Nice, Erdoğan, and Newt

I’ve been otherwise occupied over the past forty hours or so, but, of course, I need to comment, first, on the horror in Nice; then on the coup in Turkey; and, finally, on the emerging horror that is Newt.

1.

Words are inadequate.  And I mean, by that, that mere verbiage cannot begin to undo the crime that has been done in France or comfort those whose lives have been so cruelly shattered, and that words alone are not going to bring an end to such murders.

This simply must stop.  And it’s going to take the concerted action of people in the West, including their intelligence services and their police and their military, to stop it.  But it’s also going to require the concentrated attention of Muslims and their governments.  If they love their faith, if they value the reputation of their culture, they must put an end to these murders in the name of Islam.  And they have considerable incentive:  Western media coverage notwithstanding, the vast majority of those who die at the hands of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” are, themselves, Muslims.

The word Islam is becoming a stench in the nostrils of decent people worldwide, who, not without reason, are coming to fear and hate the sheer mention of it.

2.

Which brings me to the matter of the attempted military coup in Turkey.

It’s the middle of the night there as I post, and reports are fragmentary and confusing.  Some say that this isn’t a coup on the part of the Turkish military but on the part of a faction of the Turkish military — and that the coup is losing.

That may be true.

And, if so, my feelings are mixed.

I regret revolutions.  I regret the loss of property and life that they entail, and the long-term threat they pose to stability and order.

But I also dislike Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current Turkish president against whom the coup was launched.  He leans toward (a relatively moderate) Islamism and, worse, he’s grown increasingly autocratic and has been far less vigorous than he could have been in combatting ISIS, which flourishes on his very doorstep.

He has also been trying for years to weaken the Turkish military, which was entrusted by the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938), with the responsibility of safeguarding the secular state and society that he had bequeathed to the Turkish people.

Apparently, at least some in the military have had enough.  So they’ve stepped in.  But it looks as if Erdoğan may prevail — and it seems virtually certain that, if he does, he will use this episode as simply yet another excuse to both consolidate his own personal power and weaken President Atatürk’s beloved military.

3.

Finally, it seems that Newt Gingrich, whom I’ve come to admire less and less as the years have passed — see this account of his most recent (and ultimately futile) triumph of ambition over principle — has called for all Muslims in the United States to be “tested.”  And, if they profess belief in “shari‘a law,” for them to be deported.

Well, Newt, virtually all faithful Muslims believe in shari‘a.  It’s at the heart of their religion.

The question is what they mean by it.  How do they want it implemented?

It’s rather as if, should there be a radical Christian group out there carrying out murders and bombings in a bid to establish the “Kingdom of God,” Mr. Gingrich were to call for the testing of all Christians, and for the deportation of any Christian who expresses a hope or yearning for the Kingdom of God.

Every Christian hopes for the Kingdom of God.  The question, again, would be what any given Christian means by it.  And how he or she hopes it will come about.

I don’t want to seem to minimize the challenge that Islamist violence poses to good people everywhere, very much including the Islamic world itself, and I’m certainly not suggesting that we do nothing about it.

But we should be careful not to let this really turn into the war between Islam and the West that ISIS eagerly wants it to be, and we shouldn’t lose our souls in the process.

I draw attention to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, with certain words highlighted:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If it ever comes to the mass interrogation of people, including American citizens, merely because they’re Muslims, I’ll seek to be interrogated, as well.  And if some future American regime ever seriously claims the right to deport people simply because of their faith, I will be there, demanding to be deported with them.  I wouldn’t want to remain in this country under such circumstances, anyway.

For further commentary on Dr. Gingrich’s appalling comment, see here and here.