Apparently psychiatrists can tell what someone thinks and desires by the dreams that he or she is having in their sleep. This may be true but I believe there is a more accurate method by which to tell what someone thinks and desires; it is to look at the dreams they are having while awake – that is, to look at their daydreams. If it happens that a man in this condition is also expressing himself in writing, he will produce a written record that expresses what goes on inside his heart and soul above and beyond what his head wants us to know. This, in fact, is what happened to a character called Jeffrey T. Kuhner who wrote a column that was published in the Washington Times on October 25, 2011 under the title: “Obama's Arab winter” and the subtitle: “President plays active role in America's decline, Islam's rise.”
If anything, this piece demonstrates what in practical terms the adherence to a set of dogmas can do to someone. You see this when you read the first three sentences of the first paragraph in the column. Here they are: “President Obama is empowering radical Islam across the Arab world. He is presiding over both the American decline and the rapid advance of our mortal jihadist enemies. From the Middle East to North Africa, the Arab Spring has turned into an Islamist winter.” This method of writing is akin to using the dogma as a sledge hammer to clobber the reader at the start of the presentation and thus get his attention early on. It is an approach that is rarely used by seasoned writers because it is too risky. But when they use it, they will make sure their point has come across persuasively before they publish. Well, as a writer, Kuhner seems seasoned enough; he uses the method and yet his column reads like a third rate diatribe that would not make the pride of a schoolboy. It would only persuade the teacher to shake his head in dismay.
You want to know what went on inside the heart and soul of this columnist, and so you keep reading the piece till you encounter this passage: “In Tunisia, an Islamist party … is poised to win … Its goal is to repeal the nation's secular tradition (inherited from the French empire) and erect a Muslim theocracy.” You see that the sentence falls in line with the dogmas articulated in the previous paragraph. You see further that it fails to improve the diatribe, fails to move you, the reader and fails to convince you to embrace any of the dogmas. But you notice that it has a parenthesis inside of which is carried a message that you realize Kuhner never intended to give out. What he wanted to say was simply this: a tradition (inherited from the French empire). But this brings to your mind the following question: If the Tunisian people willingly inherited a tradition from the French and lived with it for several generations, how come they are abandoning it now at the start of a new relationship they wish to forge with the Western world? And in trying to answer the question you are set off on a journey of discovery that the author had no idea was there to be taken.
For him to have neglected to ask that question and look for answers says something important. It says that his approach clearly demonstrates why the adherence to dogma is a toxic state for any mind to be in. In fact, when you look at what comes after the introductory paragraphs, you find it to be a repudiation of the freedoms that the author says he is for and you find it to be an embrace of the autocratic rule that he says he is against. Here is what he complains about in one instance: “Muslim fundamentalists have used street protests against … autocratic regimes … to expand Islamic militancy.” Thus, in his view, to protest in the streets against autocratic regimes is a bad thing. And here is another instance where he also complains: “Next month, it will be Egypt's turn to hold elections. The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to gain the largest number of seats.” Thus, in his view, unless the party you favor is expected to win, elections are a bad thing. Obviously, this man is so wrapped up in his set of dogmas, he cannot see beyond them even though he was handed the necessary information.
You come to understand that this man has been chained to a set of dogmas that so deluded him, he was made to string together a ton of false statements and a mountain of absurd assertions with which he built a monumental diatribe on a thin foundation. And you want to know what would have happened had he asked the right question and wrestled to find the answer instead. Well, he would have realized that the Arabs are following the pattern that was taken by other cultures and civilizations when they reached a level of industrialization that allowed the wholesale shift of people from a subsistence agrarian life to that of an industrial middle class. And if the columnist had the intellect to dig past this point, he would have seen that because the circumstances are now different, the “Arab Spring” is following a path containing a few variances that are peculiar to the history of the region and the times in which we live.
What distinguishes the Arab pattern from say, the European pattern is that the Europeans distanced themselves from the proverbial church as they revolted whereas the Arabs now seek to draw strength from their religion. Why is that? Well, it is easy to see why the Europeans – beginning with the French revolution -- turned against the political authority and the church at one and the same time. It is because the two were in cahoots with each other and they worked together to exploit and suppress the population. Then came the Russian revolution which stood against the Church in a more pronounced way only to be reconciled with it, even embrace it wholeheartedly when the population had it up to here with a Communist regime that turned out to be as authoritarian as the one that preceded it.
But unlike the European Christian church which has a rigid hierarchy that does not allow the individual to interact directly with God, Islam abhors the idea of a religious hierarchy and encourages the individual to deal directly with his God. Thus, the Muslims never quarreled with the Mosque in any serious way, and they always felt comfortable with a political authority they regarded as an extension of the family. In fact, this attitude is so ingrained in the Middle Eastern cultures that the same applies to the Christian populations. But what changed all that and allowed the Arab spring to take hold is something that began with the advent of colonialism to the Arab countries. Colonialism brought to them a taste of the European style tyranny and left them with bad memories after it ended. What made matters worse was that after they got rid of colonialism, the local political leaders who took over began to behave like an internal colonial power. For a while, the Arab populations felt trapped, at a loss and not knowing what to do. Patience being the trait that distinguishes them, they relied on it to endure and survive while waiting for a break. And the break came when industrialization hit their shores. The middle classes revolted in the Arab world the way that they did everywhere else, and the Arab Spring was born at long last.
With this in mind, you can see why it is dangerous for the leaders of the Christian world to express the dogmas expressed by Kuhner in his article. It is that the leaders confirm a narrative which goes like this: The neo-colonial powers have returned and they have cut the Arab world into two parts by establishing the Jewish entity of Israel in the middle of it. They now have a Jewish theocratic state that is propped up by a Christian fundamentalist movement, and they have it for a reason. They are waging a war against us to plunder our resources and they will maintain that war for as long as we have the resources. Be alert because the war will wear an economic mask as long as we remain quiet; but if we rise up and protest the mask will come off to reveal the face of the true dogs of war. Therefore, we must be prepared to fight fire with fire and religion with religion. They have their Jewishness and their Christianity which they never cease to call Judeo-Christian; let us be proud of our Islam and display it whichever way we can. Wear the veil, pray in the street or do anything you can that will defy them.
There is no doubt that the world is being polarized and radicalized on all sides, and the reason is obvious. It is that the Jewish organizations never stop fueling it. They have moles in the Western think tanks who continually incite what Kuhner is inciting in his column. They have speechwriters who write speeches for the American and European leaders. And what the writers do is get paid to spend all their time thinking of ways to drive the wedge between the West and the Arabs to maintain the war between the two. They look for the most vexing words and the worst of expressions to insert in the speeches of the American and European leaders who then jump in front of the cameras and blurt things considered incendiary in the Arab world and beyond it, the Muslim world. With this happening under the radar, so to speak, the Western leaders unwittingly maintain a state of undeclared war against the Arabs by constantly reminding their youngsters of this message: You are my mortal jihadist enemy and I shall come after you when I will be ready.
What is surprising about this is that the mouthpieces which the Jewish organizations employ to go around and create all that mischief are of an IQ which does not exceed that of Kuhner. And they all have but one and simple method by which they move the politicians and the armies of the West to basically commit suicide fighting the Arab and Muslim kids who seem to always find a way to outwit them. The method of the mouthpieces is to cry out that the enemy is on the march and that he has weapons by which he will be able to mass destroy us. And they go on to say, we must preempt that enemy before he gets too far ahead or if we fail, it will be the end of us as we know us to be. The question for us at this point is therefore an existential one for, it comes down to this: to be or never to be on top of the heap once again may be our lost dream.
Finally, to give credit where credit is due, I must say that Jeffrey Kuhner found a novel way by which to express that message. It comes in the last paragraph of his piece. This is how he puts it: “Like emperors in the final days of Rome, our leaders can pretend that the barbarians pose no imminent threat. Everyone knows, however, that … The Islamists are rising, threatening freedom wherever they tread.” It is too bad for him, however, that he neglected to insert a caveat in there because without one, he created a weakness that ends up destroying his metaphor. The fact is that Rome was destroyed more by the senility of its rulers than by the barbarians at the gate.
In a similar fashion, America which he regards as representing the Western world, must worry more about the senility of its own leaders than some Arab kids who are delighted to have found a big boy called Uncle Sam willing to play cops and robbers with them. They kick him in the ass, go hide and taunt him to seek them. And this is happening because unlike the Roman senate where the horses were allowed to vote, America has a congress where the jackasses are allowed to vote. And to keep in line both the ass of the uncle and the jackasses of the congress there are the assholes of the Jewish think tanks and their obedient media.
Kuhner is one of those assholes who must nevertheless feel like asinine being surrounded by all these asses, including his company of himself.