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On Wednesday, I linked to to the story of the idiotic judges of an award who rejected a story based on the three little pigs:...The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-Rom highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".
They also warned that the story might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)".
The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?" The Brussels Journal is a site which many American conservatives read about matters European. Unfortunately, although some of its writers are far from stupid, many of their attitudes - prejudices, to be blunt - mean that the 'news' the site reports is often seen through distorting glasses.
It's a vicious circle: many otherwise well informed American conservatives get their information about Europe - specifically, the influence of Islam in Europe - through a site which views Islam itself as a cancer to be fought and which regards an Islamic takeover of Europe as something which has effectively already happened.
This distorts so many Americans' outlook, seeing Europe as essentially written off to Islam. The Brussels Journal should be seen for what it is: a hard line anti Muslim propaganda sheet.
Now I can hardly be accused of ignoring the threat to the West of militant Islam. I am regularly attacked by the likes of the MCB and the MPAC as an Islamophobe for highlighting instances of Islamism on the rise. I am very concerned by the influence and reach of Islamism in Europe and write about it here all the time.
But it's one thing dealing with facts and rational analysis. It's quite another when pernicious sites like the Brussels Journal tar all Muslims with the same extremist brush and distort the news to portray Islam itself as destroying our society rather than Islamic extremists.
Take their report of the story above. The whole point of the story is not that Muslims complained (as far as I can tell, not one Muslim expressed anger at the tale of the Three Little Pigs). The point is rather, as Richard Littlejohn put it in his inimitable way today:What we have here is another case of brain-dead white "liberals" taking offence on someone else's behalf to the point of mental illness.But how did the Brussels Journal report it? That's it I resign. This latest piece of lunacy has tipped me over the balance and I think I am going to start taking large quantities of drugs.
Wake me up when the Muslims have gone. The last line is the giveaway. Yes, we in the West need to be relentless in defending Western values and free speech in the wake of Islamist demands. And it's liberals of all people who ought to be in the front line of that fight, defending those with lifetyles and attitudes which Islamists would kill.
But we need to be just as relentless in remembering what those values are, one of which is tolerating those of a different faith, when their faith does not impinge on our values. And it isn't Muslims who have sought to ban the story of the three pigs - it was 'brain-dead white "liberals" '.
Sentences like Wake me up when the Muslims have gone and the attitudes they reveal are the mirror image of the Islamists' own prejudices, and have no place in a proper defence of Western values.