Gingrich/bin Laden: your respective Civilizations aren't interested in your Clash

I've tried to avoid weighing in on this subject in any depth, simply because I get too outraged and find it nearly impossible to think, speak, or write clearly after that. But as you'll surely have heard, Newt Gingrich made a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute entitled "America at Risk: Camus, National Security, and Afghanistan" (pdf). Take a look at it if you like, or just trust my summary: Gingrich thinks we're at war with Islam (or as he would draw the difference-less distinction, with "Islamism") and believes it's necessary to mobilize all of our national resources to combat the creeping destruction of our civilization. Sounds like someone else I know. William Saletan and Max Fisher do a great job of drawing out the parallels. Here's Saletan:

In the years since 9/11, Osama Bin Laden has issued more than 20 audio and video statements to spread his view of the conflict between the United States and al-Qaida. According to his worldview, the United States represents Christianity, al-Qaida represents Muslims, Christians won't protect Muslims, the West hates mosques, peaceful coexistence is a fraud, and the "war on terrorism" is really a war on Islam. By spreading this message, Bin Laden works to turn Muslims against the United States and rally them to al-Qaida.

Now Bin Laden has an ally in this propaganda campaign: Newt Gingrich.

Over the past two weeks, in a series of articles and speeches, Gingrich has declared a religious war that suits al-Qaida's agenda almost perfectly. While denouncing "Islamists" rather than Islam, Gingrich has blurred the distinction by selecting as his initial target the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. Everything Bin Laden says about the United States, Gingrich validates.

He then presents a side-by-side comparison of bin Laden and Gingrich's thoughts on the subject of culture/civilizational war. The similarities are striking. Read it.

Max has more here on how Gingrich's speech fits into the broader picture of his own political ambitions and divisions within the GOP on security policy.

As I've said in the comments to this post, I think this issue is a vitally important one. I'm going to continue my policy of relative silence, though, because as I've said, I lose my mind when I start thinking about Newt effing Gingrich or the people opposing Muslim Day at Six Flags as the vanguard of a civilizational army fighting for ME. F that noise.

(And while we're on the subject, check out what Ex has to say about the mosque controversy. I think he's a little too focused on the Establishment Clause but completely agree on the broader sentiment.)

This is the kind of thing that makes me think we haven't seen the end of civil violence in America

How can the country continue to exist in relative peace and harmony (and by that I mean widespread consensus on the right of the government to exist, and widespread tolerance for the divergent views of one's fellow man) when people like this agitate against basically everything good and decent?

On the Tea Party Patriots website, a member posted an item entitled, "Stop Six Flags Muslim Family Day" which includes a missive from Annie Hamilton, an L.A. woman leading the charge against the park. She writes:

Muslim Day at Six Flags is inappropriate for a multitude of reasons and I'm saddened and shocked by the ignorance of the Corporate folks and by the action that now must be taken by the rest of us.

First, Islam is NOT a religion, it is an ideology - the religious portion only encompasses 11 % (the qur'an) the rest is the Sira and Hadith and the closest parallel to Islam is the Ku Klux Klan - if that is Six Flag's idea of 'appropriate' then by all means, hold your day on September 12th but don't plan on expanding any time soon because not only will we ensure that you don't grow, we'll make sure that your parks become a thing of the past...

STOP THE SILENCE. STOP THE NONSENCE. STOP THE MUSLIM DAY - THEY ARE NOT AMERICANS. THEY DO NOT ABIDE BY OUR CONSTITUTION - THEY ARE NOT ONE OF US - YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR AGAINST US - MAKE YOUR DECISION.

This is all about teabagger protests against Six Flags hosting a "Muslim Day" in which the park will cater to a minority with modestly-dressed park workers and halal food.

Seriously, how will this not end in a fight?

(Also, random, wild coincidence: the Mother Jones article I've linked to above was written by my old landlord. Wild.)

EDIT: To clarify, my old landlord did not write the anti-Muslim screed I've excerpted above. She wrote the article from which I've excerpted that quote. Added the lead-in sentence and nested the quote within the broader excerpt to try to make it more clear.

I have this sinking feeling

You know that scene from The Godfather after they've gone to the mattresses and Michael's exiled to Sicily, the one that's like a time lapse of the mob war where there's the kind of ragtimey piano music playing, and the newspaper keeps spinning out into the foreground with headlines like "POLICE HUNT COP-KILLER" and "CITY CRACKS DOWN" and "THIRD MONTH OF GANGLAND VIOLENCE" and whatnot? You see the same device used in like the Time-Life documentary series about THE RISE OF THE THIRD REICH, this foreshadowing with "HITLER ELECTED TO LEAD GERMANY" and "JEWS FORCED TO REGISTER WITH GOVERNMENT" and "WEHRMACHT ROLLS INTO SUDETENLAND" to build your sense of drama and anxiety about events you already know took place.

Am I the only one with the weird sense that we'll one day see this same sort of documentary montage, replete with headlines like "Sarkozy Says Burka 'Not Welcome' in France" and "Belgian MPs Vote to Ban Islamic Burqa in Public" and "French Parliament Codemns Full Islamic Veil" in the buildup of Time-Life's 2050 offering "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS: the European Tinderbox in the Great West-v-Islam Culture War"?

Oh, I am? Well, don't mind me.

(So long as we're on the subject, I should link to this interview in Globalia Magazine with the brilliant Olivier Roy. His first answer, which I'll reproduce here in full, deals with precisely this subject.)

The debate in Europe has shifted in some 25 years (a whole generation) between immigration and the visible symbols of Islam. Which creates a paradox: even people who were opposed to immigration acknowledge now that the second and third generation of migrants are here to stay and that Islam has rooted itself within Europe. So now the debate is about the status of Islam. And here we have a strange phenomenon: while anti-immigration feeling is mainly associated with the conservative right, anti-Islamic sentiment is to be found on both the left and the right, but for two very different reasons. For the right, Europe is Christian and Islam should be treated as a tolerated, albeit inferior religion. There is (unfortunately) no way to ban it (because of the principle of “freedom of religion”, inscribed in our constitutions, international treaties and UN charter), but there are means to limit its visibility without necessarily going against the principle of freedom of religion (for instance the European Court of Human Rights did not condemn the banning of the scarf in French schools). For the left, the issue is more generally secularism, women’s rights and fundamentalism: it opposes the veil, not so much because it is Islamic, rather because it seems to contradict women’s rights. Hence the debate on Islam
disguises a far more complicated issue: what is a European identity, and what is the role of religions in Europe; and of course, on these two issues the left and the right take very different positions. But we are witnessing the rise of new populist movements (like Geert Wilder’s In Holland) mixing both approaches, basically siding with the right but using leftist arguments.

Take a look.

Belgium bans the burqa (UPDATED)

Only in Europe can legislation restricting your freedom to make your own choices be construed as granting you more freedom.

A top committee of Belgian lawmakers voted Wednesday to impose a nationwide ban on wearing the Islamic burqa in public, paving the way for the first clampdown of its kind in Europe.

The federal parliament's home affairs committee voted unanimously to endorse a proposal from liberal members to ban any clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa.

Officials say the draft law will probably be put to a vote of the full house on April 22.

"This is a very strong signal that is being sent to Islamists," French-speaking liberal deputy Denis Ducarme told the assembly in Brussels.

He said he was "proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter."

"We have to free women of this burden," said his colleague Corinne De Parmentier.

Next up: a law requiring Belgians to eat meat and drink alcohol. (So long as they're saving Muslims from their limiting, retrograde cultural practices, why not Hindus too?)

Good luck with all that, d-bags.

UPDATE: Lil usefully notes that this hasn't actually been passed into law (yet), but rather just validated by the parliament's home affairs committee.