Islamic Extremism May Save Western Civilization
By Mark Glenn:
Interesting perspective from a Christian writer and commentator
It would shock and probably offend most Americans to learn the truth that the reason they are here, their power, their affluence and position in the world is directly because of the Islamic religion and the Arab culture. Thats right, the very "ragheads" and "Hajis" (as Limbaugh, Liddy, and some of the others often call them) that the US is now fighting are directly responsible for the preeminence and power of not just the United States, but of the entire Western world in general.
Besides the fact that Western Civilization began in the area of the Fertile Crescent, also known as Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), it is as well an historical fact beyond dispute that it was the learning and sophistication of the Arab culture that led to many of the scientific developments that would later make Europe the cradle of science, learning, and advancement. After the institutionalization of the Islamic religion throughout the Mediterranean region, the extent of Arab learning and culture was such that European Kings, Christian Kings, would send their sons and daughters to be educated in Moslem places such as Cordova and Toledo. Christian Crusaders coming back from the Middle East told of the richness of Arab culture, leading to Europeans desire for Arab goods, which in turn led to trade routes between Europe and the Middle East. The resulting wealth created from that trade with the Arabs led to the ascendancy of power for European city-states such as Venice and Florence, which became the birthplaces of the Renaissance in Europe. Arab advancements in navigation, from the Astrolabe to the compass to the fast sailing ship known as the Caravel made possible the arrival in the New World of the Europeans. Lets not forget, Spain and Portugal, those two powers who held a virtual monopoly on exploration in the New World for quite a while, were, for 700 years, held by the Arabs.
What will gall Americans even more, especially those who call themselves Christian, is the idea that it may be the Arab and Muslim culture that will be not only the birthplace of Western Civilization, but the savior of it as well.
As evidenced by the nightly news right now, there is a war going on. Superficially, it is about things like "terrorism" and "freedom." There are some who go a step further and blame oil and banking, not to mention "lebensraum" for Israel. And while all these things do play a part, some greater than others, the real war here is between two world views.
During the debates that took place in the UN between the internationalist cabal led by France, Germany, Russia, Belgium, and China on one side and the nationalists led by the United States, Great Britain, (and behind the scenes, Israel,) there was this "tossing around" of phrases in coded language. The nationalist crowd, represented in the debates by Colin Powell, spoke of "Old Europe" in a castigating attempt to portray those opposing the war against Iraq as somehow backwards in their thinking, as opposed to those in the New World, who were enlightened and were here to save all humanity against dangerous men and dangerous ideas. And although we know that the reasons for the internationalist crowd opposing the war against Iraq had little to do with anything other than protecting their own business interests as well as staving off US hegemony in the world in favor of internationalist hegemony, it did illustrate that there is, at least on the part of the "coalition of the willing" a desire to do away with that ethos held by the Old World (meaning the Middle-East) that serves as an obstacle in building that New World Order that Bush the Elder discussed more than a decade ago, even if it means seeing the US leading it rather than the UN.
To the "New World," and by default the New World Order, the Arab/Muslim world is backwards in its values. It prohibits abortion and birth control. They have large families, as opposed to the West, where the average family has only 2 children. It prohibits usury banking, to which the West credits its own economic superiority. Theirs is a "closed" society (read into this no sodomy, pornography, gay lifestyle, et al) Theirs is a "cruel" society (read into this-they do not have people on death row for 20 years) And finally, they will not play the game the way the market wants it played, meaning, they want a just price for their only real source of wealth, their oil, instead of giving it away to the West for a fraction of its worth. In other words, the picture that has just been painted here is, the Muslim world is now what the Christian world once was and should be.
One can already hear the roar coming out of the mouths of many who have not been thinking of this in a critical way, particularly those well-paid mouthpieces on TV and radio masquerading themselves as Christians. "The religion of Mohammed is better than the religion of Jesus Christ?!" No, rather, what is meant here is that the religion of Islam resembles Christianity more than does the Christianity of the West today, because the Christianity of the West today isnt Christianity at all, but a watered-down amalgamation of New Ageism mixed with certain common spiritual attributes that, although called Christian, can be found in almost every known religion. Through decades of destructive influence and propaganda through media and academia, mainstream Christianity in the West has been reduced to one remaining commandment, vague and hard to pin-point which is "be nice."
The fact of the matter is, putting aside all the other reasons surrounding this war that were enumerated at the beginning of this essay, what exists in the Middle East, or in The Old World, as some would call it, is a culture that is still devoted to principles concerning basic moral values, values that have not yet surrendered to the corrupting influence of Western media or Western money. Within the last 50 years, every culture has fallen before this corrupting power that seeks to enslave all men in such a way that the individual is reduced to the value of what he produces and what he consumes, and in pursuit of that method, the individuals behind this program have quietly but decisively removed every obstacle in their way, be it religion, culture, morals, tradition, or world view, through the methods of media, academia, and finance; that is, except the culture encapsulated in the Islamic/Arabic World.
By the description "Arabic/Islamic," it should not be understood as solely a "Muslim" thing. The culture existing in the Arab world is held by both Christian and Muslim alike. There are millions of Christians, who have in essence the same culture with their Muslim counterparts in much the same way as most Americans, regardless of religion, have the same culture. It is those Christians and Muslims alike who reject these "modern" notions such as abortion, birth control, sodomy, pornography, usury banking, and "market value" of services and resources. They still view the family, the traditional family, with all its traditional roles, as the most important building block of their society, and they take very seriously anything that threatens it. They recognize the value of their children, and how dangerous the moral relativism of the West has become, threatening the stability of society directly. They recognize that if their children and society as a whole are subjected to ideas that promote moral decay for an extended period of time, what will eventually and unavoidably be produced is national decay.
One should consider the fact that the New World Order has used and is using all its resources and influence to emasculate and neutralize all opposition to its agenda in the world. The Catholic Church, once a political power to be feared by presidents and prime ministers the world over, has been rendered obsolete. Through mouthpieces such as John Paul II, the New World Order has been openly embraced, and if at times the church gets a little rambunctious and steps out of line, well, the NWO crowd merely runs new stories revealing allegations of pedophilia and abuse. The mainstream Protestant groups, led by influential people on the television and radio, may talk of the dangers of the NWO and the secularization of the West, yet still openly embrace Bush when he pushes through various pieces of legislation that rob us of our freedoms under the guise of protection from terrorism, as well as the practice of conveniently "forgetting" about Bushs caving in to the pro-abortion lobby in various instances. So, with the exception of a few pockets of token resistance, there is no one left standing in the way of the NWO except the Arab/Muslim World.
If by some miracle the Arab/Muslim world is victorious against this onslaught, and the secular/atheistic influence of the NWO agenda is reduced to such a level as to allow the Christian West to regain its foothold where it once stood, it will be necessary to credit the religion of Islam and the Arab world for not buckling under in the face of extermination. And it will be we, the Christian West and Western Civilization, who will be the beneficiaries of "Islamic Extremism."
Mark Glenn is an American and former high school teacher turned writer / commentator. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
© 2003 Mark Glenn
