The horror in Manchester. Few responses truly hit the mark that Islam and western values are totally incompatible. But why are they? V2
A concert aimed at girls and their mums. A singer with an empowering feminist message. This is the reflection of a society that accepts independence and liberation for women as well as men. It is a society that has evolved from the reformation through Protestantism and having had its values seared into its western culture by capitalism and industrialisation now offers the world the free market. The free market is an asset to the world albeit one that is exhausting the planet due to its relentless ‘growth’. It is however at the same time as granting personal freedom the one thing that really seems to infuriate the Islamist to commit acts of unbelievable horror. But why is this?
The Islamist has a rigid view of the world, a neurosis almost which in pre-capitalist times would have been a common characteristic among many people of faith. It is prescriptive and determines who has power and authority. In this antiquated system, men have power and authority women less and what power they had, they would exercise through the authority of their husbands. There were set ways to do things and transgression was punished. This is 15th or 16th Century Britain but also Saudi Arabia today and this is the mindset of the modern Islamist terrorist. We have a problem.
The whole diversity agenda spoon fed to us by the Blair regime failed to recognise that different cultures and religions view basic differences between people in very different ways and this gives rise to discrimination. In simple Islamic societies rights are accorded on the basis of gender and status and some groups not only have no status but can be put to death for expressing themselves in ways that are prohibited. Freedom of expression, sexual liberation, choice and the right to consent to what happens to you are alien concepts in this kind of faith. They are alien because we enjoy them in the west as a result of our economic and social evolution. Contract, Choice and Consent come with capitalism. You can’t have one without the other. The free market is also based on these freedoms as it has evolved from capitalism in the late 1970’s.
So the narrative which we must adopt when dealing with Islamists or indeed anyone who professes a faith is this; “to what extent does your interpretation of your faith reflect the rights of the individual, of any individual (female, homosexual, person of whatever faith) to contract with others freely, to consent to behaviour or refuse to consent, and to choose their own lifestyle as long as it doesn’t affect others”. If you ask anyone of faith this question you would see immediately whether they accept the West’s heritage drawn from its capitalist history or whether they cannot reconcile our freedoms with the demands and rules of their faith. If Trump had asked the Saudis these questions we think he would have been shocked by how few if any “shared values” there are aside from selling arms and buying oil.
We don’t need to brag about our free market culture, there are many things that need improving but in giving the world Contract, Choice and Consent capitalism has liberated us all. Perhaps it is our freedom and its link to capitalism that makes the left so squeamish and prone to controlling policies and which finds Corbyn making common cause with those who hate the West. Corbyn needs to understand that capitalism wasn’t just an economic model that exploited workers, it also gave people freedom and a way of life that the Islamists are now trying to destroy.
Individual Muslims may have had their own personal reformation but the religion hasn’t and can’t. That bit of history has been and gone leaving its legacy only in the West for us to share with those who will listen.
