Two
local connections are intertwined with the Denmark cartoon imbroglio. The US
ambassador to the Kingdom is Jim Cain of Raleigh. And cartoonist and novelist
Doug Marlette from Hillsborough—teaching this semester at the University of
Oklahoma—has been quoted extensively about the issue around the world since he
has the honor to be the first to irritate the jihadists with a cartoon in 2002
depicting an Arab driving a Ryder truck with a bomb in the back. The caption
reads: “What would Mohammed drive”?
Ambassador
Cain (a Who’s Who in the January 2006 Metro) writes that “taboos about
religion” don’t exist in a country where only two percent of the population
attends church regularly. And 95 percent of Danes are just that, an extended
family of the same race that does not often deal with “diversity” in its
national life—except lately with the 2 percent that are Muslim.
Marlette
depicts the Danish cartoonists as prisoners in the attic, waiting for the
authorities to turn them over to the howling mobs. In an article for Salon.com,
he makes the case: “When we withhold information in the name of a misguided
sensitivity, by default we allow nihilistic street mobs from London to Jakarta
to define the debate in this country. In effect, we have capitulated to
intimidation and threats and negotiated with terrorists. No need for Zarqawi to
behead us. We do it ourselves.”
The
eruption of emotion and violence about the depictions of Mohammed tells us that
rational diplomacy will not work in dealing with the rise of extremist Islam.
They have already had their day—from the 7th to the 16th century; now they are
relics of the Middle Ages, estranged from the rational world. The great
14th-century traveler Ibn Battutah traversed the mighty empire of the
descendants of Mohammed in awe of all he surveyed. Today, he would weep at the
decline into chaos and senseless murder, at the ignorant intractability of the
once glorious empires of Allah.
But
the concern that should be most on our minds is the disreputable and squalid
response to the cartoon controversy by many of our own leaders in the West.
Even White House confidant Karen Hughes thanked the US media for not publishing
or broadcasting the cartoons. The ubiquitous Bill Clinton labeled them
“appalling”. And in the UK, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw praised the
“sensitivity” of Fleet Street for not reprinting the offending cartoons.
So
tiny Denmark is the land of the free and brave in today’s tortured political
calculus? Add in the courage of scientist Bjorn Lomborg, whose book The
Skeptical Environmentalist exposed the extreme “green” movement as a creed not
supported by the facts, and the Danes rise to the top of the tree of truth and
knowledge. The rhetoric of the deep environmentalists is an example of “we are right because we are righteous,” the
same refrain we hear over and over from the Islamic leadership.
It’s
actually an anthem, sung loudly on college campuses in the 1960s and ’70s,
touting the utopia of world socialism and the battle cry to bring down
individual freedom. This message failed, causing the faithful to alter the
words to ring in an age of “sensitivity,” and with it speech codes and
regulations to smother the truth and elevate the mediocre. In classrooms, offices
and public places, citizens dare not stand up for the facts of the matter for
fear of the consequences of hurting someone’s feelings. In our world today,
everyone is “special,” even if they behead non-believers on television and
murder innocent bystanders for no reason anyone can explain. When truth is
stained with fear, it no longer exists. We have become cowards and not
deserving of liberty.
NOTES FROM LA-LA LAND
Wake
County State Senator Neal Hunt has stated he will introduce a bill in the
Legislature when it reconvenes in May to disestablish the Triangle Transit
Authority and call for the establishment of a Raleigh-Wake County—based entity
to plan future rail or monorail transit for the metropolitan area. This meets
the reality that the old TTA was ill conceived and its plans outdated. Since
Durham has pulled out of the federally mandated Metropolitan Statistical
Area—and as the Raleigh Metro is four times more densely populated than the
Durham equivalent—this makes sense.
•••
UNC
system president Erskine Bowles is facing the big lie in North Carolina public
education by trotting out the figures. According to the data, of every 100 8th
graders, 58 percent finish high school, 38 percent attend college but only 18
percent graduate. Only 34 percent are proficient in math and reading. Bowles is
calling for a reorganization of the education curricula to create more
teachers, but that will only work if the content of the courses is altered
drastically or eliminated. At last count, there were over 20 Masters programs
at UNC-CH, most of which are bogus and designed to bestow a degree on the
unqualified.
•••
I
hope Wake County parents of public school children rise up in a jihad and run
out of town the administrators and school board members who have continued the
practice of busing in the face of the fact it was struck down by a Supreme
Court decision. The latest Diaspora of 11,500 students in the name of failed
social theory is too high a price to pay for social theory.