Jeremayakovka

Christianity and Culture and War

Continuing to track down sources of recent reads, this week I acquired a copy of  T. S. Eliot's Christianity and Culture (1948). The collection of lectures and essays is referenced in Pat Buchanan's The Decline of the West (2000) (see previous post), also Robert Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996).

Eliot's abiding concern here is to make Christianity central to Western nations during the modernist era. He does not intend any "social justice" agenda. He does not advocate a faith that would conform to conditions created by modernization -- technology, political liberalism, and "the mob." This last phrase (Eliot's word choice) is similar to what Ortega y Gasset scrutinized in The Revolt of the Masses (1930). Eliot affirms, rather, a particular and enduring power for Christianity. Yet it's not a preacher's sermon, elaborating on scripture. Nor is it the feminist critique of pacifism that is Virgnia Woolf's Three Guineas (1938), nor the decadent road recits, of Greece and America (respectively), that are Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945). 

The first half of the book, "The Idea of Christianity," was originally a series of lectures he delivered in early 1939. They conclude with remarks referencing the Czechoslovakia crisis Hitler had provoked the previous year, the one "resolved" by the now infamous Munich Agreement and Chamberlain's fallacious declaration of "Peace in our time."
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The term "democracy," as I have said again and again, does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike -- it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.

I believe that there must be many persons, like myself, who were deeply shaken by the events of September 1938, in a way from which one does not recover; persons to whom that month brought a profounder realisation of a general plight. It was not a disturbance of the understanding: the events themselves were not surprising. Nor, as became increasingly evident, was our distress due merely to disagreement with policy and behaviour of the moment. The feeling which was new and unexpected was a feeling of humiliation, which seemed to demand an act of personal contrition, of humility, repentance, and amendment; what had happened was something in which one was deeply implicated and responsible. It was not, I repeat, a criticism of the government, but a doubt of the validity of a civilisation. We could not match conviction with conviction, we had no ideas with which we could either meet or oppose the ideas opposed to us. Was our society, which had always been so assured of its superiority and rectitude, so confident of its unexamined premises, assembled round anything more permanent than a congeries of banks, insurance companies and industries, and had it any beliefs more essential than a belief in compound interest and the maintenance of dividends? Such thoughts as these formed the starting point, and must remain the excuse, for saying what I have to say.
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Note well, from Eliot's postscript to this (dated September 6, 1939):
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[T]he possibility of war, which has now been realised, was always present to my mind.

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Samuel Coleridge, Romantic Poet Who Recognized Jihad

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Mahomet
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Utter the song, O my soul! the flight and return of Mohammed,
Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing,
Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution,
Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan
and idolatrous Christians.--For veiling the Gospel of Jesus,
They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest.
Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca,
Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness.
Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol;--
Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid--the people with mad shouts
Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation
Flow, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river
Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd,
Rushes dividuous all--all rushing impetuous onward.
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-- Fragment of an intended longer work; composed c. 1799, published 1834.
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Curious to consider: while lamenting corrupted Christianity Coleridge not just marks Islam's fanatic expansion, but possibly also celebrates it....

More on S. T. Coleridge (1772-1834) -- poet, critic, translator; with William Wordsworth founder of English Romanticism; enthusiastic, then disillusioned, observer of the French Revolution; opium addict.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Other links.

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Truth and English

Peter Brimelow: You've mentioned what you see as the institutional prerequisites for capitalism. Do you think there might be cultural prerequisites, too?
Milton Friedman: Oh, yes. For example, truthfulness.... It's a curious fact that capitalism developed and has really only come to fruition in the English-speaking world. It hasn't made the same progress even in Europe--certainly not in France, for instance.
-- from "An Interview with Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman," Forbes, December 12, 1988
(quoted in Ann Coulter's High Crimes and Misdemeanors, p. 112).
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George Orwell: [Written English] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
-- from "Politics and the English Language"
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Newt on Gwot

Must see video of Gingrich's remarks at the National Press Club. H/T Mick.

The Taqiyyic Calm Within The Jihadist Storm

I love my native city more than my soul.
-- Niccolo Macchiavelli
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This from midtown Manhattan, Pamela waxes lionesshearted in "Waiting for Abu Godot":

I clock the war. It's what I do. I watch, I report and observe - I tell you when it's an observation. I distinguish between the actual news and my opinion. Something the mainstream media stopped doing long ago. They abdicated their role as public servant in delivering the news.... The crisis of our time is so pressing, so imminent, it has seized me. To my very core. I walk the streets of New York and feel as if I am walking the garden of the Finzi-Continis....

When I saw The Garden of the Finzi-Continis the first thing I thought of were those trimmed, magisterial residences of Fifth and Park Avenues and East End Avenues. Including, for that matter, Gracie Mansion.

How well I remember Manhattan's Upper East Side on hot summer weekends when the foot and street traffic dips 30+% because residents have skirted off to their second homes, time shares, etc. on the Island, in Rochester or Putnam County, on MV (that's Martha's Vineyard, for those not in the know) and beyond. At 4:00PM on a Saturday afternoon on Madison Avenue anywhere above 72nd St. you don't just hear a pin drop -- you see it drop.

How shady was my concrete canyon! [*]

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And this from Site Meter, someone (from undetermined motivations) pines to learn more about "kill Americans":

Domain Name		comcast.net ? (Network)
IP Address		69.136.82.# (Comcast Cable)
ISP		Comcast Cable
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : Delaware City : Wilmington Lat/Long : 39.7592, -75.5664 (Map)
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinVista
Browser		Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; InfoPath.2)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution : 1280 x 800 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Jul 26 2007 11:28:22 am
Last Page View		Jul 26 2007 11:29:20 am
Visit Length		58 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...&hl=en&start=70&sa=N
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		kill americans
Visit Entry Page		http://jeremayakovka...if_a_muslimamer.html
Visit Exit Page		http://jeremayakovka...if_a_muslimamer.html
Out Click		Islamic Evil http://kenlydell.typ...ad.com/islamic_evil/
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Jul 26 2007 2:28:22 pm
Visit Number		49,059

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*: Cf. the title and last line of dialogue from How Green Was My Valley (novel 1939; film 1941, trailer here)

"Londonistan Calling" - Hitch Reports on Barbarians Inside the Gates

Christopher Hitchens in the current Vanity Fair:

For the British mainstream, multiculturalism has been the official civic religion for so long that any criticism of any minority group has become the equivalent of profanity. And Islamic extremists have long understood that they need only suggest a racial bias—or a hint of the newly invented and meaningless term "Islamophobia"—in order to make the British cough and shuffle with embarrassment....

Anyway, you can't be multicultural and preach murderous loathing of Jews, Britain's oldest and most successful (and most consistently anti-racist) minority. And you can't be multicultural and preach equally homicidal hatred of India, Britain's most important ally and friend after the United States....

It's impossible to exaggerate how far and how fast this situation has deteriorated....

(H/T Seraphic Secret)
Previous entries about or referencing Christopher Hitchens here, here, here. here, here.

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On the totalitarian (as opposed to any tolerant -- let alone libertarian -- aspect) to multiculturalism, see Fjordman's recent article, "A Communism for the 21st Century":

The Marxist "counter-culture" of the 1960s and 70s has been remarkably effective at attacking the pillars of Western civilization. It is, frankly, scary to notice how much damage just one single generation can inflict upon a society. Maybe it’s true that no chain is stronger than its weakest link. Our education system is now used to dismantle our culture, not to uphold it, and has moved from the Age of Reason to the Age of Deconstruction. Socialism has destroyed the very fabric of society. Our countries have become so damaged that people feel there is nothing left fighting for, which no doubt was the intention. Our children leave school as disoriented wrecks and ideological cripples with no sense of identity, and are met with a roar of outrage if they demonstrate the slightest inkling of a spine....

The extreme Left didn’t succeed in staging a violent revolution in the West, so they decided to go for a permanent, structural revolution instead. They now hope that immigrants can provide raw material for a violent rebellion, especially since many of them are Muslims who have displayed such a wonderful talent for violence and destruction. The Western Left are importing a new proletariat, since the previous one disappointed them.

(H/T FrontPage Magazine)

When Among Barbarians Do As A Roman

These barbarians must be [initially] quelled by force, as they afterwards readily believe that whatever kindness is then shown to them proceeds from love, whereas otherwise they attribute it to weakness, or cowardice, and [efforts to bestow] presents [on them] only increase their insolence.
-- Third Lieutenant Williamson of the HMS Dolphin,
the first Englishman to kill a native Hawaiian (on January 20, 1778)

[Found in Keith Windschuttle's The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Murdering Our Past, a methodical engagement of postmodern historicizing, available from Encounter Books. For Williamson's statement Windschuttle draws upon Gananath Obeyesekere's The Apotheosis of Captain Cook.]

The Power of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900

My book does not consider British imperialism to have been a Bad Thing, argues that the Versailles Treaty was not harsh enough on Germany, defends the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and considers the United States to have been a great force for good in the world since 1900.

Find this and further elaborating statements by the author of A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900 a new, provocative work of history by clicking here.

Amazing Grace - The Spirit Moved Him

Two comments on the new movie Amazing Grace, about England's great abolitionist John Wilberforce. These clarify two aspects of the real history of abolition and of the musical composition "Amazing Grace" that has been handed down now for several generations.

According to this WSJ op-ed, "Amazing Glaze," the movie gives short shrift to Wilberforce's profound, Christian convictions that powered his commitment to what became a great reformist crusade:

William Wilberforce himself, as a student at Cambridge University in the 1770s and as a young member of Parliament soon after, had no more than a nominal sense of faith. Then, in 1785, he began reading evangelical treatises and underwent what he called "the Great Change," almost dropping out of politics to study for the ministry until friends persuaded him that he could do more good where he was.

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It seems necessary, then, to state unapologetically that the movement Wilberforce set in motion is a great example of God being honored in the public sphere.

Second, here's a video montage of British and American military commemorations set to a bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace." The hymn, quite apparently, is an integral part of the British military tradition. Well, that's news to me. Here's to such worthy Anglo-American bonding.

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As I've heard David Horowitz state, abolitionism is unique and powerful because it was an instance of white men saying not Let my people go! but Let another people go! Abolition is an instance of a great civilization, guided by Christian convictions, enacting crucial and unprecedented reform.

You won't hear many movie reviewers say it openly, so I'll say it here. Had Great Britain not been a Christian nation it may never have abolished slavery. So it is no exaggeration and no rhetorical sleight of hand to state what should be the obvious: God bless William Wilberforce!

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Related: While Wilberforce was inspired, this reviewer found the movie less than entirely so.

Do It For Mama (Or Allah)

In the waning days of World War II, as the Allies closed in on Berlin, Mrs. Joseph Goebbels killed her six youngest children with cyanide pills before joining the Minister of Propaganda in a double suicide. The couple's bodies were then doused in gasoline and set on fire. The Goebbels' eldest child, Harald (pictured in uniform, above), by virtue of being a POW in Africa, is the only immediate family member to have survived the Third Reich.
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Last year Pakistani-British Muslim Mohammed Riaz killed his wife, their three daughters (right), and himself by setting fire to their house with gasoline. They died in the fire; he succumbed to injuries two days later. Their son and eldest child, Adam, is the only immediate family member to have survived being Muslim. (However, Adam, who had suffered from cancer, succumbed to that weeks later.)
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You have to understand that we were living outside normal reality.... She said, I belong to my husband and the children belong to me.
-- the Goebbels' family nurse

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When I was a kid in the 70s an immigrant family in my New York neighborhood was going through hard times. Trinidadi by national origin, they ran the local grocery store where I used to buy gum, baseball cards, Bomb Pops, and soda (in the last days of pull-tabs). Their son, Derek, and I had become friends in the second grade and sometimes I used to hang out in their apartment after school. We watched silly Indian (subcontinent) comedies on the local public access TV channel. Derek's sister Karen, just a year younger than us, was feisty in her own way. Not quite the class "brain" (which Derek and I were), she was looking for ways to earn attention for herself. I remember, when playing Monopoly, she pronounced "Illinois Avenue" as "Illians Avenue." Once when Derek and Karen had broken one of the very strict rules of their very modest  household (having forgotten to clean their dishes or put their clothes away or some such infraction), their mother, Vangie, took her slipper and slapped them both across the face. She did this right in front of me, reduced them both to teary-eyed apologies for and me to a sort of sympathetic astonishment. (In case you're wondering, Gentle Reader, while usually a very well-behaved child -- I received a commendation for good behavoir in the third grade, in fact -- I wasn't above bringing on myself a whack with the hard hairbrush too.)

My point in telling all this is that all struggling immigrant households have their own rules, routines, and crises. My friend's underwent a most severe one, too, when one day the father, who'd been nursing a drinking problem for a long time (I'd seen him passed out on their couch once), went and drank himself over the edge and died of alcohol poisoning. Vangie picked up with the kids and moved away and I never saw her or Derek or Karen again.

Pity the poor man and the family he abandoned. But at least he didn't murder his brood for endeavoring to not be strangers in a strange land. Big difference. Blogging about them now, I miss them all. However, I have some baseline confidence that they've made something of themselves. And I wonder if Karen ever outgrew "Illians."

UK Black Muslim Terrorist Organizer: "9/11: That Was A Day That Changed Many Muslims' Lives, Especially Those Inside The Tower"

* Updated w/ Brando ; China execution (2/16) *

Is he talking about the al-Qaeda operatives or the Muslim victims among the dead? It's not clear, but Abu Izzadeen's Muslim audience responded with appreciative laughter. Hot Air has him on video, clear as a bell.

He's going to jail which is stupid becaue there he'll get three hots and a cot and endless recruiting opportunity. It's state-sponsored jihad. You send people to jail under the principle that they can be rehabilitated and reintegrate into society. This individual has absolutely zero intention of doing so. He's more than a criminal, he's an enemy. Jail's too good for him.

Charles Manson is insane. This guy's a basket case.

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Related: "Because it's judgment that defeats us."

You have no right to judge me. It's impossible in words to describe what is ... necessary ... to those who do not know what horror means. Horror, horror. Horror has a face ... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies....

I remember when I was with Special Forces ... we went into a camp to innoculate some children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for polio [and when] we went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were there in a pile, a pile of ... little arms. And I remember. I-- I-- ... I cried. I wept like some ... grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it -- I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized -- like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond -- a diamond bullet right through my forehead.

And I thought, "My God, the genius of that! The genius, the will to do that." Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. Then I realized: they were stronger than we. Because they could stand it. These were not monsters, these were men, these were trained cadres. These were men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love. But they had the strength -- the strength -- to do that.

If I had 10 divisions of those men, then our troubles here [in Vietnam] would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill. Without feeling, without passion. Without judgment -- without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.
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Now watch the video of  Abu Izzadeen at Hot Air, linked at the top of this post.  A guillotine may be too good for him.

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Previous: "The Face of Muslim Terror - Pray-à-Porter"

Related: China executes 'em.

Answering Anti-Semitism in the UK

Melanie Phillips has been blogging a series about "The War Against the West." Her latest entry hits back at those who attempt to steal past Jewish victimhood in order to claim that modern-day Muslims in the UK are victims of racism -- while modern-day Jews in the UK are under attack as never before (and UK Muslims approve of it in staggering numbers):

There is also no comparison between a Jewish community which has always been painfully loyal to Britain and a Muslim community where up to 16 per cent support terrorism against the UK. The comparison becomes even more odious given the fact that — as the CST statistics reveal —British Jews are actually under threat from part of the Muslim community, where anti-Jewish prejudice is running at an alarming level. Last year, an opinion poll in the Times revealed that a horrifying 37 per cent of Muslims polled believed that that the Jewish community in Britain was a legitimate target’; 53% believed British Jews had 'too much influence over the direction of UK foreign policy', and no fewer than 46% thought the Jewish community was 'in league with Freemasons to control the media and politics'.

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Islam hates Jews so blindly and so ferociously, it even hates Jews for their victimization! There's no logic at work here, only indoctrination. Just ask Isaac.

Where else would you hear about this if not for the internet?

See also her other recent blog series, "Vignettes of the New Barbarism," and of course her book Londonistan. 

Another Reason Children of Men is Politically Sterile

Earlier this month I lit into the movie Children of Men. In competition with Judeo-Christian values, MWC is a secular allegory for both a dystopian "endtimes" apocalypse and an earthly redemption through the arrival of a bastard, and very maculate (i.e., spotted, dirty), conception.

A recent blog item reminded me of another of its motifs. For several times CoM informs the audience just how awful, intrusive, and omnipresent is our not-so-futuristic state-level surveillance of public spaces. Yet whatever surveillance we already have -- and we may in fact need more of it -- is serving a good purpose, as the following footage of a would-be London suicide bomber demonstrates (scroll down).

Newt Gingrich, for example, is one man with children who has been very clear that future terrorist attacks, particularly anything approaching or surpassing what went down on 9/11, will usher in a degree of surveillance and a curtailment of freedom-as-we-now-know-it that we can barely imagine.

So we should honor what our actual surveillance capacity is able to capture. Honor it by studying it, learning from it, enhancing it, and continuing to apply it. If you believe in civil liberty, then you need to fight terrorism with the most intense vigor and diligence. Because that's how to preserve it.

In the meantime watch what this news clip of a piece-of-shit-punk trying to commit mass murder. I'd say he was trying to commit suicide, except that "suicide" means the killing of oneself -- What kind of "self" does a brainwashed piece of shit like this have? What kind of "self" worth preserving anyway...?

She is Not Amused

Thatcher made it on her own, which Hillary did not.
-- from "I Am Woman, Hear Me Bore"

"When We Say 'Innocent People,' We Mean Muslims...."

From the wickedly relevant Neocon Express blog: He stops short of saying explicitly that the 7/7 victims in London deserved to die. Nonetheless, he militantly -- and rudely -- preaches Islam's fundamental and uncompromising Weltanschauung, which includes that armed conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims is inevitable:

Submit or die.

I would never condemn a Muslim brother whether he's an oppressor or oppressed.

As far as we are concerned [not accepting Islam as the one, true religion] is a crime against God.

Newsweek Puts on the Veil

First, let's get on the same page in this debate, beginning with who I am: a young, professional, well-educated and "well integrated" British woman who chooses to wear her faith—in my case, the headscarf—on her sleeve.... Driven by a strong sense of social justice and wanting to reconnect with my spirituality, I "found" Islam at university, where I was a campus activist. My decision to wear the headscarf, the higab, at first had more to do with defining identity and a brash confidence about who I was and what values guided me. In time, it came to express my devotion as well. I will probably never wear a face veil, the nijab; frankly, it makes me uncomfortable. But in the best Voltairean spirit, I will fight and defend the right of Muslim women to wear what they want to wear.

Fareena Alam's cover story in the current Newsweek (International Edition) omits the above-inserted lesser photogenic image of her in favor of this bonier and lighter-skinned foursome. That noted, she writes assertively that the Muslim headscarf is both authentic and appropriate in contemporary Europe. "[T]he point is engagement—gab, not garb," writes Newsweek's guest author, who is also  Editor of the Muslim-themed Q-News. (More on Q-News at the end of this post.)

All right, then. Ms. Alam's understanding of "engagement" is explicitly at odds with JMK's most favored authors and opinion-makers -- Melanie Phillips, Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin, Claire Berlinski -- for starters -- who regularly sound the tocsin about the rise of militant Islam in a Europe that, culturally and demographically, is in terminal decline.

Ms. Alam mentions in passing that she "'found' [her quotes] Islam at university, where [she] was a campus activist." That's her first stumbling block. In the interest of truth and fairness, I strongly wish that she would have mentioned just what, precisely, she was an activist on behalf of (or against). That clearly was a formative time for her, one which contributed directly to the professional and political choices she is making today. Was she denouncing Islamic terror? This inquiring mind wants to know.

Speaking to current geopolitical climate, she makes no bones about where she stands now:

Many British Muslims, especially, are like me: young, politicized and socially active, angry about the Iraq debacle and the so-called war on terror.

And she is confident that not only does Islam have a place at the table now, but it is poised to set the table in the generations ahead:

[S]ooner or later, it is almost inevitable that a European Islam will emerge—inspired by 1,400 years of heritage, but authentic and culturally relevant to us in Europe today.

Well, "1,400 years of heritage" clearly omits the open warfare that preoccupied much of Christian Europe on and off for 1,000 years. 

Ms. Alam might possibly be a truly independent voice for vigorous, spirited debate both within Islam and among Islam and the Judeo-Christian West. This short profile of her rise at Q-News is worth reading:

One of the imams from up north called and said "the downfall of Q-News will be brought about by the women [including Ms. Alam] you have placed in leadership positions," she recalls. "[Editor-in-Chief] Fuad [Nahdi] said to him: ‘If you can find me 200 bearded smelly men like you who will do the job these two women do then I would accept your point!" recalls Alam…. Issues which don't often get an airing - such as mental health problems, teenage pregnancy and sexuality - have all been tackled in the pages of Q-News.

Getting Behind the Veil - How the United Kingdom Sees Itself

Mick Hume gives British readers a kick in the pants over their "Muslim-Mania":

Remove the blindfold from our own eyes, and we might see that all of this fuss about how the rest of society sees Muslims is really about how we see ourselves. The separateness of the Muslim community, and its comparatively strong sense of identity, touches upon our own insecurity about wider society, who we are and what holds us together today.