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Writing about the Muhammad cartoons controversy, author
Ibn Warraq quoted the great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote
in On Liberty, “Strange it is, that men should admit the validity
of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being ‘pushed
to an extreme’; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an
extreme case, they are not good for any case.”
“The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty,
political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom.
It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against
slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience,” Ibn
Warraq stated. “How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western
society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is
decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist
and to be despised? Why should they, in the words of the African-American
writer James Baldwin, want to integrate into a sinking ship?”
These are encouraging words, but they cannot conceal the fact that there
is a very powerful undercurrent of self-loathing and guilt-obsession in
the West at the beginning of the 21st century. Where does it come from?
Lars Hedegaard, writer and columnist for newspaper Berlingske Tidende,
has, together with colleagues Helle Merete Brix and Torben Hansen, been
one of the leading forces behind making tiny Denmark into a frontline
country in the battle against Islam. In his book “While
Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,”
Bruce Bawer gives an account of a meeting with Hedegaard and Brix in
Copenhagen:
“Hedegaard was of the view, however, that the Danish establishment’s
benign neglect of Islamic extremism must have deeper causes than
snobbism or hippie nostalgia. After all, he said, the Islamicization of
the Nordic countries was “the most fundamental transformation”
they’d experienced in a millennium. Something so monumental, in his
opinion, could not be explained simply by a few people’s foolishness
or class snobbery. “Heavy consequences,” he insisted, “must have
heavy causes.” The surrender of Denmark to Muslims had to be the
result of some deep-seated compulsion. (…..) His theory was that
Western Europe’s ongoing surrender to radical Islam had its roots in
the psychic devastation of the First World War. For while that conflict
marked America’s ascent to the rank of Great Power, Europeans took it
as a devastating proof, Hedegaard said, “the our culture was
worthless. It was basically destroyed. And that prepared the way for two
sorts of totalitarianism” — Nazism and Communism — and for
“atrocities of a magnitude that is hard to imagine.” Those
atrocities, in turn, placed upon Europeans an unbearable burden of
guilt. The Nazis, he said, “made Europe think it is doomed and
sinful...and deserves what it has coming.”
Lars Hedegaard’s view seems to mirror that of French philosopher and
cultural critic Alain
Finkielkraut, who thinks that “Europe does not love itself.”
Finkielkraut says that it’s not forces from outside that are threatening
Europe as much as the voluntary renunciation of European identity, its
wish of freeing itself from itself, its own history and its traditions,
only replaced by human rights. The European Union thus isn’t just
post-national, but post-European. What characterizes Europe today is the
will to define itself, not from an ideology, but by dismissing any sense
of identity. Europe is now built upon an oath: Never again. Never again
extermination, never again war, but also never again nationalism. Europe
prides itself in being nothing. According to Finkielkraut, Auschwitz
has become part of the foundation of the EU, a culture based on guilt. But
this is a vague ideology saying that “We have to oppose everything the
Nazis were for.” Consequently, nationalism or any kind of attachment to
your own country, including what some would say is healthy, non-aggressive
patriotism, is frowned upon. To remember is to regret. Europe rejects its
past. “European identity” is the de-identification of Europe. Of the
past, we are only to remember crimes. This didn’t just happen in
Germany, but in all of Europe. “I can understand the feeling of remorse
that is leading Europe to this definition, but this remorse goes too far.
It is too great a gift to present Hitler
to reject everything that led to him.” This is said by the Jewish son of
an Auschwitz prisoner.
Finkielkraut
says that Europe has made human rights its gospel, to such an extent
that it threatens European history and culture. This creates a Europe
without substance. “When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of
culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning.” Finkielkraut reminds
us that the multiculturalists’ demand for “diversity” requires the
eclipse of the individual in favor of the group. The abdication of reason
demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of the subjection of
culture to anthropology. “Under the equalizing eye of social science,”
he writes, hierarchies are abolished. The disintegration of faith in
reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards,
but also involves a crisis of courage. “A careless indifference to grand
causes,” Finkielkraut warns, “has its counterpart in abdication in the
face of force,” and weakens the commitment required to preserve freedom.
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