Given the apparent failure of the “multi-cultural” theories promoted by the leftists, who want to see Muslim radicals as their comrades-in-arms against rampant capitalism, and also by liberal Christians and Centrists who believe that economic growth and sheer “tolerance” solve all problems by making everyone a happy camper, a reaction is now quietly taking place among many Europeans as well as in North America.
One of the most eloquent and well versed exponents of this new thinking is veteran French politician and entrepreneur, Member of European Parliament and ex-Presidential candidate Philippe de Villiers, who has studied the Islamic scriptures in depth. In his book and many speeches he looks at realities instead of repeating the reassuring slogans and platitudes of those who want to believe that “peace and love will win in the end” and that terrorism cannot prevail against democracy. Those who make that determination or rather express that hope, he points out, don’t reflect enough on what sort of terrorism and what type of democracy they refer to.
The combination of violent attacks instilling chronic fear and instability in society with the rapid demographic spread of a religious community which imposes its ways and wishes in matters of food, dress, customs, gender relations and celebrations can drastically transform an ageing permissive, atomistic nation in which people are not used to armed conflict. This is the case for most prosperous western countries.
The threat is even bigger in a context in which personal tranquillity and social benefits are top priorities and in which much of the youth suffers from major identity problems, a lack of guidance, supervision, hopes, ideals and spiritual convictions. Most mass media and advertising messages encourage everyone and especially vulnerable teenagers to “explore their sexual identity”, “try everything” and not believe in anything, especially not in their own religions, nations and destiny, all notions that have been systematically undermined and dismantled by the “deconstructionist” critical theory conceived by the Frankfurt School.
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, reflecting on the global spread of what he qualifies as a “mediocre civilisation” notes “we are in a tunnel, at the twilight of dogmatism and the dawn of real (inter-cultural) dialogue”.
As Philippe de Villiers put it, one cannot make people wish to integrate into a foreign community only based on abstract republican laws, which he compares to traffic rules and which are intended to serve material interests or the convenience of the bureaucracy. The mere promotion of a spiritually agnostic and misleading ideal of personal freedom through the pursuit of financial comfort is not an adequate response to the quest for meaning and transcendence, which impels human beings and especially the young, once their basic physical needs are satisfied.
The liberal leftists and the self styled anti-fascist shock troops must give up their dangerous delusions that the war against the Right or the rich can be won in an alliance with the Takfiris by throwing open the doors to all and any immigrants, even if that entails national impoverishment, a breakdown of economic, social structures and the reign of violent anarchy.
Without being instilled with pride in their country’s legends, uplifting beliefs and ideals, people, whether indigenous or immigrant cannot be expected to have loyalty to the larger society from their hearts. Indeed most of the Muslim immigrants in Europe live in ghettos and know very little of French history, culture and ways of life which for them are mostly associated with colonial wars and occupation of their lands of origin. Their family environments and the news they watch on satellite TV turn them towards their ethnic nations and often present a vision of the Islamic dispensation as a panacea, in contrast to the “infidel’s” atheistic system, which they tend to see as unjust and corrupt. That situation must change and Villiers points out that France too, like other states in the same situation, must reform to respond to the threat. He concurs with Ricoeur’s diagnosis that the global consumer culture results in “a subtle destruction not only of traditional cultures […] but also of […] the creative nucleus of great civilizations”.
Those resident and immigrant Muslims who want to embrace their land of adoption must be given better opportunities and guidance to absorb that cultural humanistic influence, while those who reject it and desire to live in a Salafist mental and social enclave will have to leave. The current ruling ideological and political system does not allow to implement such a logical solution, but there will be hell to pay if a reform is not carried out in that spirit.
Villiers likes to quote the late King of Morocco Hassan II who once said to him: “You westerners will never assimilate most Muslims because the Ummah takes precedence over nationality.” In the view of those who advocate this renaissance of national cultures in order to protect themselves from social disintegration, a moral revival must be based on the promotion of all that is noble, beautiful and admirable in the tradition of a nation. Villiers has long practised what he preaches at the vast historical recreational park he has built with his family at the Puy du Fou, where a succession of magnificent theatrical enactments, enhanced by sound and light and state-of-the art special effects evoke the legends and the history of France along 20 centuries of achievements, struggle, trials and pageantry. Two million visitors come to bask in that magical atmosphere every year and the founder has made a particular effort to attract Muslim children so that they may get to know and like the romance of France and her way of life as part of their education. Their minds need to be opened and provided with an alternative to the morbid desire for terrorist violence and martyrdom, but not let loose in a barren landscape of abstract human rights, wanton sexual choices, conflicting claims of victimhood and injustice, which leave minds frustrated and angry and make them lose respect for the society they live in.
It is no secret that a large proportion of the children of African and Arab origin in Europe, and not just the economically disadvantaged ones, imbibe very early the notion that European women and girls are promiscuous, immodest and deserve to be treated as sexual objects. That is an effect of the incompatibility between the patriarchal and pious family environment they are raised in and the cynical and sexually blatant and permissive ways of life that are constantly shown and promoted in the mass media and even in the school and university system. Such a clash of values can have explosively destructive results.
The conservative, religiously oriented cultures that most of the migrants from the “developing world” belong to, share certain commonalities with the traditional Judeo-Christian morality of Europe, so that the alternative ideal upheld by fundamentalist Islamists often strikes a chord in the minds and souls of westerners, who feel disappointed and disoriented in the turbulent and confusing globalised market society.
To this psychological widespread disarray bankers, economists, business managers and state bureaucrats can offer no real solution and the field is thus left
open for extremists to reap bodies and souls and train them for the execution of their violent designs, often by using the most sophisticated brain-washing technologies developed in videogames and aided by the consumption of psychotropic drugs such as captagon, regarded as the mind-altering pill which helps many terrorist assassins to go on murderous rampage and commit suicide without qualms or inhibitions.
The transformation of modern societies which would enable them to vanquish the terrorist hydra will not come easy because it requires a fundamental change in their guiding principles. The liberal leftists and the self styled anti-fascist shock troops must give up their dangerous delusions that the war against the Right or the rich can be won in an alliance with the Takfiris by throwing open the doors to all and any immigrants, even if that entails national impoverishment, a breakdown of economic and social structures and the reign of violent anarchy.
The drive to break all taboos (save the new “politically correct” ones) and destroy traditional cultures and hierarchies can only lead to catastrophe or bring about a reassertion of the most authoritarian and puritanical forces. In a way, ISIS is an embodiment of such a reaction to the current loss of moral and spiritual compass. The Egyptian Spring, which began on Tahrir Square in Cairo a few years ago, was initiated by young modernising liberals, but ended with the election of the Muslim Brothers whose power grab in turn was stopped by a military coup. The socialists, anarchists and liberals who try to accommodate jihadi ideologues and their brigades in the name of multi-cultural tolerance will probably experience the same kind of rude awakening, if they succeed in their project to build a global secular cosmopolis on the ruins of ancient regional and patriotic identities. It may soon be too late for Europe if the transnational elites continue to enforce the Brussels hatched model of “Eurislam”.
Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo rightly points out that “civilisation is the space of inter-cultural communication”, but it is willing actors who create that space, not those who refuse dialogue except to impose their rule on others. Philosophers may continue to argue and even agree but they will not prevent others from killing and dying. A new script must be written if the play is to end well.
Link of part 1 Terrorism is undermining western societies