Dinosaur in the Age of Mammals
By Wolfgang Bruno
Tariq Ramadan, the famed "moderate” Muslim who has made
deception of non-Muslims into an art form, says a the
21st century will see a
second role reversal between Islam and the West: The West will begin its
new decline, and the Arab-Islamic world its renewal and ascent to
centuries of world domination. Princeton
historian Bernard Lewis told Die Welt that
Europe
would be Islamic by the end of this century "at the very
latest". Robert
Spengler of the Asia Times agrees. What if they are all wrong?
What if we state that
Europe
won’t be Islamic at the end of the 21st century because Islam itself
won’t be a force of any significance a century from now?
There are few people of any stature who dare venture such a bold
assertion. Ali Sina, the Iranian ex-Muslim and founder of faithfreedom.org,
is one of the few who do. Sina has consistently claimed that Islam is “a
house of cards that will collapse if sufficiently pushed”, and that we
may see the end of Islam within the next few decades. He has compared
Islam both to Communism and Nazism, claiming that it will either collapse
as the former or be crushed as the latter. These analogies are imperfect,
and have rightly been criticized by some. Communism was a recent
invention, and a European, materialist ideology not concerned with the
hereafter. Islam carries 1400 years of history with it, and is deeply tied
to the cultural identity of hundreds of millions of people in a way
Communism or Nazism never were. However, Ali Sina may be on to something. I
have earlier predicted that what we are witnessing now is an
era no less crucial to Islam than the Protestant Reformation was to
Christianity. The difference is that Islam may not be flexible enough to
handle the challenge, and will disintegrate as a result. For instance, the
entire foundation of Islam is based upon female subjugation and male
dominance.
The movement to grant equality to females will essentially destroy
Islam. Islam is quite simply too rigid to survive in a modern world.
It is true that the West at the onset of the 21st century
shows signs of weakness and lack of direction. However, it is likely that
the
USA
in particular will retain its leading position for a very long time.
Europe
does have deeper lying problems, and considering
its many Muslim immigrants may indeed face a turbulent and violent period.
But even
Europe
is far from incapable of renewal in the longer run. Perhaps this Islamic
threat is precisely the slap in the face we need to regenerate and regain
our sense of purpose. It is also true that our status as the leading
civilization is not given by nature. We will be challenged during this
century, but not by Islam. Our contenders are not Muslims, but Asian
non-Muslims, who display a dynamism far beyond anything the Ummah can
produce. The
total nonfossil fuel exports from
the entire Arab world amount to less than the total exports of
Finland
, a tiny infidel country of only 5 million inhabitants. A United Nations
report warns that a majority
of Arab young people want to leave their homelands in favor of
the West. Is that the hallmark of a culture at the brink of world
dominance, Mr. Ramadan?
Besides oil, the only thing Islam has going for it is extremely high
birth rates. This can be seen as an advantage as long as Muslims are
allowed to dump this excess population in non-Muslim countries and
dominate these through demographic jihad. If the non-Muslims should decide
to curb Muslim immigration, even the high birth rates would turn into a
curse. Islamic nations are already falling apart. At the time when the oil
revenues run out for Muslims states,
India
and
China
may have had missions to the moon. The 21st century will not be
an Islamic century. Most likely, it will continue with a Western lead. The
alternative is some sort of power sharing between Western and Eastern
infidels. The Islamic world stripped of its oil revenues and no longer
able to export its population growth to non-Muslim countries, will hardly
be a blip on the radar screen.
Ohmyrus, a member of faithfreedom.org, has given a good description of
the Islamic predicament in his essay “Once
were warriors: Why Islam failed Muslims”. Islam is a
warrior’s creed that served its early followers well. It prospered
because its ethos makes it very successful as a medieval war machine when
men fought with swords, bows and spears. From impoverished desert tribes,
they rose to forge an empire in a short time that stretched from
Spain
to
India
. The ethos it engendered – brotherhood for believers, contempt and
hatred for non-believers, belief in heavenly rewards for fallen warriors,
a high fertility rate (which requires the subordination of women), blind
obedience – created formidable warriors. But these same qualities are
handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Islam’s ritualistic
practices inculcate blind obedience among its followers and not
questioning un-inquisitive minds. The way the Koran is taught in
traditional Madrassahs is by memorization. This leaves no room for asking
questions. Asking questions risks the student of being accused of
blasphemy or unbelief. Great scientists and philosophers do not come from
such a passive environment. Islam is specialized and tailor-made for a
society that no longer exists, and instinctively wants to drag the rest of
the world back to these “glory days”. It used to be excellent for
breeding soldiers, to plunder the lands of non-Muslims. But even this gets
increasingly difficult, in a world of advanced technology.
Of course, even if Islam is collapsing as we speak, that does not mean
that it is nothing to worry about. On the contrary. There are few things
more lethal than a wounded beast, trapped in a corner. And that is exactly
what Islam is now. Worst case, it could be a very violent collapse, if
Islamic radicals manage to ignite a global war. Islam is the Tyrannosaurus
Rex of the 21st century. Once king and feared by all, now
sidelined by smarter and faster-adapting creatures in a world it no longer
understands. The old giant can still be dangerous, lashing out with a
vengeance against the new breed. Mammals, they call them, these upstarters.
It makes a lot of noise and may even succeed in killing some of the ones
unlucky enough to be standing in its way. But terrifying as it may seem,
it is destined to fail. This is the age for big brains, not big but slow
limbs. It will end its days in museums, scaring kids of the future hearing
tales about this big monster which ones roamed the earth. Osama bin Laden
and Al-Qaida are but the last roar of a dying beast, a dinosaur in the age
of mammals.
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