On December 16, 2014 the editors of National Review Online
(NRO) made a heroic effort to parse the hostage-taking incident that unfolded
in Australia
the day before. They even displayed unusual creativity when they recalled
ancient history to show that violent fame seekers may get the fame they crave,
but it will be more in the form of infamy than admirable fame.
They wrote an editorial to elaborate on these points and a
few other ones under the title: “For Whatshisname, the Dustbin of History” and
published it on December 16, 2014. Their aim being to deter similar incidents
from happening again, they praised the call of the Prime Minister to the effect
that “the Australian security should now look closely at why they failed...”
They also praised all “Australians – Christians, Jews and Muslims – [that] held
joint prayer meetings for the hostages.” So far so good.
But will that work? No. Not likely; and that's because the
editors of NRO – like their counterparts in many other places – have formulated
a wrong understanding of what is happening in this realm, and have proceeded
from there. It is a good thing to go back in history and search for clues that
might shed light on what is happening today, but you have to know what it is
you're looking for to begin with. And the editors missed two important epochs.
They missed the Eighteenth Century that should have told them what not to do,
and they missed the Twentieth Century that would have told them what caused the
problem they seek to remedy in the first place.
It happened in the Eighteenth Century that the age of reason
and enlightenment was descending on Continental Europe while the British
monarchy was fighting to preserve the system of tyranny that had served it well
up to now. This forced the British dissidents to flee to the mainland, most
notably France and Holland , from where they
attacked the rulers of their former homeland. But all they could do was to
write letters that few people on the Continent or the British
Isles could read since the vast majority of the populations were
illiterate at the time. Eventually, the regime in Britain was replaced due to the
external wars that drained the nation, and the internal revolt that was led by
the dissidents who remained at home and worked from there.
And then, it happened that in the middle of the Twentieth
Century, a couple of former colonial powers from Europe (Britain and France)
teamed with members of the Zionist movement now occupying a good chunk of
Palestine, and worked with them to subvert the nations of the Middle East they
did not like. One of these was an Egypt that was ruled by a popular
and nationalistic president named Gamal Abdel Nasser for whom the colonial
powers had an antipathy which caused them to move against him, motivated not by
reasoned considerations but by hysterical motivations.
To punish Nasser and his Egypt , the European powers set up
something like a dozen radio stations, and beamed propaganda messages that
aimed to incite the Egyptian population to rise up against the regime. They
failed in that only a handful of individuals responded to the call. Unable to
do anything that would cause the population to revolt, these individuals left
Egypt and went to live in Europe, mostly in Britain from where they continued
to agitate against their former homeland. But very little of their effort bore
fruit.
Despite all the failures, it was that history that whetted
the appetite of Britain
and its former colonies – all English speaking – to welcome the dissidents of
regimes they consider to be undemocratic. This is how the NRO's “Whatshisname”
ended up in Australia .
And this is why, despite all the mischief he caused in that country, he was not
placed on a watch list. He was, after all, a dissent that was pursued by the
autocratic regime of Iran ,
his former homeland. This made him a good guy; one that would do nothing to
hurt the country that took him in. Well, they turned out to be wrong.
Maybe the Australians did not get the memo that a successor
to Gamal Abdel Nasser had sent to the Brits. He told them that one of these
days, they will come to learn they have created the monster that turned against
them. That's what is happening in Britain more than anywhere else.
And that's what is beginning to happen in Australia .