Steyn vs. the Islamist Crazies
March 31, 2006, 6:59 am |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
Mark Steyn knows his history, and ponders “Facing down a culture where they talk like crazies.” He points out an example of how the British dealt with cultural sensitivities during their rule in India, and draws a connection to the West’s handling of Islamist jihad, in light of the cartoon controversy and the death sentence that Afghan Abdul Rahman faced for converting to Christianity. Here’s Steyn writing for the Chicago Sun Times:
At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies.
Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. …
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
‘’You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
India today is better off without suttee.
Hat-tip to Bob B.
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Categories, Tags: Islam, War Against Islamo-fascism
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