Programming note: please join Mark later today for a brand new edition of Steyn's Song of the Week. It airs Sunday at 5.30pm UK/6.30pm Western Europe/12.30pm North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Welcome to Part Thirteen in our ongoing audio adaptation of a favourite book among SteynOnline readers: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, in the run-up to its twentieth sod-bollocking anniversary.
For the past three weeks, we've been posting a few moments from my one-and-only appearance at the suddenly beleaguered Heritage Foundation. Viewers seem to enjoy it, so we thought we'd dust off a fourth excerpt. Here I am in Washington DC in January 2007, with a closing thought that seems obvious now, but which wasn't - not to ninety-nine per cent of western citizens - two decades ago:
Thank you for your many perceptive comments re this series. After last week's update on western Muslims' ever fiercer desire to live under Islamic law in Europe, Chris, a New York Steyn Clubber, writes:
Wow, those are disturbing, if not really surprising, new stats about the change in Islamic attitudes. The articles in Figaro and Telegraph say they have been covering these stats and opinions since 1989. 1989! Wow, that should be enough time to flush that whole 'assimilation' argument down the toilet. It seems to me all this talk about a Christian revival (oh, particularly since Charlie Kirk was assassinated,) means nothing in the face of this Islamic revival since they are the ones with the serrated knives, best wielded to separate skull from corpus.
I can only see some improvement if we redefine Christianity as a 'religion of peace'. You just have to get a couple of outlets to repeat that endlessly. It really seems to work in the face of reality. That would at least give us some cover to procure some defensive arms...
It's really not very difficult: the more Muslim the west gets, the more hardcore western Muslims get.
As Chris says, so much for that whole "assimilation" argument - or, to use an even more feeble word, "integration"; On this weekend's episode of America Alone, we consider the more likely scenario of young westerners "assimilating" with their demographic future. Here's me twenty years ago:
For many young men, Islam already provides the sense of identity that the happy-face nothingness of multiculturalism declines to offer. In Britain, a white supremacist neo-Nazi whose writings inspired a 1999 Soho nail bombing that killed three people has since converted to Islam. David Myatt, a founder of the British National Socialist Movement, is now Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt. Formerly opposed to non-white immigration into the United Kingdom, he now says that 'the pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognizes practical jihad (holy war) as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonor, the arrogance, the materialism of the West... For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy.'
It's hard to imagine him ever changing back, and not just because he's on record as supporting the killing of those who leave Islam: a lot of his fellow 'white supremacists' will find it's not the 'white' but the 'supremacist' bit they really like. Islam already has a certain cachet: another revert, Omar Brooks, marked the first anniversary of the Tube bombings by doing some Islamostand-up at the Small Heath Youth and Community Centre in Birmingham. As The Times of London reported:
'At one point he announces dramatically that the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center "changed many people's lives". After a pause, he brings the house down by adding: "Especially those inside."'
On Zionism Mr Myatt's once "edgy" jests are now boringly mainstream. What's next?
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Thirteen of America Alone simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
~If you prefer more fictional fancies of a weekend, our latest Tale for Our Time has just concluded: Agatha Christie's Murder on the Links. Not in the mood for Hercule Poirot? Well, our season of Christmas Tales begins this coming Friday - and there are spy thrillers, comedy classics, tales of horror and historical romance and much more, all over at our Tales for Our Time home page. If you've a friend who might be partial to our six-dozen-plus cracking capers, we have a special Gift Membership that, aside from audio capers, also includes video poetry, live music and more. And I'll be doing a live-performance Tale for Our Time at sea on the next Mark Steyn Cruise - sailing aboard the Queen Mary 2.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to America Alone but to over seventy audio adventures in Tales for Our Time. Please join me next weekend for Part Fourteen of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.