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Western
Intellectuals Need to Study Islam before Making Comments on the Subject
By Jacob
Thomas
2005/11/20
Over the years, I have been very
impressed by the intellectual output of William F. Buckley Jr., and by the
role he has played in the revival of the Conservative Movement in
America
. It was back in 1960 that I discovered Mr. Buckley, when I noticed
several references, in a doctoral thesis, to his “God and Man at
Yale.” He published that controversial book in 1951, at the age
of 26!
From then on, whenever I had the
opportunity, I would watch Buckley’s “Firing Line” on
television. What a delight it was to see him, and listen to the way he
dealt with a variety of the topics of the day. You were in the presence of
an erudite scholar whose comments were always made in a rather unique
manner. The show was riveting; and you couldn’t help being amazed at the
encyclopedic knowledge that Bill Buckley displayed as he dealt with
various topics, including politics, history, and literature.
And now thanks to the Internet, I
can glance at his web site: www.nationalreview.com
looking for his contributions, or those of his colleagues. I have read
some of his books and learned, for example, that his schooling did not
begin in English, but in Spanish. Later on his studies took him to
France
, and
England
.
So it was in connection with
Buckley’s 80th birthday that the Wall Street Journal
published an interview with him on November 12. The headline read: William F. Buckley Jr. Old School, by
Joseph Rago. Here are a few quotations:
“
NEW YORK
-- There is something out of time about lunching with William F. Buckley
Jr. It goes beyond the inimitable WFB style: the mannered civility, the
O.E.D. vocabulary, the jaunty patrician demeanor. It is also something
more than mere age. "Well, I am one day older than I was
yesterday," he says, with rather good cheer. Yet if there's
anachronism to Mr. Buckley, it is also a sense of being present at a
moment of creation.”
“For all his versatility
as editor, essayist, critic, controversialist and bon vivant, Mr. Buckley
is widely credited as the driving force behind the intellectual coalition
that drew conservatism from the fringes of American life to its center,
with such side-effects as the utter collapse of the Soviet
empire.”There's nothing I hoped for that wasn't reasonably
achieved," declares Mr. Buckley, who will turn 80 later this
month.”
The interview turned then to the
current situation in
France
. “My view is unorthodox,” Mr. Buckley says of the
violence roiling the French suburbs. “It seems to me that a very
hard dose of market discipline would distract the attention of the young
revolutionaries from their frolics, traditional and otherwise, and my
sense is that if they had to worry about how to eat, and buy food, they
would stop screwing around and face reality. If these people didn't wake
up in the morning thinking about what cars to burn -- instead of work --
they might not be having these problems.”
Frankly, I was left distressed by
these rather casual and superficial remarks about one of the most
disturbing phenomena taking place in the heart of “old”
Europe
. I mean the existence of large and growing Islamic communities that live
in
France
and elsewhere in
Western Europe
who do not assimilate, regardless of their economic condition. Actually,
no amount of “hard dose of market discipline would distract the
attention of the young revolutionaries from their” destructive
actions around Paris, or anywhere else in
France
. I don’t deny that economics form an important factor in the unrest
that has gripped the country since the end of October 2005; however, the
root cause resides elsewhere. It is deeply imbedded in the inevitable
clash between a secular European worldview that has pervaded
France
since 1789, and an Islamic totalitarian worldview the immigrants have
brought with them, and which their children retain. It does not matter
whether they were born in
France
, and hold French citizenship. This worldview includes all aspects of
reality, this world as well as the world to come; it encompasses religion,
politics, and culture, all wrapped in one hard cover.
It is rather audacious for me to
suggest that Mr. Buckley misses the point on the main reason for the
unrest in
France
, and that he should take a crash course on Islam, its history, its holy
book, and authoritative traditions. He will soon discover Islam’s utter
uniqueness. It is unlike Christianity, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or
Buddhism, or Shinto, or Confucianism. Islam is sui generis,
and it has been highlighted by the British author, V. S. Naipaul in his
book, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted People (published
by Random House in 1998.):
“Islam is not simply a matter
of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s
worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his sacred language
is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes,
whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to
turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is
immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the
turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies
about who and what they are; and in the Islam of the converted countries
there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can be
easily set on the boil.” P. xi
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