A quote from an editorial in Die Zeit of September 9:
“…The real danger posed by the new conflicts with Islam are the inner tensions within the West itself. The external, military battle with the radical Muslims is being reigned in, today in Iraq and one day in Afghanistan as well. At the same time, public debate is growing more acerbic while mistrust and intolerance are spreading. In this situation everything depends on how well we can counter the virus of militancy and pettiness, as well as the divisions within society….
“Now, on September 11, 2010, the very moral integrity of the West is at stake. And it is no less important than our security. The victory of intolerance would mean the defeat of everything we stand for.”
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
Thank heaven for a little dose of scary intolerance.
It acts like a vaccine.
The body politic reacts to it, sees how destructive, undermining and unsustainable racism and hatred is, and defends against it, thereby guaranteeing its own survival and marginalizing the few.
Only occasionally does the vaccine fail; this time the trend seems to be going against the frightened angry minority and in favor of the larger moderate majority.
Let’s hope…
You are so right.
You may have read in the Globe this morning in a great piece about the Balfour Declaration that in 1917 the British had reason to be afraid of a JIHAD – a useful lesson to those who believed that the defeat of the Turks before Vienna in 1683 took care of the danger once and for all.
(I’m inclined to think that it did – and that present fears of Islam on our continent are a hysterical byproduct of American decline.)
“the defeat of the Turks before Vienna in 1683 took care of the danger once and for all” — the jury is still out . . .
You are right – it is still theoretically possible that aggressive Islam will conquer the West. This might not be the end of the world. Suppose in 1683 they had won – would that really have been so terrible? Would it not have been a good thing if they had experienced the Enlightenment in the next century – Voltaire, Rousseau and all the rest, PLUS the French Revolution? Would they not have become modern – like the rest of us?
And don’t forget: The Ottoman Empire was very tolerant. They might have given the West a lesson in tolerance.