http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OG ... TIzZjIzMDg

> First They Came for Piglet
> Excessive deference to Islam.
>
> By Mark Steyn
>
> My favorite headline of the year so far comes from The Daily Mail in
> Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As 'Anti-Islamic
> Activity' To Woo Muslims."
>
> Her Majesty's government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful
> to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers
> and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to
> cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the
> British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no
> longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons
> of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic activity"
> Britain's home secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a
> speech a few days ago. "There is nothing Islamic about the wish to
> terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief," she
> told her audience. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are
> anti-Islamic."
>
> Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people
> in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain
> narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be
> said to be "anti-Islamic" -- in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining
> down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an
> "anti-German activity." But I don't recall even Neville Chamberlain
> explaining, as if to a five-year-old, that there is nothing German about
> the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with
> the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer
> gardens while wearing lederhosen.
>
> Still, it should add a certain surreal quality to BBC news bulletins:
> "The Prime Minister today condemned the latest anti-Islamic activity as
> he picked through the rubble of Downing Street looking for his 2008
> Wahhabi Community Outreach Award. In a related incident, the
> anti-Islamic activists who blew up Buckingham Palace have unfortunately
> caused the postponement of the Queen's annual Ramadan banquet."
>
> A few days ago, a pre-trial hearing in an Atlanta courtroom made public
> for the first time a video made by two Georgia Tech students. Syed Haris
> Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee went to Washington and took footage of
> key buildings, and that "casing video" then wound up in the hands of
> Younis Tsouli, an al-Qaeda recruiter in London. As the film shot by the
> Georgia students was played in court, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee's voice
> could be heard on the soundtrack: "This is where our brothers attacked
> the Pentagon."
>
> "Allahu Akbar," responds young Ahmed. God is great.
>
> How "anti-Islamic" an activity is that? Certainly, not all Muslims want
> to fly planes into the Pentagon. But those that do do it in the name of
> their faith. And anyone minded to engage in an "anti-Islamic activity"
> will find quite a lot of support from leading Islamic scholars. Take,
> for example, the "moderate" imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who once observed
> that "we will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through the
> sword, but through dawa" -- i.e., the non-incendiary form of Islamic
> outreach.
>
> What could be more moderate than that? No wonder Mr al-Qaradawi is an
> associate of the Islamic Society of Boston, currently building the
> largest mosque in the northeast, and also a pal of the present mayor of
> London. The impeccably moderate mullah was invited to address a British
> conference sponsored by the police and the Department of Work and
> Pensions on "Our Children, Our Future." And, when it comes to the
> children, Imam Qaradawi certainly has their future all mapped out.
> "Israelis might have nuclear bombs," he said, "but we have the children
> bomb and these human bombs must continue until liberation." As Maurice
> Chevalier used to say, thank heaven for little girls, they blow up in
> the most delightful way.
>
> The British home secretary would respond that not all moderate imams are
> as gung-ho to detonate moppets. Which is true. But, by insisting on
> re-labeling terrorism committed by Muslims in the name of Islam as
> "anti-Islamic activity," Her Majesty's government is engaging not merely
> in Orwellian Newspeak but in self-defeating Orwellian Newspeak. The
> broader message it sends is that ours is a weak culture so unconfident
> and insecure that if you bomb us and kill us our first urge is to find a
> way to flatter and apologize to you.
>
> Here's another news item out of Britain this week: A new version of The
> Three Little Pigs was turned down for some "excellence in education"
> award on the grounds that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues" and,
> as a result, the judges "had concerns for the Asian community" -- i.e.,
> Muslims. Non-Muslim Asians -- Hindus and Buddhists -- have no "concerns"
> about anthropomorphized pigs.
>
> This is now a recurring theme in British life. A while back, it was a
> local government council telling workers not to have knick-knacks on
> their desks representing Winnie-the-Pooh's porcine sidekick, Piglet. As
> Martin Niemöller famously said, first they came for Piglet and I did not
> speak out because I was not a Disney character and, if I was, I'm more
> of an Eeyore. So then they came for the Three Little Pigs, and Babe, and
> by the time I realized my country had turned into a 24/7 Looney Tunes it
> was too late, because there was no Porky Pig to stammer "Th-th-th-that's
> all, folks!" and bring the nightmare to an end.
>
> Just for the record, it's true that Muslims, like Jews, are not partial
> to bacon and sausages. But the Koran has nothing to say about cartoon
> pigs. Likewise, it is silent on the matter of whether one can name a
> teddy bear after Mohammed. What all these stories have in common is the
> excessive deference to Islam. If the Three Little Pigs are verboten when
> Muslims do not yet comprise ten percent of the British population, what
> else will be on the blacklist by the time they're, say, 20 percent?
>
> A couple of days later, Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green party
> (the fourth-largest political party), spoke out against her country's
> continued military contribution to the international force in
> Afghanistan. "More ISAF forces from a Christian/Crusader heritage," she
> said, "will continue to fuel an insurgency that has been framed as a
> jihad." As it happens, Canada did not send troops to the Crusades,
> mainly because the fun was over several centuries before Canada came in
> existence. Six years ago, it was mostly the enemy who took that line,
> Osama bin Laden raging at the Great Satan for the fall of Andalusia in
> 1492, which, with the best will in the world, it's hard to blame on
> Halliburton. But since then, the pathologies of Islamism have proved
> surprisingly contagious among western elites.
>
> You remember the Three Little Pigs? One builds a house of straw, and
> another of sticks, and both get blown down by the Big Bad Wolf. Western
> civilization is a mighty house of bricks, but who needs a Big Bad Wolf
> when the pig's so eager to demolish it himself?