Dinesh D'Sousa's new book, The Enemy at Home: the Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, has — predictably — caused outrage on the left for his claim that "without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened."
But some conservative critics are angry, as well, particularly about D'Sousa's call for an alliance of social conservatives and traditional Muslims. Traditional Muslims, he says, are "our natural allies" because they share the values of conservative Americans. We can win the war on terror, D'Sousa asserts, by winning the culture war at home, and thereby convincing moderate Muslims that their best interests lie in siding with us, not the radicals.
The trouble is, in making his argument, D'Sousa smoothes away too many of the differences, giving the impression that Muslim values and Judeo-Christian values are cut out of the same cloth. But this is highly misleading. Although the traditional values of Muslims and the traditional values of Christians and Jews bear some similarities, they stem from very different sources, and because they do, they are decidedly not the same.
We are accustomed to thinking that differences in religious beliefs don't matter that much, but sometimes differences in theology do make a difference in morality. Take the Islamic depiction of Heaven as a garden of carnal delights — food, drink and eternally young virgins. As Roy Schoeman points out in Salvation Is from the Jews, "the effect on moral development from teaching that the highest good that God can offer to a man is sexual gratification is obvious…."
One effect is on family life. Are family values pretty much the same across the spectrum of traditional families? It seems quite a stretch to say so. As distinct from Judaism and Christianity, there is no notion in Islam of marriage as a sacred covenant or as a holy sacrament. Hence there is no "till death do us part" clause in the Muslim marriage ceremony. As the Egyptian-American author Nonie Darwish observes, "A man may decide to be faithful to one woman, and never marry another, but in the back of his mind he always knows that his faithfulness is not required by God." And this knowledge has profound consequences.
Anyone who has read Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, or sampled any of several recent non-fiction books by Arab women (such as Darwish's Now They Call Me Infidel) will realize that there is a world of difference between a traditional Muslim family in Cairo and, say, a traditional Catholic family living in St. Louis.
Following the Koran, Muslim marriage laws seem to be designed on the principle that a man's home is his harem. There is lots of leeway for men, and almost none for women. Even though polygamy is not widely practiced in the Muslim world, its mere existence creates a tangle of pathologies including "secret wives," "pleasure marriages" (often, little more than Sharia-approved one-night stands), easy divorce for men, distrust, envy, difficulty in forming friendships, and insecure children. Moreover, because polygamy limits the supply of marriageable women, it creates a pool of sexually frustrated young men who are naturally drawn to jihad and the promise of endless sex in eternity.
While the pathologies that beset family life in Christian countries are usually a result of a falling away from Christian teaching, the pathologies attending Muslim family life are often a direct or indirect result of Islamic precepts.
D'Sousa's pleasant picture of traditional Muslim life doesn't square with the account given by Darwish or with that of other Muslim women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan. For all the good points of his book — and there are many — D'Sousa has fallen for the just-like-us fallacy: in this case, Muslims-are-people-just-like-us so their families, values, and goals must be just like ours too. It's not a proposition to bet the farm on.
Speaking of farms, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is airing a new sitcom called "Little Mosque on the Prairie." Yes, it's really called that. And early reports suggest it's just what you might expect. Imagine the Cosbys in Saskatchewan practicing Sharia-lite and you have the picture. In one scene the father upbraids his teenage daughter for her choice of clothes. "You look like a Protestant," he says. "You mean a prostitute," she suggests. "No, I mean a Protestant," he retorts.
So, there you have it. Allay your fears. Muslims-are-people-just-like-us: same family problems, same witty repartee, same heartwarming humor. If you are harboring any doubts or suspicions in the corners of your mind, get over it. Stop thinking "Life with Fatah," start thinking "Life with Father."
Although much of D'Sousa's book demands serious consideration, the picture he paints of traditional Muslim life has a bit too much of the "Little Mosque" in it. There are many good reasons for Americans to recommit themselves to traditional values, but the hope that we can thereby find common cause with the Muslim world should not top the list.
In drawing these moral equivalencies between the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam, D'Sousa has drawn the ire of conservative critics. Robert Spencer, the author of Islam Unveiled, doesn't buy the decadence argument, and asserts that the jihad would continue unabated even if "the exportation of American depravity were to end tomorrow." He's right about that. Our cultural degeneracy is a factor in Islam's war against us but it is not the decisive factor. For example, Muslim aggression in the past never needed the excuse of decadence. There was no rap music, MTV, or internet porn in North Africa or Spain in the seventh century, but Muhammad's disciples conquered them anyway.
But Spencer also overstates his case, and ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or, in this case, throwing out the Britney with the bathwater –"Britney" being shorthand for all that's wrong with American culture. Part of the "Britney" thesis proposed by D'Sousa is that the culture war and the war on terror are intimately related. Winning the war against decadent pop and decadent high culture puts us in a better position to win the war against Islamic aggression. Unfortunately, Spencer is so incensed by D'Sousa's failure to understand the nature of jihad that he throws out the whole of the Britney thesis, poking fun at the idea in a blog he titles "How Britney Spears and I cause jihad."
Downplaying the culture wars in this fashion carries a risk of its own, because the culture wars do matter. No, Britney didn't cause 9/11, but there is a sense in which the outcome of the culture wars is related to the war on terror. It has to do with our conviction that we have something worth defending. As I wrote in another column, "But what way of life are we now trying to preserve? Our right to pornography? Our right to abortion? Our right to unfettered sexual experimentation, and damn the consequences for children?"
If this is the sort of thing your culture stands for, your culture won't stand for very long. The decadent Weimar Republic was unable to resist Hitler's rise to power. Likewise, present day Europe, with its secularized culture and its dwindling population, has shown little ability to resist cultural jihad. The culture wars are essentially a war on Christianity. Europe lost its own culture war (practically without resistance) because it lost its religion. If Christian faith and morals had been more robust in Europe during the last forty years it is unlikely that radical Islam would have advanced so far, so fast.
So, criticize D'Sousa for the weak points in his argument, but don't throw out the Britney with the bathwater.
