On Jihad Watch, that bastion of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the curious case of a German politician, Arthur Wagner, who for the last 4 years has been a member of the supposedly tougher, more conservative and anti-Muslim Immigration party, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland or "Alternative for Germany") -- a party that is routinely labeled "far right" probably mainly because of its stance against "Islamization" -- has himself converted to Islam.
Hugh's essay is an exercise in educated speculation on why Arthur Wagner, a member of an essentially anti-Islam political party (or more likely "anti-Islamist" or "anti-political Islam" party) would himself convert to Islam. The reason Hugh has to speculate is because Wagner has refused to answer questions about his conversion, maintaining it is none of the public's business.
Hugh's speculative diagnosis is more revealing of Hugh, and of the schizophrenia about Islam indulged by the Counter-Jihad Mainstream (tough on the outside, nougaty soft on the inside) to which Hugh can be said (based on hundreds of essays he has written, which I've analyzed over the years) to belong. Here's how Hugh handles this curious conversion to Islam by a formerly anti-Islam guy:
"It seems to me that there are three possible reasons why Arthur Wagner decided to convert to Islam."
So begins Hugh, and I cringe and brace myself for the subtly asymptotic locutions to come.
The first is the most obvious: that having been dead set against more Muslim immigrants, he decided to have a look into the faith whose adherents, according to his own party, “have no place in Germany,” and was struck by the sheer wonderfulness of Islam. After all, the refugees he’d been assisting were mostly Muslims, and inclined to sing the praises of their faith. To do what Wagner did out of genuine belief is not impossible — strange things happen every day.
No Hugh, that's not an explanation for Why; it's just a rephrasing of the What, without providing any insight leading from that What to the Why. Let's see what his other two, supposedly more substantial guesses are:
But there are two other conceivable explanations for Arthur Wagner’s behavior. The first may be called the “cherchez-la-femme” (look for the woman) theme. Among the refugees Wagner had been helping, there might well have been a Muslimah who caught his fancy. And if she responded, well, since he’s not exactly Gregory Peck, he might have been thrilled. As a female refugee, she would of course see a solution to all her problems if she could land this particular fish, and he, in turn, would be delighted to have such a mate. Of course, given that in Islam, men are superior to women, it would be unthinkable for a Muslim wife to submit to a non-Muslim husband. Before getting married, the non-Muslim husband-to-be must, therefore, convert to Islam. Which Arthur Wagner may have been perfectly willing to do. There is still another conceivable variant. Muslims in Brandenburg, knowing of Arthur Wagner’s work with Muslim refugees, and of his desire for a mate, might have persuaded a Muslim woman, refugee or not, to respond to him, all in the path of Allah of course, and then to demand that he convert so that they might marry. What a coup for Islam that would be — and has now turned out, in fact, to be. You can just imagine how often Muslims will be bringing up the case of Arthur Wagner, as proof of Islam’s greatness, for it can “overcome even the worst sort of islamophobia.”
Okay, that speculative guess at least has some meat to it. However, it still begs the question a bit; unless Hugh is trying to say that the mere motivation of an older guy feeling unattractive and needing female companionship suffices, completely, to explain why he would convert to Islam -- which is what his rather verbose paragraph certainly seems to imply. This would be a variant on Hugh's "Esdrujula Elves", trying to explain the West's seduction to Islam (whether all the way, to conversion, or short of that, to its mainstream tendency toward fawning adulation) by recourse to vaguely human foibles, such as greed, stupidity, or timidity (not sure what "-idity" would apply here, as another facile label for Hugh to slap onto the midlife crisis of a horny guy as the sole motivation for his conversion to Islam; but the specious principle would be the same). It goes without saying, then, that this second guess is pretty flimsy (for those who can't see why Hugh's thesis is specious, my link just given may help them).
Let's see if Hugh's third guess gets any warmer:
The third possible explanation is of the filthy-lucre sort.
Oh God; he's still stuck on the Esdrujula Explanation -- this time having recourse to Greed. Will he stay stuck on that level or expand it to something more substantive? Let us see:
He might have thought of it himself, or someone may have suggested to him that, by turning Turk, there was money to be made. Think of all the speaking engagements now available to Arthur Wagner, throughout the deepest-pocketed Muslim lands — in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar — or even audiences of Muslims in Germany. His subject would be the one that every devout Muslim wants to hear: “Why I Became A Muslim.” That triumphalist topic ought to be worth 50-100,000 dollars per speech, given that he was a high-ranking official in the AfD, the most unlikely, and therefore the most valuable, kind of convert. And after all, Wagner would have done nothing wrong. He became a Muslim, and now he’s speaking about it. Why shouldn’t he? How dare anyone question his motives? Is he any worse than so many of our past presidents, secretaries of state, national security advisors, big shots of every sort, who once out of office head out to the Gulf (Persian, Arabian, take your pick) to pocket most generous honoraria? Arthur Wagner has a story, he wants to tell it, and there are people, his fellow Muslims, who want to hear it. Eventually we’ll find out what led Arthur Wagner to the One True Faith. If there’s a woman involved, he’s not going to keep her waiting. If it’s money he is after, just keep track of his speaking schedule. And if, mirabile dictu, he actually went from warning about Islam to becoming a Muslim, because he has indeed become a True Believer, then not just in Houston, but in Germany, Europe, the entire Western world, mein damen und herren, we have ein großes Problem.
As I guessed, Hugh's third guess remains stuck on the level of his Esdrujula Elf, Cupidity. Completely unexplored by Hugh's speculative discursus on this most curious phenomenon -- of a formerly anti-Islam person converting to Islam -- are more positive reasons having to do with ideology. Such as, for example, the virtues of the dominant worldview of the West in our time, Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism -- virtues such as Respect for the Other and its other side of the same coin, Excessive Self-Criticism about our own Western civilization. And many other related phenomena which I have analyzed at length over the years. Instead, Hugh serves up a simple-minded analysis, at this late stage of the game. It's 2018, for Crissakes. You'd think the Counter-Jihad would have evolved by now beyond its flawed template. The dismaying reality seems to be that it has fossilized into a Counter-Jihad Mainstream.
Part 2 to come, for my guess, which probes more deeply this issue than Hugh does.
For now, I hazard a guess explaining Hugh's curious analytical deficiency: It's probably because, as a member of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream and its asymptotic tendencies, Hugh can't see how he himself shares with Arthur Wagner an underlying PC MC that disposed the latter to convert to Islam. Hugh's myopia to the PC MC inside himself thus blinds him to its presence in, and key influence on, not only the Arthur Grants of the West who "go native" by conversion to Islam, but the much more numerous Westerners (the majority, in fact) who stop short of that by fawning all over Islam like it's the best thing since sliced falafel.
No comments:
Post a Comment