The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades

ThePoliticallyIncorrect Guide to Islam(and the Crusades

Und er Pak ist an' s bla sph emy law s, man y non-Mus lim s hav e bee n
arrested, tortured, and sentenced to die on the slimmest of evidence. And
of course, there is Ayatollah Khomeini's notorious death fatwa against
author Salman Rushdie.
But for such things to happen in Iran and Egypt, two countries where
Islamic radicalism is widespread, is one thing; to have a "blasphemer"
bru tal ly mur der ed on the str eet s of Ams ter dam in bro ad day light
is anoth er. For thirt y years. Europ e has encour aged massi ve
immigr ationfrom Muslim nations; Muslims now account for 5 percent
of Holland'spop ula tio n, and tha t numb er is gro win g rap idl y, But it
is sti ll lar gel y,taboo in Europe—as in America—to raiseany questions
about how readytha t popu lat ion is to acc ept Wes ter n plu ral ism.
Whe n Dutc h pol iti cia nPim Fortu yn trie d to raise some of those
quest ions in2002 ,he was vilified by the PC establishment as a right-
wing racist—in line with the continuing tendency of the Western media
to frame questions regarding Islam in racial terms, despite the fact that
the intransigence of radical Islam is found among all races.AndFortuyn
himself, of course, was ultimately murdered by a Dutch assailant who
"did it for Dutch Muslims.'
The costs of maintaining the PC myths
The death s of Fortu yn and van Gogh indic ate that the cost of mainta in-
ing the taboo against criticizing Islam is growing ever higher. One of the
prerequisites of peaceful coexistence of beliefs in a secularsocietyis free-

• dom of speech—particularly the freedom to question, to dissent, even to
  ridicu le. Multic ultural ism is headin g toward contra dictio n: If one group
  is able to demand that its tenet s remai n above crit icism, it is no longe r
  equal, but hasembarked on the path of hegemony. Must all other groups
  tolerate that group in the name of political correctness?
  It is long past due for such consider ations to become part of the
  public debate in Western countries. To what extent are Muslim
  immigrants