Jihad and the West - Black Flag Over Babylon Chapter Two Podcast Two

Welcome to an excerpt from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. It was published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington and Indianapolis. This reading is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This comes from chapter two and will examine “Eurabia” – the crossroad of a secular Europe and an impassioned and mushrooming Islamic cohort there.

 

Eurabia

 

            Many Europeans were initially nonchalant about the cultural shift, but some later regretted this indifference. Many late-middle-aged and elderly intellectuals today miss the artistic and cultural freedoms of their youth in the 1950s and 1960s. Today’s Continental literati reminisce on a long-faded, culturally confident, and economically prosperous Europe. For years after the Second World War, Europe was exciting and liberal, and it arts scene burst with creative energies. But the freedoms then turned to restraint, which turned to self-censorship driven by fear of angering Muslims. European journalists have been threatened with death for unfavorable commentary on the Caliphate. Often, journalists cannot ask man-in-the-street questions in heavily Muslim areas because they are attacked. Some have been killed.

 

            British moderate Muslims also face challenges. In 2009, Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury literally had egg on her face after pleading with her coreligionists to embrace women’s rights. A convert to Islam pelted her with eggs while he and others chanted in Urdu and English for more Sharia in Britain. More cynical public intellectuals foresee a European future, sometime later this century, in which churches are replaced by mosques, civil law by Sharia, and the liberal values of the Enlightenment by a strict Islamic code of conduct.

 

            A prominent man of letters, Bernard Lewis, warned that Europe was becoming “part of the Arab West, the Maghreb.” Some Muslims gloat at the prospect. An example appears in a YouTube video by a man who crowns the march of Islam in Germany as inevitable: “Islam is coming to take over Germany whether you want it or not.” The tool of conquest, he says, is not war but reproduction, because “Muslims have seven or eight children each.” He says, “What does the German man have? One child and maybe a little pet dog!” And for the future? “Your daughters will wear the hijab.”

 

            The surge of migrants entering Europe in 2015 and 2016 brought shocks to the continent. In several countries, young women, some of whom had welcomed Middle Eastern and Eurasian migrants, were molested. Local police advised fair-skinned, blonde women, particularly in Northern Europe, to change their lifestyles and appearances. Police counseled them to dress modestly and dye their hair dark. Local municipalities established separate hours for male and female use of public swimming pools. For the first time in modern memory, train station waiting rooms had separate areas for men and women. Many Continentals no longer trust their local police or government. In 2015 and 2016, applications for firearm permits and membership in European shooting clubs increased perceptibly.

 

            All this terrifies vulnerable minorities. The Islamic State is just one of many outlets that churn out anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and anti-homosexual literature. Jews in traditional religious clothing and identifiable homosexuals can no longer stroll through some of Europe’s streets without fear of being spat on, beaten, or slashed. This increasingly dark world has become untenable for some Europeans, who feel there are few safe zones left. Many are emigrating to escape what they see as the unremitting buzz saw of Muslim immigration. Michel Houellebecq (pronounced “Wellbeck”) writes about this with a very sharp pen, as shown below.

 

Profile Two: French “Bad Boy” Michel Houellebecq—No Submission!

 

            Some see him as a poseur; others see him as a literary prophet. Editors of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo placed him on the cover with the words “The predictions of the Great Houellebecq.” The famous novelist was dressed as a magician and said, “In 2015, I will lose my teeth. In 2022, I will celebrate Ramadan.” Others see him as an alarmist Islamophobe and call him the bad boy of French letters. But most of the French intelligentsia are simply fascinated by his maverick novels and poetry. Le Figaro and Le Monde published a series on his life, views, ambitions, and the impact of his work on France. Some wondered whether this late-middle-aged, mild-mannered intellectual was determined to have a fatwa placed on his head.

 

            For years, Michel Houellebecq had been France’s enfant terrible of salon culture. He draws his literary inspiration from Albert Camus, and one American literary critic compares his style to Martin Amis’s, “at heart a deeply braised moralist, an unflinching observer of ugly human nature.” One literary highbrow described his style as a fusion of Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, and Dennis Miller.

 

            If French antihate laws muzzle his open criticism of Muslims, Houellebecq grants his fictional characters unfettered freedom. In his novel Platform, a character relishes the deaths of Palestinian terrorists or children because “it meant one less Muslim.”38 The same character adds, “Islam could only have been born in a stupid desert among filthy Bedouins who had nothing better to do than—excuse my language—shag their camels.” In a physiological metaphor, he describes Muslims as “clots” in Europe’s “blood vessels.”

 

His sixth novel, Submission, catapulted him to international literary fame. Readers are asked to imagine France in 2022, when the ruling French Socialists partner with Islamists to govern the country. The Sorbonne is now an Islamic university. France has absorbed Francophone North Africa, becoming a Muslim superstate. France itself is governed by Muslims, collaborators, and unctuous civil servants. The narrator of Submission, François, is a middle-aged literature professor. He is underpaid, jaded, pathetic, and lonely.

 

Within days of the book’s publication, Prime Minister Manuel Valls assured the nation that “France is not Submission, it’s not Michel Houellebecq, it’s not intolerance, hate, or fear.” France would not sell the Sorbonne to Saudi Arabia, period! The French left erupted in outrage! But the timing of the publication boosted sales. The book was first available on January 7, 2015—the same day Islamists slaughtered Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.

 

Contested Zones in the West—Breeding Grounds for the Caliphate

 

“It does not take people long to discover that the Global Village is in reality the dark incarnation of Gotham City without Batman.”  Geert Wilders, Dutch parliamentarian, 2016

 

            Some Europeans have left the cities for the non-Muslim suburbs, and others have emigrated to the United States or Israel. But others lack the resources or inclination to escape what they perceive as pools of social pathology stagnating at the outskirts of their own cities. They call these places “no-go zones,” and some members of the Caliphate have grown up there.⁴³ This hotly debated expression refers to the Muslim-dominated, chaotic neighborhoods that saturate Western Europe. London, Paris, Stockholm, and Berlin are home to more than 900 areas where authorities have limited control.

 

            In France, areas of high immigrant density are called banlieues or quartiers, originally built to house immigrants from former French colonies.45 European leaders dislike the term “no-go zone,” and so do many journalists and scholars. Some refer to them as “cultural islands.” Daniel Pipes considers the “no-go” term gratuitously derogatory and prefers the official French nomenclature: “sensitive urban zones.”

 

            In January 2015, American journalist Steven Emerson claimed, “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in,” and was roundly censured. Some are gritty metropolitan areas hidden from tourists. An example is Nice, France. Dozens of its Muslim residents have traveled to Syria to fight for the State. In Germany, the Berlin Wall that separated the East from the West has long since crumbled, but there is a new civilizational divide, according to local Germans; they call it the “Arab Street.” A play on words, “Arab streets” are geographic locations in Europe where Muslims outnumber non-Muslims. It is also a synonym for Arab public opinion.

 

            But whether called “no-go zones,” “sensitive urban zones,” or occasional armed camps, these Muslim-only areas serve as recruiting pools for criminal syndicates. These areas are ideal for grooming foot soldiers for the Caliphate, and the Caliphate’s leaders have promised to use Muslims from those zones to attack Western targets. They provide sanctuary for the Caliphate’s cells, some of which fester in Dewsbury, in the next reading

 

This concludes a reading from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon, by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. If you enjoyed this, please consider subscribing and pressing the “like button.” Jihad and the West is available for purchase online and in select bookstores worldwide. Nothing in this reading or any other reading in Jihad and the West represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.