The Time Will Come

A quote from Boris Johnson:

When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam's mediaeval ass?

Best guess: When Westerners perceive that they have been pushed towards the edge of oblivion.

Islam has been in such a weak and decrepit state for almost a century that most paid no attention to it. But in the recent past with countless terrorist attacks and more and more contact with Muslims, the West is slowly waking up to the danger.

Comments

[Alex]

It'll never happen. They don't have the power to hurt us bad enough, and we don't have the resolve to deal with them decisively until they do. It's like the Israel situation on a large scale - that conflict can go on forever simply because the Palestinians can never cause enough damage to justify dealing with them in a more..."decisive" manner.

[Saul Wall]

"They don't have the power to hurt us bad enough, and we don't have the resolve to deal with them decisively until they do."

I agree but fortunately I am more convinced as of late that time is on our side, not theirs. The demographic advantage is a mirage and the wild demands for special rights and privileges, bullying and triumphalism masks a recognition that their religion is loosing adherents to secularism, Christian evangelism and reversion to the earlier faiths of newly conquered regions - Buddhism, Hinduism etc.

Increasing the speed of Internet access, increasing the availability of criticism of Islam in forms that are accessible to average people and teenagers and in all middle eastern languages, and increasing efforts to automate language translation so that people can publish and discuss ideas across language barriers are all key goals to winning the war of ideas. "Deprogramming" efforts towards people in Western immigrant communities is an especially sensitive issue but should not be ignored. Terrorists and radical Imams campaign for the hearts and minds of the youth of these communities so it is fair game for secularist and evangelists to do so. Gaining and supporting apostates from these communities give us cultural and linguistic access points to their homelands.

As with most conflicts, the battle of ideas requires considerations like optimizing the length of the front line. We benefit from maximizing Islam's exposure to any influence that corrodes it. Just about everything does, which is why the desire for "traditional", "fundamentalist" lifestyles is so strong among the faithful. Limiting access to the real world is Islam's only hope.