AT Galliwatch, Tiberge reports that an anti-Islamization rally in France was scheduled for today but was banned by the government. This obviously is the height of hypocrisy, contradicting the “freedom of speech” mania that emerged from the Charlie Hebdo massacres. The French government blatantly does not believe in pure freedom of speech. It reeks of hypocrisy.

Even so, anti-Islamization rallies, calling for “Islamistes” to be expelled from France, are massively misguided. What do they stand for? Pure negativity. France welcomed millions of Muslims. And now it is going to shove them out the door with nothing but abuse? Anti-Islamization rallies at this point can only mean violence, hatred and misunderstanding. Anyone who plans a rally such as this, oblivious to all the Muslims who don’t take their religion seriously and don’t understand why even their passive acceptance of Islam doesn’t belong in France (or anywhere else), and to all the French who are sincere, ignorant multicultural zealots, is truly autistic. French nihilists and revolutionaries are every bit as much to blame for the Muslim presence in France and are enablers of murder too, having sanctioned the killing of French children in the womb. Will they be kicked out? Obviously not. And what will France stand for once all its Muslims are gone? Nationalism? Pure self-love? When the French are great, they are really great. When the French are stupid, they are the most stupid, the most blind, the most obtuse people on the face of the earth. The godless French are acutely stupid.

Again, anti-Islam rallies without something more than anti-Islam behind them are pure negativity and incitements to violence. No nation can live on nothingness or frenzied self-glorification. The last thing the French need is more rallies and protests. The French are addicted to protests. They get drunk on protests. There comes a point when the protest is a knee-jerk response. The French should get down on their knees. They should beg God’s forgiveness. They should beg his forgiveness for having deified man, for having talked about nothing but the rights of man and utterly denied the rights of God for more than 200 years, the inevitable end result of which was the Islamization of France. Islam is their chastisement. And it will never be defeated by nationalism or Charlie Hebdo-style ridicule.

In an e-mail correspondence with another blogger, the writer Jim Kalb made this apropos remark today:

[T]he existential threat to the West is Western auto-demolition. So Islam is to liberalism as pneumonia is to AIDS. It’s not a major life-threatening problem–there are reliable treatments etc.–unless the West wants to die anyway. But then nothing can save us.

That is not to say that Islam is good, or an ally, or not a problem. It’s to say that “I am Charlie” is the wrong response to the recent murders in Paris. “No Religion of Murder,” or “Écrasez l’infâme” might be better slogans. Or maybe “I am Charles Martel” or “For a Catholic France.”

Charles Martel was not simply anti-Islam. His military genius surely benefited from the mysterious and invisible channels of sanctifying grace that ran through the Frankish territories of his time, streams of supernatural light which mere protesters can never fathom, however correct they may be about the existential threat posed by Islam.

France must stand for something more than itself. It must stand for something more than the rights of man and its own safety. And until it can dispense with its nihilism, its shallowness, its egotism, its stylish hedonism, its crass irreverence, its materialism, its monstrous ingratitude and hatred for its Catholic roots, its profound boredom and its hip philosophical frivolity, French patriots should think twice before they protest against Islam in the streets.

— Comments —

Mary writes:

Many thanks to TTH for this discussion as I know precious little about the French Revolution and the Enlightenment; I know that lack of knowledge forms a hole in my understanding of the history of the West which I hope to fill in time. One thing I am sure of is that both have been badly taught in schools, churches, etc. since the beginning. Several years ago a French lady of my aquaintance opened my eyes to the reality that Voltaire was no friend of Catholics, so when I looked up the origins of the suggested slogan “Écrasez l’infâme” I was dismayed to find out it was attributed Voltaire himself:

From Pierre Tristam’s website “Candide’s Notebooks (named after Voltaire’s popular book):

“In the eternal battle between reason and regression there’s never been a rallying cry as powerful as Voltaire’s double-barreled phrase: Écrasez l’infâme. It has been translated variously as “crush the infamous,” “crush the horror” or — my preference — “smash the rogues.” Voltaire’s targets, his recent biographer Ian Davidson writes, “included superstition, theological repression, Jesuits, monks, fanatical regicides, and the Inquisition in every shape and form; in short, all facets of the dark and regressive alliance between the Catholic Church and the French State.” By the 1 th century, the phrase had done its job, and not just in France. In the West, Church and State would be kept separate, for good reason: Absent a thick and uncompromising wall, the two cannot help but corrupt each other while tyrannizing, in a “higher power”’s name, the people they’re meant to serve.”

 Laura writes:

Yes, that’s not quite the right slogan.

Doug H. writes:

Like Mary, I was also taught little if anything about the French Revolution. My only exposure to Voltaire and Rousseau was through college courses which were interpreted through the typical liberal college experience. Over the past year, I have made it a point to study the revolution in detail. I read “The French Revolution” volume I by Hyppolyte Taine, and now I am finishing “The Eve of the French Revolution” by Edward Jackson Lowell. Both these books are free on the Ibooks system and probably on one of the many free book websites. I am amazed just how close these parallel our current situation. It is simply astonishing. I have much more reading ahead.

Reading these has led me to conclude that we are destined to repeat history not because we don’t study and learn from it but instead we are doomed to repeat history because the nature of man never changes.

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