1. What are you afraid of?
That the Muslims will attempt a repeat performance of their aggressive wars against the West and cut our throats.
2. Impossible! We have military superiority. Do you doubt it?
I am not so sure. But even if I concede the point I am still afraid of their power to terrorize us and to infiltrate and subvert us through non-conventional means. I am afraid of their intolerant religion, which teaches them to kill infidels. And I think their main impulse is religious.
3. So you don’t believe their main aim is political, i.e., to liberate Muslim territories invaded by alien forces they despise?
No, this is secondary. The prime impulse is religious, not political. And don’t tell me their political leaders cynically use religion to maintain their power. That may be true in Iran, but it is generally not true in Muslim countries. The masses are quite content with their political system, which is in harmony with their religion. They don’t understand western objections to the way they treat their women, for example. I am aware of oppositional forces in Egypt and other countries. They should, of course, be encouraged but we must not assume that they are necessarily pro-Western.
4. Do you not think the main problem is that the Muslims are still in the Middle Ages and that once they have had their Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment, they will be like us?
Yes, I believe that. But what good does that do us now? We can’t wait that long.
5. Do you not think the West is robust enough to withstand the real or imagined assault?
I think it is. They believe that we are decadent, degenerate nihilists. From their point of view we certainly are. But from our view point we are not, even though we have trouble defining our values and our institutions don’t work very well and there is outrageous injustice in our social arrangements. But we know that our decency and our diversity make us resilient. We must not let our fears dominate our agenda.
6. In the meantime, what should be our attitude towards Muslims in our own country?
I don’t understand the question. The backwardness and intolerance of so many Muslims – but by no means all – are not a danger to us. Surely, as long as they observe our laws and way of life, it goes without saying that we must respect them as our equals and resist all suggestions that to do so is a form of appeasement. In all cases where their customs do depart from ours we must make every effort to be tolerant.
Eric Koch’s new book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
In respect to your question about our attitude towards Muslims in our own country, it seems you’ve painted all Muslims with the same brush.
To suggest that Muslims in Canada are “backward and intolerant” is a huge and inaccurate generalization.
Is the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairies backward and intolerant?
Is Irshad Manji backward and intolerant?
Are Tarek Fatah, Sheema Khan and Fatima Houda-Pepin backward and intolerant?
No.
Are there backward and intolerant Muslims in Canada?
Yes, but just as I would not want anyone to assume that all Jews are rich Zionists or all Catholics anti-gay (because it’s not true), I would hope we could see Muslims not as a monolithic undifferentiated species, but as a collection of individuals who demonstrate as big a range of differences as all other human beings.
Guilty as charged.
I am taking steps immediately to rephrase that sentence.
Coincidentally, today’s NYT carries an op-ed piece by Ross Douthat reflecting similar questions from an Amurrican perspective:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16douthat.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Thank you. An excellent article.
I think I’ll just keep fearing the Russians!
That can never be a mistake, Kathy!
Two interesting developments: 1) The Economist reviewed a book on Sayyid Qutb without ever mentioning the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood’s deep anti-Semitism. Richard Cohen in the WashPost took the magazine to task. Good grist for an Economist ombudsman’s mill. If The Economist had an ombudsman.
2. The most recent edition of the New York Review of Books has Malise Ruthven reviewing Paul Berman (“Terror and Liberalism”) with Timothy Garton Ash (“Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name”) and Ian Baruma (“Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents”). As David mentions, Berman conveniently overlooks many non-German examples of western impulses to totalitarianism while casting Islam are being predisposed to Nazism. It’s well worth reading. I tend to agree with much of what Berman says, but not with all of his conclusions.
Thank you. I will read them.
I do not fear the Russians, I fear the Chinese. 40 years we said The optimists are learning Russian, the Pessimists Chinese.
So do I.
What worries me is our world-destroying greed. The human population of our little planet has tripled in my lifetime, while the available supply of fresh water has diminished. Those two facts alone mean that life for my grandchildren, by the time they’re my age, will be pretty tough. And for their grandchildren? Oy.
Carpe Diem!
some different customs we should tolerate and others we should not, if practised here.
I take a different view of the backwardness and tolerance of some of the people that David mentioned than he does. I have nothing against Irshad Manji, though. Seema Khan can be insular and self-righteous, but otherwise her heart seems in the right place. The others … hmmm.
A liberal US blog noted yesterday that now the optimists are learning Chinese and the pessimists are learning Arabic…