Fear, loathing and respect

Saturday, 20th March 2004

Rod Liddle says that Islam appeals to liberal Western man for the very reasons it appals him

We watch the system to which we owe both our allegiance and our good fortune promulgate, across the globe, homogenised bad food, pornography, the adulation of cheap and inane celebrities, licentiousness, the objectification of women and a relentless, untrammelled, rapacious materialism. And so perhaps we think to ourselves, in quiet moments, ‘Those Muslims ...maybe they have a point, you know? A little bit of self-denial, of discipline and dignity, might not be such a bad thing.’

And of course we resent the United States for its cultural hegemony and global domination — a domination that is based upon raw economics and military power, the very things that Islam disavows.

Let’s be clear: this affiliation with Islam that we may feel, albeit secretly, is a very different one from that which seems to afflict growing numbers of our aristocracy, superannuated members of which are queuing up at the mosques to convert to the hijab. Prince Charles may pay obeisance to the mullahs because he mourns the lack of spirituality and the surfeit of materialism in our society, but for most of us spirituality is not the real issue. The real issue is political, not spiritual.

To counter the moral force of Islam we have in our armoury only two things: wealth — for Islam, and especially radical Islam, thrives on poverty, much as communism did — and the notions of pluralism and tolerance. We have more money because, despite our sometimes grave misgivings and our distaste, capitalism works. And capitalism does not force us to eat bad food and immerse ourselves in pornography; it simply affords us the choice to be able to do so.

And we are tolerant and pluralistic because, being capitalists, we believe that an antithetical ideology can take its place in the market and compete on an intellectual level with our own, and most probably lose. And all that Islam has to counter this notion is, for the most part, a dumb authoritarianism and the denial of choice. Democracy and Islam have not been happy bedfellows and I doubt very much that they ever will be.

Which is why Abu Hamza should not be kicked out of the country, which is why the Muslim schools should not be closed down. Which is why, in the end, we should afford Islamicists, even those who will not rest until the green flag is flying over Westminster, the same access to our airwaves and the same degree of respect we afford to those who think Michael Howard should be the prime minister or those who think Tony Blair usually tells the truth. We raise our flag and stand behind it — let the market decide.