Standing Tall for Western Civ

I do not have an opinion on whether Great Britain should exit the European Union. Nevertheless, while we are pondering this question, we should recognize that Europe's most prominent leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been doing the bidding of the incipient Turkish tyrant, Recep Tayyib Erdogan.

You  recall the story. A German comedian pronounced some rude words about Erdogan and the Turkish president demanded that Germany prosecute the man. Merkel could have stopped the process in its tracks. She acquiesced. Apparently, she was showing her sensitive, feminine side.

Yet, Erdogan has also been leading the fight against assimilation. Since Germany contains a large number of Turkish Muslims—and did so before Merkel decided to open her nation’s door to a million or so of their co-religionists—his words counted.

Andrew McCarthy has the story:

As previously noted here, Erdogan is one of the pioneers of the Muslim Brotherhood–crafted “integrate but don’t assimilate” strategy for overrunning Europe and, in time, the United States. The plan urges Muslims to relocate to the West but maintain Islamic mores while pressuring the home governments to accommodate sharia (Islamic law).

A few years back, Erdogan gave a speech to a throng of Muslim migrants in Cologne, decrying Western pressure on Muslims to assimilate in their new European homelands as “a crime against humanity.” His goal is to transport repressive Islamic standards to the West, where they will snuff out free speech and other liberties inconvenient to tyrants. The game-plan is working to a fare-thee-well, feeding the explosion of Islamic enclaves that gradually assert their autonomy from Western governance while serving as incubators of jihadist radicalization.

It’s not just that Muslim refugees do not or cannot assimilate into nations with Western values. Their leaders are telling them that it is a crime to do so. Now, explain why Merkel feels a need to submit to Erdogan?

In Great Britain, they have no such laws against blaspheming foreign potentates. So Douglas Murray took the occasion to assert the value of British freedoms. He called for a limerick contest to insult the Turkish president:

Well I’m a free-born British man, and we don’t live under the blasphemy laws of such despots. So in honour of this fact I have spent the weekend writing rude limericks about Mr Erdogan. And I would hereby like to invite all readers to join me in a grand Erdogan limerick competition. That isn’t to say that entries which come in the form of Iambic pentameters, or heroic couplets will be completely discounted. I think a work in the Homeric mode, for example, about the smallness of Erdogan’s manhood could (if suitably disgusting) stand some chance of winning. But I recommend limericks because almost everything insulting that is worth saying can usually be included within the five lines of that beautiful and delicate form.

Of course, this recalls the case of one Molly Norris in our own land of the somewhat free and home of the not-too-brave. Norris was a cartoonist who called for all her fellow cartoonists to draw pictures of the prophet of Islam. Under Islamic law such activities are blasphemous and punishable by death.

For her pains Norris received death threats. Eric Holder’s FBI did not feel that it was strong enough to protect her from the righteous rage of America’s Muslims, so it caused her to disappear… basically to go into witness protection.

It was yet another Obama administration blow for freedom of expression.

And of course, the Obama administration is so unconcerned about Muslim terrorism or aggression that it refuses even to use the word. Its primary concern is Islamophobia… though, to be fair and balanced, it now seems to care as much about transphobia.

Not so Boris Johnson; a leading conservative politician who was, until recently, Mayor of London. When Johnson entered the contest to see who could write the most offensive poetry about Erdogan, he won. Here is his limerick:

There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

You take your political courage where you find it.

Maybe, there’s still hope for Western civilization!