OPINION:
In recent weeks, we have been put on notice repeatedly: Absent a fundamental course correction, America will go the way of Europe and others before it, succumbing to an insidious totalitarian doctrine known as Shariah whose purpose, in the words of its prime practitioners - the Muslim Brotherhood - is to “destroy Western civilization from within.”
Hurricanes, earthquakes and fiscal crises are preoccupations of the moment. Unless we heed the warnings being issued by three of our most brilliant strategic thinkers, Mark Steyn, Bat Ye’or and Andrew C. McCarthy, however, we risk an irreversible national calamity.
Each of these authors has published in the past month powerful alarums about the steady erosion of the West’s societies, governing institutions and freedoms at the hands of Shariah’s adherents and their enablers on the left.
Mr. Steyn released “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” a much-awaited sequel to his best-seller, “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.” Bat Ye’or, who popularized the terms “Eurabia” and “dhimmitude” to describe what is befalling the Europeans at the hands of those seeking to subjugate all nonbelievers as enslaved “dhimmis,” published “Europe, Globalization and the Coming Universal Caliphate.” And just last week, Mr. McCarthy, author of “The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America,” wrote a brilliant column for National Review Online: “Losing Malmo, and Brussels and Rome and Amsterdam.”
A consistent theme of these three important works is that we run grave risks in taking for granted the permanence of a world order dominated by liberal democracies and led by the United States. Yet, we are doing so even as evidence accumulates that Islamists, led by the Muslim Brotherhood and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), are making steady strides toward their goal of establishing a new, transnational order. They would have it take the form of a global “caliphate,” in which the world will be ruled in accordance with Shariah.
Sound crazy? It may be. But if history teaches us anything, it is that determined, disciplined and ruthless people can do incalculable harm to others in the pursuit of crazy, supremacist goals.
What is truly crazy, though, is the role being played today by “progressive” intelligentsia doing today what they have done in the face of totalitarians of the past: facilitating the latter’s frightening ambitions. I have had the privilege of interviewing each of these three authors over the past few weeks on Secure Freedom Radio and the message could not be more clear: We persist in such behavior at our extreme peril.
Of particular concern is the corrosive effect of the phenomenon known by such names as “transnationalism,” “multiculturalism” and “globalization.” For many in Europe, it has become effectively a new religion, contributing to the precipitous decline of Christianity. To paraphrase Karl Marx, this postmodern, post-national program provides a kind of opiate that numbs the masses to the dangers of acquiescing to the Muslim Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad.”
European nations are now increasingly reaping the whirlwind thus sown. Of particular concern are what are known as “no-go zones” - areas where the authorities dare not enter. These are becoming increasingly common across the continent and in the United Kingdom as Muslim-populated enclaves apply Shariah law and drive out those who do not conform. These zones are the direct result of accommodations made in the name of “diversity” and “sensitivity” to Islamic religio-cultural norms, which comprise the supremacist doctrine of Shariah. European leaders are beginning publicly to renounce such practices, but their governments have yet to act accordingly.
Make no mistake. If we fail to heed the warnings of Mark Steyn, Bat Ye’or and Andrew C. McCarthy, a similar fate awaits us. Already, the U.S. government has been engaged in serial acts of appeasement of Muslim Brotherhood fronts and other Shariah-adherents. These include: a director of national intelligence who admits to relying on such groups to provide “advice, counsel and wisdom” about “extremists” in their midst; White House direction that all government-funded counterterrorism training will be conducted in accordance with direction of a Department of Homeland Security deeply compromised by the Brotherhood; a new Obama “strategy” for local law enforcement that requires “partnering” with what amount to enemy front organizations; and a Hillary Rodham Clinton-engineered initiative with the OIC aimed at curbing expression that can have negative “consequences” for Muslims.
In the face of such folly, members of Congress and private citizens are striving not merely to halt these and other examples of reckless official “engagement” with the Muslim Brotherhood, they are beginning to roll back the Muslim Brotherhood. With the leadership of two freshmen, Rep. Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Republican, and Rep. Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Republican, the House of Representatives has adopted amendments aimed at denying any taxpayer funding to the Brotherhood. These and similar initiatives by citizens across the nation are being profiled at a new website sponsored by the Center for Security Policy, TheRollback.org. Their stories serve as a powerful inspiration and impetus for similar efforts by others.
It is past time for Americans to awaken to the danger posed by Shariah and its adherents. We can no longer ignore the inroads made by these forces into Western civilization’s European flank. And we certainly cannot delude ourselves into believing that our homeland will remain immune from their predations as long as we persist in the same sorts of appeasement that have brought our friends and allies across the Atlantic to their present, parlous state.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy (SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program “Secure Freedom Radio,” heard in Washington weekdays at 9 p.m. on WRC-AM 1260.
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