Summarizing the existential significance of Sudden Jihad Syndrome, in connection with an outbreak of the mysterious, aporia-inducing contagion in Vienna, Srdja Trifkovic observes:
The list will continue for many years to come, and the victims’ blood is on the hands of the Western elite class, in Vienna, Denver, London, and any other place that is blessed and enriched with the presence of a Muslim “community.” The ongoing refusal of the elite class to protect the people they rule from Islamic terrorism is the biggest betrayal in history. It is rooted in the mindset that breeds the claim that “force is not an answer” to terrorism, that profiling is bad and open borders are good, that Islam is peaceful and the West is wicked. The upholders of such claims belong to the culture that has lost its bond with nature, history, and the supporting community. In the meantime, thanks to them, the quiet onslaught continues unabated, across the Mediterranean and through every major airport in Western Europe and North America.
This malevolent presence is only found among us for reason of our self-loathing, of a perverse and decadent psychology by which we direct ressentiment inwardly, upon ourselves, reproaching ourselves for our very historical achievements; for these achievements belied our 'faith' that a primal equality was the natural condition of mankind. In order, therefore, to atone for this transgression of the Prime Directive, we must become the Other, and the Other must become us. But just as God is not mocked, neither is Islam mocked by such craven obsequies - albeit for different reasons - and intends to laugh last, and laugh longest.
And so these lurid little dramas will be reenacted until we have become surfeited with them, inured to them, world without end - until our world splutters and whimpers to an ignoble end. Unless.
Comments (8)
A quick Google search doesn't turn up one of the weirdest examples of this sort of denial in the past couple of months: A student somewhere in the U.S. distributed pamphlets threatening anyone who doesn't convert to Islam. The news story literally ended with a phrase like "the student's religion is not known at this time."
Posted by Lydia | October 6, 2007 10:12 AM
That's pathological. Prima facie, he must've been a Muslim, but they actually entertain the notion that he might simply be a prankster or a deranged lunatic.
This, of course, because they are more terrified by the prospect of Americans turning against Muslims, and against the pieties of multiculturalism and equality, than they are by the more sanguinary prospects of Muslims slaughtering Americans. At some point, one must entertain the supposition that this is literally infernal.
Posted by Maximos | October 6, 2007 10:19 AM
Here it is:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/018177.php
Posted by Lydia | October 6, 2007 11:19 AM
As I said: pathological. Islam is a "religion of peace", therefore, Islam cannot inspire such acts/threats of acts, which must originate in personal dysfunctions of various types. It is beyond even the Orwellian redefinition of fundamental terms; reality no longer exists if it fails to conform to the Idea.
God help us.
Posted by Maximos | October 6, 2007 11:35 AM
Fortunately, the would-be jihadis seem to be, by and large, hopelessly - almost *weirdly* - incompetent.
Immediately post 9/11, I feared that we could expect all kinds of clever attacks that would exploit our most obvious vulnerabilities. And, for a time, what with anthrax in the mail and the D.C. snipers on the loose, I thought that my fears were coming true. In both cases, modest means led to major hysteria.
But since then? It's all been pretty pathetic, to tell the truth. My maiden aunt Minnie, armed with some fertilizer ingredients and a map of crucial American infrastucture sites, could have caused more damage than all of our home-grown jihadis combined.
Don't get me wrong: I don't doubt these guys' ill will for a moment. But I increasingly doubt their intelligence - and therefore their capacity for meaningful harm.
9/11 looks to me more and more like a one-off.
Posted by Steve Burton | October 6, 2007 2:10 PM
I dunno, Steve. Those Syrian musicians on flight what's-it that Annie Jacobsen saw could have caused some major havoc. There was an air marshal who perhaps could have stopped them if they'd gone for it instead of just doing a dry run or a provocation or whatever it was, but what if they'd picked a flight without an air marshal? Or what if one air marshal hadn't been enough? And there've been a couple of other odd-ball airline things that were probably dry runs at the best and foiled attacks at the worst. I'm thinking maybe we have to make a distinction between on-the-ground plots by home-grown jihadis (sometimes home-grown in every sense of the word, if you take my meaning, as in the case of the Fort Dix plot) and in-the-air attacks by Middle Eastern foreign jihadis that seem to be better organized.
Then, too, the term "sudden jihad syndrome" is more often used for individual road-rage kinds of things, and people have at least been injured and sometimes killed in these, as in the Seattle shooter in the Jewish Community Center, the taxi driver in Nashville who ran down his fare after a "religious argument," and the guy in California, was it?, who ran his car up onto the sidewalk and hit people. Not lots of life lost at one time or hysteria caused or services shut down, but bad enough for the individuals injured or killed.
Posted by Lydia | October 6, 2007 3:03 PM
Much appreciated post. I wrote a few thoughts re: Pipes @ SJS – Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
Posted by Athos | October 7, 2007 6:16 PM
I don't doubt these guys' ill will for a moment. But I increasingly doubt their intelligence - and therefore their capacity for meaningful harm.
9/11 looks to me more and more like a one-off.
Can't say I agree. They seem pretty smart to me. They have gotten a heckuva lot of mileage out of 9/11 - what with sucking us into a middle east quagmire costing us billions. At this point, they have us so jittery we jump at our own shadow. Look at all the "banned" items, the increased security, etc. etc. All this with just a few dry runs. Pretty soon we will be like the citizens in Gotham in Batman where everyday grooming products will be banned for fear some "jihadi" will turn it into a wmd. All this with relatively little effort.
We keep forgetting they are in this for the long haul. Patience is certainly not our forte, they know this weakness and are using it to their advantage.
Posted by c matt | October 11, 2007 11:53 AM