I have a horrible suspicion that it's the last one. If Abiola wants to delete both of these comments for being offtopic that would be fine with me by the way.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"To my certain knowledge this phenomenon (a small group of loonies ending up, by a self-reinforcing process, taking complete control of a religious institution which properly belongs to a much larger group of sane people, and it being very difficult to get rid of them when they do) is not a purely Islamic phenomenon because it happened to a nearby chapel when I was growing up."

Daniel, you know enough about the social sciences to find the dodge here. Is it a PURELY Islamic phenomenon? No. It is a human phenomenon. Is it a problem much MORE LIKELY found in modern Islam than other major religions? That is what you want to avoid looking at. Is it a problem more likely found to be violently directed against the secular West when employed by Islam? That is what you want to avoid examining.

You play the same semantic games with "small group of loonies". Are these a small group of loonies who are attempting by violence to force their idiocy on the entire world? For most modern religions, no. For Islam, more so than other religions. Are they small on the scale of tens, hundreds or thousands? You don't want to specifically identify that either.

I don't think it is moral relativism as you are pefectly capable of getting on your high horse.

[dsquared]

No, Sebastian, what I want to avoid looking at is a situation in which intelligent civilised Westerners think it is OK to persecute Muslims in Britain. I am all over looking at whether there is anything intrinsic to Islam which makes it particularly threatening; so far my conclusion is that there isn't, not once you take into account the fact that Islam is predominantly a religion found in underdeveloped countries.

When talking about "a small group of loonies determined to force their idiocy on the rest of the world", you might do well to substitute "ideology" for "idiocy" because adding insults to an analysis makes it clearer. Then it becomes clear that we in the democratic West do, very definitely, have small numbers of people who are determined to spread our values throughout the world, and on at least one occasion in the last five years they have got into a position where they were able to start a war.

[Abiola]

"so far my conclusion is that there isn't, not once you take into account the fact that Islam is predominantly a religion found in underdeveloped countries."

As is Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Voudun and many, many other religions which have no similar record of death threats and embassy burnings springing up simply because of cartoons printed in tiny, faraway countries, and in any case, by far the greatest producers of terror in the Muslim world aren't the most indigent countries like Niger or Mauretania, but the wealthiest, like Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Kuwait, with the terrorists and preachers of hate coming disproportionately from the best educated strata.

As much as you like to insinuate that others are lumping masses of brown people together to demonize them, the one truly guilty of the lumping here is *you*, for wanting to pretend that poverty necessarily makes all those swarthy African and Asian hordes equally likely to indulge in mayhem whenever someone dares to transgress their religious taboos; poverty is not an excuse to abandon minimum standards of decency and restraint, and if any writer anywhere on this planet has ever been sent a death threat for saying nasty things about Orisha-nla or Yemoja, I've yet to hear of it.

The fact is that Muslims are *by far* the least tolerant of criticism or dissent of the major religious groups which are followed by the world's poor, and this is no aberration but a *direct consequence* of the commands of the Koran and the Hadiths, as interpreted by orthodox, well-established methods which have existed and been elaborated upon for *centuries*; when all those angry protesters and irate imams demand that those who have "insulted the prophet" be killed, they are acting within the normal framework of an all-embracing and highly sophisticated (albeit brutal) worldview accepted by hundreds of millions across the globe, not being mere stooges manipulated by a few puppet masters, as much as it may suit your desire to play "David defending the poor brownies who know no better" to insist otherwise.

What is really at issue here is your refusal to take what Muslims believe seriously, preferring to indulge patronizing notions of benighted masses awaiting the civilizing effect of financial uplift rather than seriously considering that theirs is a worldview which simply isn't reconcilable with yours (or at least not with a liberal, democratic one). For me the best proof of this, even more so than your ever more credulity-defying efforts to avoid facing the facts, is that I have not once seen you make any reference to the actual *contents* of all that Islamic learning you insist is no more harmful than any other - as far as I can tell you've never even read the Koran, let alone the Sunnah, the Hadiths or any texts laying out the philosophies of the four main schools of jurisprudence which constitute the Shariah, and you certainly know nothing of life in any predominantly Muslim environments from personal experience, yet you feel confident enough to blithely state what Muslims do or do not believe based solely on your casual contacts with newspaper vendors and your conviction that poverty is the root cause of all evil.

Where I and others you disagree with differ from you on this issue is that we *do* take Muslim beliefs seriously, and in my case at least, seriously enough to have put in lots of effort learning about them in as much detail as possible, and the conclusion we arrive at from having done so is that unfortunately said beliefs are indeed incompatible with freedom of speech and opinion, equality of the sexes, separation of church and state, legislative accountability and so forth, however internally consistent and elaborated upon this Islamic worldview may be. At least we critics pay the Muslims we criticize the compliment of regarding them as individuals with ideas worth examining in earnest - even if the result of such examination is the conclusion that theirs is a way of life which we can never accept - which is more than can be said for you.

[dsquared]

Well no: I think it's a direct consequence of the (historical and contingent) fact that Islamism is a political movement, whereas there is no similar political movement among Buddhists, Taoist and Hindus (except for a small number of Hindu-fascist groups in India, which have been plenty violent enough and often in response to some fairly small provocations).

Confucians and Buddhists have been pretty horrifically violent in SouthEast Asia, except that nobody really noticed this because they were also Communists (in some cases; in other cases they dropped their religion when they joined the party, but it's pretty daft to say that atheism is the most violent creed, though quite possibly factually correct).

[As much as you like to insinuate that others are lumping masses of brown people together to demonize them]

This is certainly an improvement from claiming I actually said it but no, I don't insinuate this either. I am only interested in the explicit claim made by you (and endorsed by a bunch of others on this blog) that Islam is intrinsically violent and inimical to Western society, to the extent that British Muslims should be singled out for persecution (and a bar on further immigration would certainly be a form of persecution, even if we set to one side the question of deportation).

I regard the business of ploughing through the Koran looking for the violent bits as every bit as silly as doing the same thing with the Bible, or indeed reading through Dr Ian Paisley's book on how the Pope is the AntiChrist as a guide to Northern Irish politics. I view this as a *political* crisis, not a religious one, and I think the evidence backs me up on this - so does Paul Berman so it is by no means a position confined to those of us who are trying to erase the Islamic Threat.

I actually have quite a lot of first-hand experience of rich, civilised Islamic countries in the Middle East, which apparently you don't. I also know a lot of British and French Muslims - not just newspaper vendors - and I do not agree with the view of Osama bin Laden and Abu Hamza that my friends are blasphemers and apostates. Your research into Islam appears to have led you to a view in which civilised, Westernised Muslims who believe in democracy, sexual equality and human rights are at the very least seriously confused about the nature of their own religion and quite possibly actual apostates. I don't agree with your research.

[Kenji]

"Where I and others you disagree with differ from you on this issue is that we *do* take Muslim beliefs seriously, and in my case at least, seriously enough to have put in lots of effort learning about them in as much detail as possible, and the conclusion we arrive at from having done so is that unfortunately said beliefs are indeed incompatible with freedom of speech and opinion, equality of the sexes, separation of church and state, legislative accountability and so forth, however internally consistent and elaborated upon this Islamic worldview may be."

Abiola,

One thing that concerns me about this view is that all religious texts are contingent on their cultural and historical contexts. Religions such as Christianity and Buddhism have had their fair share of the violent human history (Crusade is an obvious example for Christianity; what the Japanses Buddhist monks did during the Sengoku period is a good example for Buddhism---This is why Oda Nobunaga had to wage a vicious war against them, right?). Based on my knowledge of Islam (which is far more limited than yours, I admit), it appears to have teachings that have a greater PROBABILITY of encouraging violence among its followers than many other religions, but it is not an INEVITABILITY. Just as many Christians today accept evolution, homosexuality and do not necessarily believe that all atheists will go to hell (despite such views being explicitly in conflict with the Bible), more peaceful doctrines could be read into Islamic texts as well.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Your research into Islam appears to have led you to a view in which civilised, Westernised Muslims who believe in democracy, sexual equality and human rights are at the very least seriously confused about the nature of their own religion and quite possibly actual apostates. I don't agree with your research."

This is the inverse of your fuzziness with numbers above. What percentage of Muslims do you think believe in democracy as a good idea? What percentage do you think believe in sexual equality?

"No, Sebastian, what I want to avoid looking at is a situation in which intelligent civilised Westerners think it is OK to persecute Muslims in Britain. I am all over looking at whether there is anything intrinsic to Islam which makes it particularly threatening; so far my conclusion is that there isn't, not once you take into account the fact that Islam is predominantly a religion found in underdeveloped countries.

When talking about "a small group of loonies determined to force their idiocy on the rest of the world", you might do well to substitute "ideology" for "idiocy" because adding insults to an analysis makes it clearer. Then it becomes clear that we in the democratic West do, very definitely, have small numbers of people who are determined to spread our values throughout the world, and on at least one occasion in the last five years they have got into a position where they were able to start a war."

Once again you can't bear to be specific because spelling it out would make you look silly. Do you believe Osama bin Laden attacked the US because of George Bush? You aren't one of those fools who thinks that it was because Bush didn't sign Kyoto are you? You are aware that Osama bin Laden was attacking the US under Clinton I presume?

And you can't maintain a coherent argument on the underdeveloped countries bit either. When initially called on it by Abiola you retreat to "I think it's a direct consequence of the (historical and contingent) fact that Islamism is a political movement, whereas there is no similar political movement among Buddhists, Taoist and Hindus"

You previously wanted to avoid saying anything about Islam in specific, but the fact is that Islam does not recognize a boundary in the border between the religious and the secular. It is unsurprising that its 'religious' movements would also be political movements and that its 'political' movements would be religious. Lo and behold, that is part of the problem with Islam. That isn't a part of the problem with being poor or being religious or being an idiot. A dominant strain of Islam brings those things together in a way that is especially dangerous. And the moderates in Islam don't seem to be able to stop it--or even slow it down.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Kenji, you write (to Abiola)"Based on my knowledge of Islam (which is far more limited than yours, I admit), it appears to have teachings that have a greater PROBABILITY of encouraging violence among its followers than many other religions, but it is not an INEVITABILITY."

Of course it isn't an inevitability. But it requires that moderates wrest power from the extremists. They appear unable to do so and in many countries (possibly including some in the West) unwilling to try.

[Kenji]

"Of course it isn't an inevitability. But it requires that moderates wrest power from the extremists. They appear unable to do so and in many countries (possibly including some in the West) unwilling to try."

If we agree on this point, then is it really productive to attack Islam in a way that suggests that it is intrinsically violent and inconsistent with the norms of a liberal world? Your response suggests that it is the failure of politics we are witnessing, not that of ideas.

[dsquared]

[What percentage of Muslims do you think believe in democracy as a good idea? What percentage do you think believe in sexual equality? ]

Roughly 80% in the UK is a number which has been fairly consistently found across surveys. Roughly 5% is the level of support for violent action, so I would actually say that there are another 15% who are "passively" in favour of democracy.

[Do you believe Osama bin Laden attacked the US because of George Bush?]

No, but I'm pretty sure that the 7/7 bombers were politicised by the Iraq War.

[ but the fact is that Islam does not recognize a boundary in the border between the religious and the secular. It is unsurprising that its 'religious' movements would also be political movements and that its 'political' movements would be religious]

Actually it is very surprising, and everyone was, in fact, surprised when Islamism turned out to be the movement which survived from the popular parties of the Arab world after the war, rather than Ba'athism or pan-Arabism. In fact Islamism's success had a lot to do with the amount of support that it got from the CIA and similar, but I suppose it's rude and/or unserious to mention that.

[dsquared]

just to amplify my comment above, there were certainly a lot of Communists in the UK during the Cold War who were fundamentally opposed to bourgeois democracy but who were not prepared to take up arms against it, and I suspect that a lot of the 20% of Muslims who don't support democracy in opinion polls are in the same position.

Similarly, if you read the Manifesto and Lenin's "What is to be done?" you would not necessarily believe that it was possible to be a Communist but not to be a violent revolutionary, but the evidence from the Cold War is that it was.

Since we're all about asking questions Sebastian, do you think that Islam is a greater or lesser threat to Western culture than Communism was? (I ask this because we never interned Communists, nor did we make it a criterion for immigration, nor did we for the most part get anything like as worked up about it as some people now are about Islam, and on the few occasions that we broke this rule it was a big mistake).

[Chuckles]

[...Islam is predominantly a religion...]

[...Islamism is a political movement, whereas there is no similar political movement among Buddhists, Taoist and Hindus...]

The assumption of course; is that the rise of Islamism has nothing to do with Islam itself. Until such crimes as what we have witnessed over the past days and years begin to subside within the Islamic community - then every thinking person is right to conclude that Islam - as we know it - is violent and inimical to liberalism. Bringing up excuses or examples from the past will do nothing to dent this simple conclusion: Nor will bringing up the spectre of Islamic reform. The simple fact of the matter is that the Nazis of today are reformed gentlemen - yet, any thinking person in 1936 would have been right to conclude that Nazism was a violent ideology inimical to liberal society. Saying that "softer meanings" might be read into Islamic texts has nothing to do with us today; in our assessment of Islam which is always based on contemporary evidence. The communists of today are all Gentlemen interned in Universities, but any thinking person in the 40s would have been right to conclude Communism as a violent movement inimical to liberal society. The simple fact of the matter is that all the civilized Muslim Gentlepersons in faraway lands which inform his view of Islam are entirely negligible variables when it comes to how Islam interacts with the rest of the world. The idea, that Islamism is a political movement and hence compensates for the fact that we havent seen any comparable violence from the practitioners of religions that are also predominantly found in poor societies is also telling: I suppose that there is possibly no reason for why it is Islam that has been politicised among the religions of poor people? Even making the neccesary adjustments for Buddhist and Hinduist violence (for the latter, often in the face of Islamic deviancy), *today* what are the statuses of those religions? The truth of the matter is that from its inception, Islam most always has been like this - so claiming Islamism as a political movement divergent from the rest of Islamic history is simply bogus!
Re: Communists - Again, the threat from Islamists today is greater than the threat from Communism. This is very clear. We are dealing with amorphous, stateless, insidious enemies, who dont need a Cuban missile crisis to detonate dirty bombs. What after all, was the body count of those the West lost in a direct Communist assault?

[dsquared]

[The assumption of course; is that the rise of Islamism has nothing to do with Islam itself.]

I can see we're going to have to start calling you Sherlock, Chuckles.

[the Nazis of today are reformed gentlemen]

[...]

[The communists of today are all Gentlemen interned in Universities]

hmmmm if there had been a long tradition of democratic and civilised Nazism in the 1930s, you might have had more of a point.

[the civilized Muslim Gentlepersons in faraway lands which inform his view of Islam ]

Britain is not a faraway land, nor is France, although Nigeria is.

[dsquared]

[claiming Islamism as a political movement divergent from the rest of Islamic history is simply bogus!]

Well no; anyone who thinks that Islamism is a mainstream point of view in the Muslim world really ought to have a theory of why it is that actually existing Islamists have almost exclusively been regarded as dangerous fundamentalist nutters in all actually existing Islamic states (including sharia law states) and usually persecuted, imprisoned and killed.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Since we're all about asking questions Sebastian, do you think that Islam is a greater or lesser threat to Western culture than Communism was? (I ask this because we never interned Communists, nor did we make it a criterion for immigration, nor did we for the most part get anything like as worked up about it as some people now are about Islam, and on the few occasions that we broke this rule it was a big mistake)."

I think in the long run it is likely to be about the same level of threat, but right at this very second (since Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons) it is less.

But I don't think you see me advocating internment of Muslims anyway.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I don't understand your constant harping on alleged 'mainstream' Islamic thought. If what you call mainstream had any control over Islamists we wouldn't be having this discussion. Stalin wasn't a mainstream Communist, but he was the Communist with the power. Mao wasn't a mainstream theorist but he had the power to kill millions. Worrying about 'mainstream' is a very democratic idea. Islamic countries aren't famously democratic. Islamic thought doesn't have much to do with with democracy.

[dsquared]

[Stalin wasn't a mainstream Communist, but he was the Communist with the power. Mao wasn't a mainstream theorist but he had the power to kill millions]

Yes this is exactly the point. Stalin and Mao were in charge of large states. Osama bin Laden is hiding in a cave. It could be possible that this is Osama's "Long March" that will take him to power in a populous country which could pose a credible threat to us but I think not.

[Chuckles]

[...hmmmm if there had been a long tradition of democratic and civilised Nazism in the 1930s, you might have had more of a point...]

And this argument would seem less like a useless riposte, if there were indeed a long tradition of democratic and civilized Islam which there simply isnt - By civilized, I, of course mean liberal, though of course, I assume that you see this.

But again, assuming that this democratic and civilized Islam was something other than a fairy tale - It still doesnt make the point. The fact is that Nazism was democratic, Nazism was civilized, and in fact, the philosophical antecedents of Nazism had existed for quite some time in existence *with* liberal society - to varying degrees - and yet: Any thinking person: Despite the democracy of the Nazis, or their high falutin' civilization, and the relatively long tradition which birthed these - would have been right to conclude Nazism as violent and inimical to liberal society in the 1930s.

[...I actually have quite a lot of first-hand experience of rich, civilised Islamic countries in the Middle East, which apparently you don't...]

[...Britain is not a faraway land, nor is France, although Nigeria is...]

And this of course makes perfect sense: Brining up Britain and France in response to a reference to countries in the Middle East. I suppose it wouldnt be too much of psychoanalytic sherlocking to assume that in your mind, Britain and France are in fact the Middle East?

[...I can see we're going to have to start calling you Sherlock, Chuckles...]

But of course: The deductions are elementary. And I will point out that I am beginning to suspect that the "D" in DSquared stands for something akin to knavery, but then again, it might just as well stand for Dhimmi, or any of the other honorary titles you have acquired in your illustrous career.