In an email discussion with Larry Auster (reproduced toward the end of this entry at his weblog) I suggested that our rulers would always give way to the group that combines maximum ability to disrupt with a colorable claim to leftish legitimacy, simply because things are easier that way. That’s the basis of European pre-emptive dhimmitude, and it’s why university administrators have often thanked black students for their efforts when they’ve taken over their offices.
It occurred to me to wonder what would happen if the hard left came back, with lots of women, homosexuals, and third world types in leadership positions, and started disrupting mosques as well as churches, universities, and various corporate and government offices. Suppose some group calling itself the Daughters of Aisha (a 9-year-old girl with whom Mohammed had marital relations) started blowing up leading imams. How would the authorities react?
It seems possible that some such thing could happen. The relations between the sexes have never been that great in Islam, they aren’t getting better anywhere, people living in disorienting situations do odd things, current leftist ideology licenses feminine contempt and hatred for men, Muslim women have taken to suicide bombing, and those living in the West are as likely as anyone else to join the “Mean girls” trend toward female brutality. Besides, Muslims kill each other all the time. There have been terrorist attacks at Mecca during the Haj in recent years. So why not make a statement in favor of what everyone agrees is a Good Thing by terroristic means? No justice no peace!
If it happened it seems clear there would be a backlash against Christianity. September 11 showed that when religion and violence become an issue Christianity is the target of choice among our betters. You can’t criticize leftists unless you criticize rightists more, and you can’t criticize third world types unless you straighten out our own fundies first. They’re the ones you really hate anyway. Nonetheless, if the terrorism continued its specifics couldn’t be ignored forever, so it seems that Muslims in Western countries would come under far more pressure—including, at least in Europe and Canada, direct legal pressure—to stop causing all the trouble, comply with what the terrorists want, and adopt substantive religious views rather like Dr. Schori’s. The Muslims would have to do something, and they wouldn’t be able to respond in kind as long as the Daughters of Aisha stayed under cover, so it seems a lot of them would knuckle under and others would either leave or adopt dissimulation as a policy. Which would be tiring. It would be a great victory of the Western Left over dhimmitude.
I wonder if what looks like an opportunity to make a splash will eventually have takers?