When Emma Lazarus wrote The New Colossus in 1883 she may or may not have been aware that, 6,500 miles to the east in the Arabian Peninsula, the Al Saud were clashing with their bitter rivals, the al-Rashids from the city of Hayil. Things didn’t go well for the Al Saud and, consequently, they were driven from Ndaj into exile, eventually settling in Kuwait. It’s a fascinating story and perhaps Miss Lazarus would have agreed.
Warring factions and power struggles aren’t unique to Islam. For centuries, bitter rivalries between the monarchical governments of Europe tormented the continent with near non-stop bloodshed. World War I destroyed the European monarchies as well as the Muslim Ottoman empire, and after the Second World War western states eventually coalesced under a new covenant. Rivalries persist to this day among NATO member states but we have, by in large, become more civil and sophisticated. It’s a cerebral and superficially amiable relationship but it works.
This sophisticated rivalry between partners is a luxury most westerners take for granted. We in the west are, generally and thankfully, personally unfamiliar with the historical violence and systemic abuses of the strongmen who enforce the tenets of Islam. Europe had its renaissance, Islam didn’t. The conflict and blood feuds and dynasties of Europe came to an abrupt pause after “the war to end all wars”, which was followed by a second war of its kind, a final deathblow to the old order. And at last, we found peace. Islam has never sought out, or even stumbled upon, a cultural reawakening the way Europe did. Re-aligning itself into a tense though stable coalition of peaceful partners is not and has never been part of the Islamic plan.
Much can and has been said about western meddling in the Middle East and the blowback it has inspired. In 1952, Iran elected the popular Muhammed Mossadegh who wrested control of their oil wealth from foreign forces. The now predictable response was the neo-conservative strategy of regime change; we and the British overthrew Iran’s democratically elected government and installed the hated Shah who would recommence the previous work of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company under a new moniker, one familiar to modern audiences: British Petroleum (BP). The consequent blowback from Operation Ajax was the 1979 Iranian Revolution which launched into power ruling forces more repressive than the Shah. To fight this new enemy we armed and financed the maniacal military adventurism of Iraq’s Baathist autocrat, Saddam Hussein. When he was no longer of any use we turned on him the way we turned on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after they aided us in our proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The many misguided interventions on the part of western warhawks are inexcusable and explain much of the discord and tragedy across the Middle East. But it doesn’t explain all of it and it certainly doesn’t explain the tyrannical excesses of Islamic regimes outside the Middle East. Our rulers didn’t force Saddam Hussein to invade Iran though we did encourage and support him. And the Iranian people didn’t have to thrust into power the radical and abusive Shiite mullahs of the brutal cleric class. And let no one forget, Mossadegh’s rise to power was preceded by a litany of factionalized chaos, including the assassination of Haj Ali Razmara, an act of violence that stands as a stark example of the perpetual internal strife which is a hallmark of Muslim majority nations.
Where there is Islam, there is mayhem and brutality and ultimately they have no one to blame but themselves.
No one forces the tyrants of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and other gulf states to mandate female genital mutilation and honor killings. No one forces the old men of Pashtun Pakistan to take child brides. Jihad is not a covert CIA operation, though their relationship with ISIS is questionable. These extremist practices and doctrines are endemic in Islam. Far from being a religion of peace, Islam is one defined by its incessant inclination toward savagery.
There are no examples of open nations under Muslim control; every time and in every place Islam takes power, it abuses it. From Mecca to Malaysia the governments of predominantly Islamic nations indulge in primitive authoritarianism. Common among them is the sadistic policy of punishing minor infractions with disproportionate force. Human rights are virtually non-existent and the minorities and women of these nations are subjected to the most heinous flavors of statist interference.
Torture and mass executions, pedophilia, hostility toward immediate neighbors, and a fanatical belief that the world must be conquered are not exceptions to the rule, they are the rule. Islam never experienced a renaissance and never will because it is incapable of one.
In The New Colossus, Miss Lazarus wrote,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus dedicated her life to the assistance of immigrant Jews escaping the pogroms and culture of anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia. My ancestors were among those Russian and Ashkenazi Jews who sought to make a new and better life for themselves according to the promise of the American melting pot. Our friends on the Left would have us believe the incoming waves of refugees fleeing the chaos and carnage of Syria are the new Jews. They would have us believe they are the huddled masses Miss Lazarus wrote of in the late days of the 19th century. The overwhelming majority of these refugees are almost exactly what Miss Lazarus described in her poem. Almost.
The New Colossus provides us with beautifully worded criteria for those seeking in desperation to reach the shores of our shining seas. The Syrian refugees, as well as those from the six other nations targeted by President Trump’s temporary immigration ban, are indeed tired and poor. They are, in Miss Lazarus’ words, wretched refuse and they are homeless. Under any other circumstances, we would accept them with open arms and we will continue to welcome immigrants and refugees from all over the world, including Muslims. But the votaries of Islam fail one of the most important aspects of the criteria delineated in The New Colossus. Their masses are huddled, they got that part right. But are they yearning to breath free? The answer to this query must be an instantaneous, emphatic, and unequivocal no.
In Arabic, Islam means submission. Of all the fanatical beliefs and behaviors of the Muslim horde, perhaps one of the most unsettling is the reflexive subservience of its adherents. More disturbing than this is the demented doctrine that the world beyond their borders must also surrender itself to this arcane system of god worship.
Not every Muslim is a terrorist, or terrorist waiting to happen. There are, in theory, genuinely virtuous Muslims out there but good luck telling the difference between them; the doctrines of kitman and taqiyah make it almost impossible to know which are the good and which are the bad. And radicalism doesn’t require a suicide-vest and screaming Allah akbar before detonating the device in a crowded area. The Muslim horde’s western apologists often speak in glowing terms about the moderate practitioners of Islam, but when one studies the violent fanaticism inherent to the religion, a terrifying truth is made manifest: There can be no such thing as a moderate practitioner of an extremist religion and Islam is by nature extreme.
The so-called “moderates” act as cannon fodder and human shields for those adherents who go the extra mile in practicing jihad. The “moderates” are the front-line foot soldiers in the perpetual Islamic quest to bring global obedience to their perverse religion. Muslims are currently out-breeding the nations of Europe so as to eventually (certainly within our lifetimes) take control of the institutions of western democracies and use them against their minority native peoples. Spain, France, the UK (whose London mayor is a Muslim), and other nations are being overrun. Sweden is the rape capital of the world. The slow-motion conquest is happening in Dearborn and Hamtramck and Detroit. The soft invasion is unfolding before our very eyes but not all of us can see it or are honest enough to admit it’s possible.
Our friends on the Left are so enamored with their corrupted conceptions of compassion that they completely fail to notice the soft invasion they’re inviting to our golden door. They ignore the history and current events of the religion they lionize. If Islam were content to confine its barbarism to the Middle East, e.g. the conflict wrought between the Al Saud and al-Rashids, it would be one thing. But that’s not the case. Islam demands the world bend at the knee and kiss the ring of its false god and it will use any means necessary to accomplish this aim, and that includes infiltrating our nation under the guise of tired, poor, huddled masses.
Do not be fooled.
Do not be fooled by those who say there’s never been a single instance of Muslim refugees becoming active and successful terrorists in our homeland. The banal implication is that because it hasn’t happened, it won’t or can’t. History is informative but it is not always predictive. The unprecedented occurs with regularity. Sometimes it’s benevolent and pioneering such as when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. Other times it’s a malicious expression of the worst of humanity as when the Ottomans murdered one and a half million Armenians, leading Raphael Lemkin to coin the word genocide.
Do not be fooled.
Islam is a pernicious source of constant suffering. Any good it may have contributed to humanity is overshadowed by its relentless imposition of barbarity the likes of which the civilized world long ago left in the dustbin of history. Now more than ever, it is of the utmost importance to not allow our passions and compassion to overwhelm our judgment. Many refugees fleeing the devastation and oppression of their various homelands are truly victims in urgent need of aid. But in helping them we must not allow ourselves to become victims as well.
Perhaps Miss Lazarus would have agreed.
