Monday – December 21, 2015 at 10:11 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan
“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here … and … around the world, that there is a ‘clash of civilizations.’”
So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate.
Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald Trump, but by Harvard’s famed Samuel Huntington. His “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” has been described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as providing “quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time.”
That Clinton is unaware of the thesis, or dismisses it, does not speak well of the depth of her understanding of our world.
Another attack on Trump, more veiled, came Monday in an “open letter” in The Washington Post where four dozen religious leaders, led by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, charge “some politicians, candidates and commentators” with failing to follow Thomas Jefferson’s dictum:
“I never will, by any word or act … admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.”
Intending no disrespect to Jefferson, if you do not inquire “into the religious opinions of others” in this world, it can get you killed.
“We love our Muslim siblings in humanity,” said the signers of Cardinal McCarrick’s letter, “they serve our communities as doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, journalists, first responders, and as members of the U.S. Armed forces and Congress.”
Undeniably true. But, unfortunately, that is not the end of the matter.
Did the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor, 9/11, have nothing to do with the Islamic faith?
Did Fort Hood and the San Bernardino massacres, the London subway bombings and the killings at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the slaughter at the Bataclan in Paris, have nothing to do with Islam?
Does the lengthening list of atrocities by terrorist cells of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, al-Shabaab and the Nusra Front have nothing to do with Islam? Is it really illiberal to inquire “into the religious opinions” of those who perpetrate these atrocities? Or is it suicidal not to?
There has arisen a legitimate question as to whether Islamism can coexist peacefully with, or within, a post-Christian secular West.
https://buchanan.org/blog/islam-and-the-west-an-irreconcilable-conflict-124463
