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Friday, June 9, 2017

Muslims feared like sociopaths

This past Monday, Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of Dr. Anthony Daniels) wrote an insightful article in the Wall Street Journal about how Muslims are treated in the UK.

An excerpt:

One obvious thing to do would be to strangle the foreign funding of so much Islamist activity in Britain. That is no doubt complicated in many ways, but no British government, solicitous of trade relations, has dared even try. The British economy is precarious, and it is difficult to be strong when your economy is weak.

Instead, we have gone in for what a Dutch friend of mine calls “creative appeasement.” Authorities make concessions even before, one suspects, there have been any demands for them. Thus, a public library in Birmingham, one of the largest known to me, has installed women-only tables, a euphemism for Muslim women only. Whether there was ever a request or demand for sex-segregated seating from Muslims is probably undiscoverable; truth seldom emerges from a public authority. But the justification would almost certainly be that without such tables, Muslim women would not be able to use the library at all.

The Birmingham airport has set aside a room for wudu, the Muslim ablutions before prayer. No other religion is catered for in this fashion (nor should they be, in my opinion), so the impression is inevitably given that Islam is in some way favored or privileged. Again, it would be difficult to find out whether they received requests or demands for such a room or merely anticipated them; in either case, weakness is advertised.

This is not a local problem alone. Many European airports now set aside a room for “meditation.” The icon used to indicate it almost always carries more of an Islamic connotation than any other. A friend told me that when she went into one such room, she was told by a Muslim to remove her shoes, ecumenism being, of course, a one-way street.


My female Muslim patients who had grown up in Britain told me that the school inspectors had never intervened when their parents prevented them from attending school, often for years. On the other hand, white working-class parents were bullied by those inspectors when their refractory 15-year-old daughters refused to go. A few years ago it came to light that police in Rotherham had for decades systematically turned a blind eye to the mass sexual abuse of children—at least 1,400 victims—by Muslim men. This type of willful neglect by the authorities came as no surprise to me. On the contrary, it is precisely what I would have expected.

From all this the terrorists surely draw a great deal of comfort. It gives them the impression of living in a weak society that will be easy to destroy, so that their acts are not in the least nihilistic or pointless, as is often claimed. They perceive ours as a candle-and-teddy-bear society (albeit mysteriously endowed with technological prowess): We kill, you light candles. The other day I passed a teddy-bear shop, that is to say a shop that sold nothing but teddy bears. I am sure that terrorism is good for business, but the teddy bears are more reassuring for the terrorists than for those who buy them to place on the site of the latest outrage.


Another source of comfort for terrorists is that after every new atrocity, the police are able to arrest multiple suspected accomplices. That suggests the police knew the attackers’ identities in advance but did nothing—in other words, that most of the time terrorists can act with impunity even if known. Here, then, is further evidence of a society that will not defend itself seriously. This is not just a British problem. The April murder of a policeman on the Champs Elysées in Paris was committed by a man who had already tried to kill three policemen, who was known to have become fanaticized, and who was found with vicious weapons in his home. The authorities waited patiently until he struck.

(I wish I could write that elegantly.)

But I quote Dalrymple not to showcase his prose but to show the numerous ways in which British (and other sovereign) authorities appease, mollify, coddle, and generally tiptoe around Muslims. 

I've written before about how whenever you hear of a "reality distortion field" or the Stockholm Syndrome, that almost always means a sociopath is lurking. Sociopaths often manipulate through the use of fear: non-sociopaths instinctively sense that if they cross the sociopath in any way, the retribution they could expect would be completely uninhibited in its ferocity. 

So, normal people will do anything to avoid a sociopath's wrath, and find themselves acceding to his version of reality. 

This is pretty much exactly what's going on with Muslims in the West these days. The West bends over backwards to appease them, simply because they fear their wrath. You could say the West is suffering from collective Stockholm Syndrome.

The double standard is apparent in the way the parents of 15-year-old Christian truants were treated compared to the parents of Muslim girls. In the way the Rotherham rapes were swept under the rug. And in the way, as Dalrymple points out, that ecumenicism is a one way street. 

Piss off a Christian, and he'll write an angry letter to the editor. Piss off a Muslim, and he'll blow himself up along with 20 young girls at an Ariana Grande concert. 

(Somehow I can't see Dalrymple writing that paragraph.)

The takeaway is, the West is operating from fear and impotence. They are both paralyzed by political correctness and intimidated in the face of fiercer aggression. 

In fact, the West is so afraid of being offensive it won't even mount a decent defense.

The same way most people feel and act around sociopaths. 

15 comments:

Mark Caplan said...

Dalrymple is a gifted essayist whose anthologies I've enjoyed, but I wouldn't say your writing style takes a backseat to his.

Today Europe is the sick man of Europe. Europe -- more accurately the entire West except possibly for Japan -- entered a new dark age after World War I. The razzle-dazzle of science and technology has obscured the emptiness and rot of the rest of our once glorious culture. The waltz-right-in "invasion" of Muslims is just one symptom of the West's expiration, as weeds will quickly overgrow an untended garden.

John Craig said...

Mark --
Your credibility just went down, but thank you.

"Europe is the sick man of Europe." I like that. (Speaking of writing.) And so true about how the dazzle-dazzle of technology has obscured our backward movement in other areas.

I don't really think of Japan as part of the West. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore are sort of their own separate category. (I realize you did use the word "possibly.") And now no-nonsense China is poised to take over the world. How telling that they now have a word for "white liberals" which is considered a pejorative. And that word will undoubtedly get a lot of play as they pass us by.

The Asians don't have the pathologically altruistic gene (combined with the morally pretentious gene) that has doomed the West.

Rifleman said...

...the morally pretentious gene

So true. This is a major factor you can see in action all the time.

It's as they say "a feature not a bug".

And check out who happens to be mayor of London.

But then again the Mayors of NYC/LA and governors of NY/CA are pretty bad.

John Craig said...

Rifleman --
Yes, otherwise known as the virtue-signaling gene. Asians and Africans just don't seem to have it.

Agree completely about those mayors and governors.

Anonymous said...

excellent analysis.
Part of the reason the West is appeasing the Islamists is due to the spread of political correctness via our leftist media and schools. Are children are indoctrinated in leftist ideology which teaches them that diversity is good, and should be a goal. While punishing and ostracizing those who divert from the progressive ideology. Thus colleges have restricted conservatives from speaking , allowing violent demonstrates to prevent conservatives from speaking truth to power. The leftists are in charge of our media, Facebook, twitter, our grammar schools, our corporations, our military, our intelligence agencies our colleges and churches.
The true enemy of western culture are our own western institutions and liberalism. The Islamists could easily be defeated if our people had the ability to reject the progressive world view. But holding conservative views will keep one out of colleges and corporations forcing one to live on the fringes.

John Craig would never get hired at Goldman Sachs if this blog while in college. We live in an era which has virtually criminalized the opposition. The political correct enforces are everywhere, acting as the secret police informants against those who have contrary views. One recent example, the Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich was forced to resign because he gave a $500 donation to support a bill to ban gay marriage in California, despite the fact that 62% of the voters agreed with his stance. Just another victim of the secret police waging an aggressive war against normal Americans.

John Craig said...

Anon --
Thank you. You're right, the Leftists also play by a different set of rules than the conservatives. The Right doesn't try to get people fired from their jobs because they're liberals. But the left will stoop to anything. Just look at the tactics of the AntiFa group, or George Soros, or ACORN, or the SPLC, or the ACLU.

The only god news is that more and more people seem to be waking up to this, which is how Trump got elected. His scoffing at the norms of political correctness was basically just a big rude middle finger to the Left, which is why they've been going crazy ever since.

Anonymous said...

I have a much less sinister view on this because I see parallels between how the Muslim and LGBT communities are being catered for.

Think of gay marriage that was legalised in the UK under David Cameron: there was minimal grassroots activism for that because civil partnerships were already legal. Although LGBT people generally welcome the development, it was still imposed on them top-down; there were never any (significant) demonstrations demanding gay marriage. Most LGBT people had other things on their minds: tackling discrimination, better healthcare provision, etc. Cameron brought it in as it was an opportunity to prove how much the Conservative Party had moved on since their homophobia under Margaret Thatcher. It was a way of showing how tolerant and open-minded they now were. Cameron basically used the gay rights cause for his own ends.

A similar thing is happening with transgender people: more and more establishments such as train stations, nightclubs and universities have installed single-stall, gender-neutral toilets (without getting rid of the gendered ones). Swimming pools are increasingly installing more private changing/showering cubicles instead of just communal areas.

Imagine the consequences of *not* providing these things for LGBT people: do we hear of gay aeroplane hijackers, lesbian drive-by shooters, bisexual cyberterrorists or transgender suicide bombers? Of course not: the mere thought is ridiculous. The most violent thing LGBT people have done collectively were the Stonewall riots in the 1960s.

Could it therefore be that these prayer rooms and women-only tables are being installed as a way of 'virtue-signalling' instead of out of fear? I think so, especially when it's usually the feminists calling for women-only facilities*, not the Muslim community. Prayer rooms have existed for centuries: they're not new inventions. When I was in Munich recently, the central train station had a prayer room with a Christian cross as its symbol. Hospitals across Europe - including in the UK - very much still have Christian chapels. Any shift towards making the chapels more 'multi-faith' or Muslim is just a reaction to the increasing prominence of Islam over Christianity in the UK, since very few UK citizens still attend church regularly.

As for the crimes: this likey is due to public policy rather than special police treatment towards Muslims. As Home Secretary, Theresa May cut the number of police officers by 20,000 whilst spying agency GCHQ's budget has been doubled. Several former spies have criticised the mass surveillance approach to stopping terrorism: the authorities are so focused on hoovering up everyone's data that they don't have the resources to perform targeted surveillance on likely future terrorists. Did the authorities stop Thomas Mair, Adam Lanza or Anders Breivik before their terrorist attacks?

Providing for Muslim tourists in airports makes economic sense: the tourists are more likely to come if they feel welcome. The Japanese are doing it**, even though there doesn't seem to have been any Muslim terrorist attacks in Japan^. Virtue-signalling is a far less sinister explanation for these phenomena than fear, and also more probable. As an LGBT person, I hope I'm not being "treated like a sociopath", anyway.

- Gethin

*https://www.thefword.org.uk/2015/09/how-corbyn-broke-the-mould-on-women-only-carriages/

**http://japandailypress.com/first-muslim-prayer-room-in-a-japanese-mall-opens-2613339/

^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorism_in_Japan

Anonymous said...

The internet helped people to wake up, exposing the Left's tactics, so thank God for the internet. I know that it helped me to become more informed.

- Susan

John Craig said...

Gethin --
I wouldn't equate the West's attitude towards LGBT with their attitude toward Muslims at all. Yes, both are being catered to more now but the former is really all about tolerance, and the latter about fear. You said it yourself: if the LGBT's don't get their way, they' rent about to get violent in response.

The most basic difference is that the LGBT's are the sons and daughters of the West; they are flesh and blood, the kin of the people among whom they live. The Muslims are for the most part of different stock; they have no vested interest in seeing Westerners thrive, or even survive. And it's written into their religion that nonbelievers be punished for their apostasy. And so, the West fears them, rightly.

I've had the experience several times of getting onto an airplane and seeing people visibly tense up when they see someone in Middle Eastern garb get onto the plane. No one reacts that way when they see a gay flight attendant.

Yes, there's undoubtedly an element of virtue-signaling in the acceptance of Muslims. But it's mixed with a big dose of fear. And yes, the downsizing of the police departments in the UK hasn't helped, but the fact is, as has emerged recently, the police knew about the three terrorists from the London Bridge attack but did nothing about it. And similar things have happened in the US, where the police of FBI were too afraid of being accused of "prejudice" to go after people who later committed acts of terror.

And no, don't worry, LGBT people are not feared the way sociopaths are. (Unless they are individually sociopaths, and then they're only feared because people have gotten to know them individually.)

John Craig said...

Susan --
Imagine if our only source of information was the NY Times.

Anonymous said...

Fascinating take.

Yet, another reminder that Islam does not mean "Peace", but "Submission".

John Craig said...

Samuel --
Thank you.

And good to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. Hope you are well.

John Craig said...

Samuel --
I seem to be fine now, thank you.

Anonymous said...

Good.