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September 18th, 2024

Insight

The Great Transitioning

Mark Steyn

By Mark Steyn

Published November 6, 2023

The Great Transitioning

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With no small-hours trial-prep to consume my nights, my thoughts stray to the Big Picture - to the wreckage that the "conventional wisdom" has made of the most advanced societies in history. Just over a week from now, my native sod, along with the rest of His Majesty's Dominions, will commemorate Remembrance Day/Armistice Day, honouring the dead of the Great War at the precise moment when the guns fell silent - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

So naturally, in the heart of the imperial metropolis where our November rituals were born, the new imperialists of a resurgent Islam have decided to hijack the public space - which is something Islam likes to do as a matter of conscious strategy, and which it does very effectively, in big ways and small: see my compatriot David Solway a decade ago.

This is one of the big ones. The "pro-Palestinian" demonstrators have already desecrated the heart of ceremonial London:

Well done, Laurence Fox, atop Sir Edwin Lutyens' great monument to our war dead. CORRECTION: Even on my sickbed, I really should look at these videos more closely. Alison Castellina points out in our comments that he's actually on Thomas Thornycroft's statue of Boadicea and her daughters, which faces Big Ben from the north side of the approach to Westminster Bridge. (If you want to see a hero leap atop the Cenotaph, which is actually rather tricky to do, check out my book The Prisoner of Windsor.)

But, of course, defiling the monuments is only the start. As the poster at top right shows, the "pro-Palestinians" are planning a Million Man March through Central London, for which, as you can read, they are laying on buses from Dewsbury and Batley.

If the names of those somewhat unprepossessing municipalities ring no bells with you, the Dewsbury mosque helped produce at least some of the now forgotten London Tube bombers of 2005, and Batley Grammar School, founded in 1612, is the alma mater of Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen, which is increasingly short supply in that part of Yorkshire: a Batley Grammar teacher has been in hiding for two-and-a-half years after showing a Mohammed cartoon as part of a class discussion. Perhaps, while everyone else is on the coach to London, it will be safe for him to come out and walk around for a bit. But then again, perhaps not.

Whatever one's feelings about "the war to end all wars", in the early days of November almost every public figure finds it prudent to be seen wearing a poppy. Because, to be seen without one, is perceived to be a statement in and of itself. I had taken mine, procured from the Royal Canadian Legion in Montreal, down to Washington to wear in the dank septic tank of DC justice - just because I see no reason to change my habits because some wanker judge has shanghaied me into the dock. In London, however, the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, and his fellow Labour members take a more nuanced view - poppies out for general-audience speeches in the morning, but poppies off for their "Islamophobia Awareness Month" videos, presumably lest they offend the target audience:

If you're thinking that seems a little inconsistent, don't worry: another Remembrance Day or three, and Sir Keir won't be wearing his poppy for non-Muslim events either.

What has been happening in London and New York, Paris and Stockholm, Sydney and Montreal these last few weeks is not primarily about Jews or Muslims. It is, however, the beginning of the final stage of the process that began in the wake of the Second World War. As I first said long, long ago:

As I wrote some years ago, the principal beneficiaries of post-war 'Holocaust guilt' turned out to be the Muslims. Anyone familiar with the cheerfully open prejudices of 'tween-wars Continentals knows that they would never for a moment have contemplated the rise of mosques and madrassahs in Brussels and Lyons and Frankfurt and Salzburg. But in post-war Europe the Holocaust got laid at the feet of ethnocultural nationalism, and so there were no acceptable grounds on which to object.

Just to reiterate:

But then the Holocaust happened, and 'nationalism' got blamed, and mass immigration was instituted as a form of penance, and in one of history's blacker jests the principal beneficiary of Holocaust guilt was Islam. So, in the newest variant of the oldest hatred, Jews get hated for the Islamization of Europe.

To be fair, the Official Jews deserve some of the blame for disastrous western immigration policies: I think of the ADL's blustering bully Abe Foxman, either a know-nothing or a liar, confidently blaming the mysterious resurgence of Continental Jew-hate on "nationalists, anti-government people, neo-fascists, neo-Nazis". If American Jews had any self-respect, they'd have hounded Foxman out of public life just for that. But even John Podhoretz, a far saner fellow on most subjects, turns into an Ellis Island sentimentalist sob-sister when it comes to immigration ...and now seems surprised he's being advised to stay in the attic. Sir Simon Schama, who was full-blown open-borders and drooling about his splendid Muslim newsagent when he was debating me on stage in Toronto, is now stunned to discover his country is full of people who want him dead.

Then there's halfwit Bernie Farber, head boob of the Canadian Jewish Congress, making common cause with the Canadian Islamic Congress because both of them wanted to shut me up:

Here's a video of CJC President-for-life Farber greeting Khurrum Awan, sole surviving Canadian Islamic Congress sock puppet, at a 'Combating Hatred' confab. Turn up the volume and you'll hear Bernie, Canada's leading cheerleader for state censorship, kibbitzing with Khurrum about how the 'hard right' have made people afraid to exercise their right to 'free speech'. What a disgusting and dishonest buffoon. Why don't you just cut to the chase and make it the Canadian Islamic and Jewish Congress, and appoint yourself Vice-President (Useful Idiocy)? One day, the last seven elderly Jews living in the Toronto Farber helped build will curse his memory.

We're fast approaching that stage. Jews are demographically irrelevant in Canada, as in the UK, France, Belgium... Whereas, thanks to the Islamoschmoozing of Farber, Foxman et al, disdaining the Muslim vote can put a severe crimp in your electoral viability. In the aforementioned Dewsbury, for example, the local "Church of England primary school" has an all-Muslim student body. Think that name will last much longer?

Yet the fools who banked on Bernie and his European equivalents appear stunned by the authorities' indulgence of public calls to kill all the Jews. Why? In a time of sweeping demographic transformation, who, increasingly, are "the authorities"? Me again, almost a decade ago:

Here's a story from the Belgian papers last June:

'A Belgian municipal security officer is facing dismissal after saying he would kill "each and every Jew" during a debate on Facebook this past Friday.'

That's some "debate".

'"The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them," wrote the officer, who was only referred to as Mohamed N. in Belgian media.

That's Mohamed N standing next to the mayor of Molenbeek, Françoise Schepmans, in the picture at top right. A year before Mohamed N's 'debate', four Jews were gunned down at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. This week the authorities told Brussels Jews to forget about Purim because they can't guarantee security. That's hardly surprising when "the authorities" include chaps like Mohamed N. How likely is a fellow who believes 'the word Jew itself is dirty' to be alert to future threats against the Jewish Museum? Indeed, if you're higher up the security chain, how do you tell the difference between the chatter of the 'radicalized' 'extremists' and the views of your own men?

Mohamed N was a 'guardian of the peace' in Molenbeek, the Brussels suburb that's been tied to November's Paris bloodbath, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Jewish Museum murders, the assault on a Paris-Brussels train thwarted by three Americans, etc, etc. Is it so surprising that the Belgian state is so clueless about what's going on under its nose when its eyes and ears on the ground are the likes of Mohamed N?

A few months after writing the above, I chanced to be in Molenbeek, which I knew well from my childhood (my mum was Belgian). I was checking out the story of Salah Abdeslam, who after taking part in the Bataclan atrocities in Paris had retreated to Brussels and holed up in the family's flat in Molenbeek. The apartment is directly across the square from ...police headquarters, where all the windows have a commanding view of the most wanted man in Europe's front door. I walked around the square several times, stopping only for a coffee at his brother's café, where the lads liked to sip coffee and watch jihadist snuff videos, also in full view of police headquarters.

And I did not think it remotely possible that the coppers could not have known where Mr Abdeslam was hiding out. As a matter of policy, "the authorities" turn a blind eye to the provocations of Islam, because its adherents are too numerous. Now, seven years on, we are supposed to be surprised that in London Scotland Yard raid a man's home because he uploaded a video objecting to pro-Palestinian demonstrations:

Even Justin Trudeau's decision to go trick-or-treating with his kid dressed as a decapitated blood-soaked child seems weirdly on-message for the times. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this was entirely accidental on the Mammy Singer's part. What's interesting is that there was not a single person around him who thought to say, "Er, Justin, you know there are a big bunch of people mourning their beheaded babies right now?" - either because they are so out of it they're unaware of that, or because they know full well but, like the Young Turks podcasters, regard babies as a legitimate target and thus don't care.

And so we approach the next stage - the beginning of the end - where we become them.

Let me conclude with yet more unseemly self-quoting, from a decade-and-a-half ago:

As The Times reported, 'Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam.' That last category is the next stage... Let's say you work in an office in those cities: One day they install a Muslim prayer room, and a few folks head off at the designated time, while the rest of you get on with what passes for work in the EU. A couple of years go by, and it's now a few more folks scooting off to the prayer room. Then it's a majority. And the ones who don't are beginning to feel a bit awkward about being left behind.

What do you do? The future showed up a lot sooner than you thought. If you were a fundamentalist Christian like those wackjob Yanks, signing on to Islam might (pace Mr Ferrigno) cause you some discomfort. But, if you're the average post-Christian Eurosecularist, what's the big deal? Who wants to be the last guy sitting in the office sharpening his pencil during morning prayers?

Funny how quickly it all happened. There was the woman on reception, but she retired. And the guy in personnel who used to say, sotto voce, that Geert Wilders had a point. But he emigrated the year after Wilders did.

Look at what "the authorities" tolerate today. Look at Sir Keir's poppy-on-poppy-off routine, because he doesn't want to risk offending the mobs who trash the Cenotaph. He has decided, to invert the late Charb, that he would rather live on his knees than risk dying on his feet. Don't join him in that craven choice.

Mark's international bestseller America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. If you haven't read the book during its first seventeen years, well, you're missing a treat. It's still in print in hardback and paperback. (Buy it at a 77% discount by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 47% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR)

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Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, a Top 41 recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist. Among his books is "The Undocumented Mark Steyn: Don't Say You Weren't Warned". (Buy it at a 49% discount by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 67% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR)

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