September 18, 2007: Dalrymple: Life in the Multikultihaus

In a characteristically brilliant essay, this one shorter than usual, Theodore Dalrymple - one of the finest writers and thinkers in the anglosphere - defines the rise of radical Islam as the Marxism of our time in the manner it attracts (so far largely European) youth.

Best news of all for the Islamists, however, comes from Germany. Two of the men that the German police arrested in early September for plotting a series of huge explosions in the country were young German converts to Islam. It is impossible to know how many such German converts there are, but it is thought to run into tens of thousands, principally men; in the nature of things, it is also uncertain how many of them are attracted to extremism, but few people are so attracted by moderation that they are converted by it.

The man believed to be the leader of the little group, Fritz G., the son of a doctor and an engineer, was himself a student of engineering, of mediocre attainment. He grew up in Ulm, where a quarter of the population is now Muslim, and at the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 15, he began to frequent the Islamic Information Center of Ulm, and also the comically named Multikultihaus in the neighboring town of Neu-Ulm, where young men of jihadist views, including Mohammed Atta, had long congregated. In 2004, he was spotted at the Ulm Islamic center, selling a journal called Think in the Islamic Way. In December of that year, the police found propaganda in favor of Osama bin Laden in his car. In 2006, he went to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

You should read it all, of course, but what Dalrymple omits, although others have observed it, makes Islamism even more dangerous than Marxism. All Marx, the atheist, ever promised was economic equality (and maybe a little less alienation). How piddling is that compared to eternal bliss in Heaven under Allah.

Comments

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I don't know how many times we are going to hear about these knuckleheads idiots finding their way to terrorist training camps and here we are six years on and no Osama in our sight.

No wander OJ is back ;)

Posted by: Lem at September 18, 2007 1:24 PM

It wouldn't make a difference if Osama were dead. In point of fact, we aren't sure he's still alive, all the topical references in his last tape set were voiced over a frozen picture and his appearance rather strongly suggests old footage or perhaps a double.

While having Osama's head on a pike would be good for our morale and bad for theirs, it wouldn't make much difference otherwise.

Posted by: LarryD at September 18, 2007 2:15 PM

LarryD,couldn't agree more. Anyone who thinks the War against Islamofascism is a war against Bin Laden is living in a dream. Who knows if he's dead or alive? It barely matters. There are thousands of Bin Ladens, Zawahiris, etc. out there. That's the problem. Their ideology is so simplistic anybody can follow and anybody can lead.

Posted by: Roger at September 18, 2007 2:40 PM

I've observed before that Marxist was a bastard child of the Enlightenment, whereas much about the present-day Left is reactionary and counter-Enlightenment.

Even if "progressives" disagree with radical Islamists about policy specifics, the psychological roots of the belief systems probably have much in common.

Posted by: photoncourier.blogspot.com at September 18, 2007 2:43 PM

"How piddling is that compared to eternal bliss in Heaven under Allah."

This is why I refer to describe them as nihilists. Their ultimate goal is suicide. They have little, to no interest, in merely creating a fascist dictatorship.

Posted by: David Thomson at September 18, 2007 2:45 PM

An excellent and now-defunct Italian blogger, Joy of Knitting, posted the following in 2004:
**
Cupio dissolvi...These words have been going through my mind for quite a long time now. It's Latin. They mean "I (deeply) wish to be annihilated/to annihilate myself", the passive form signifying that the action can be carried out both by an external agent or by the subject himself...Cupio dissolvi... Through all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing and the waving of the rainbow cloth by those who invoke peace but want appeasement, I hear these terrible words ringing in my ears. These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it. They take all the advantages it offers them for granted, and despise the ideals that have powered it. They wish for annihilation, the next new thing, as if it was a wonderful party. Won't it be great, dancing on the ruins?
**
Her post reminded me of a passage in Walter Miller's great novel A Canticle for Leibowitz:

...children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever buiding Edens--and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same.

Posted by: photoncourier.blogspot.com at September 18, 2007 3:35 PM

Dalrymple has such great things to say that I will seek his writing every chance I get. The French seem to me to be the only Europeans with enough cultural self confidence to stand up to the Islamists. They have a serious problem but they know it. I have never seen the French so friendly to Americans. I don't think it is a coincidence.

Posted by: Mike K at September 18, 2007 8:40 PM

The underlying message for both religions (Marxism & Islam) is "I'm better than you," which is why they attract the insecure. Those who can, do; those who can't, insist.

Posted by: ras at September 19, 2007 12:17 AM

I think a big part of the draw is the promise of righteous violence. Many young men are drawn to the notion of sanctioned head-smashing, the more the better. The Nazis knew it; the Commies knew it; the Islamists know it, too--and have been all too eager to demonstrate it.

Posted by: srlucado at September 19, 2007 5:18 AM

I'm not saying and I never said it will be over if we catch UBL.

What I'm saying is that for all our military and technological might, it is our outcast, our refuse that with ease comes and goes from among them.

Posted by: Lem at September 19, 2007 6:04 AM

Remember this item next time you hear talk that the TSA is not "profiling" enough.

Posted by: andrewdb at September 19, 2007 8:05 AM

It's been decades since I read Hoffer, but I think the cause is unimportant. There just needs to be one.

Posted by: MarkD at September 19, 2007 9:35 AM

Lem!

Please do NOT conflate knuckleheads with splodeydopes. We knuckleheads are warm and caring people despite our general state of confusion.

Posted by: Knucklehead at September 19, 2007 12:59 PM

That small Request is hereby granted!

Posted by: Lem at September 20, 2007 5:18 AM

Reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's quip:"For my part, I think the only difference between them is that if you are a Catholic and have this intensity of belief, you join the convent and are heard from no more; whereas if you are a Protestant and have it, there is no convent for you to join and you go about in the world getting into all sorts of trouble..."

What Islam needs are a few good monasteries in the middle of nowhere so these fanatics can waste energy clearing fields in Eastern Siberia or Lapland instead of throwing bombs...

Posted by: tioedong at September 20, 2007 3:44 PM

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