America Alone

Fragment uit America Alone - Mark Steyn

One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want - including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers.Thus, during the Danish "cartoon jihad" of 2006, Jack Straw, then British foreigner secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending representations of the Prophet.

No doubt he was similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew ice cream cones from its British menus because Mr.Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says, "Don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name," but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."

And doubtless the British forein secretary also appreciated the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there's very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensivity and sharia.

As a famously sensitive non-cartooning Dane once put it: "To be or not to be: that is the question."

And, in the end, the answer to that question is the only one that matters.

Fragment uit de inleiding van:
America Alone
The end of the world as we know it
Mark Steyn
Regnery Publishing, Inc
www.regnery.com