Robert Spencer interview on Arab Winter Comes to America

Robert Spencer  / Townhall Columnist

 

 

Pamela Geller asked me a few questions about my book Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In:

Geller: What possessed you to write this book now? Why?

Spencer: The denial of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat is near-total. The only people who speak honestly about the threat we face are ostracised from mainstream discourse, vilified, ridiculed, defamed, and marginalized. Even the government and law enforcement officials are, as a matter of policy, ordered to ignore, deny and downplay the motives and goals of jihad terrorists. This is a recipe for disaster, and that disaster will surely come unless there is a substantial turnaround. I wrote this book to that end. Not that I think it will affect that turnaround in itself, but by chronicling the extent of the denial, as I do in the book, I hope to move some people to act to clear away the fog of deception and institute some more realistic policies.

Geller: You’ve made this the whole of your work for well over 15 years. What changes in the past 10 years have encouraged you? Distressed you?

Spencer: I’m afraid it has been mostly distress, although now I am way beyond distress.

In the early years I thought that there would be strong response not just in the U.S., but in the West and in non-Western nations that were also targets of jihad, against jihad terror and Islamic supremacism. I did not expect the massive and international capitulation to Islamic supremacist intimidation, such that while 25 years ago, when the Rushdie fatwa was first issued, there was a huge outpouring of support for the freedom of speech, now that freedom’s ostensibly foremost guardians readily agree that self-censorship is in order so as to avoid offending Muslims. We are well on our way to adopting, under the guise of avoiding and criminalizing “hate speech,” Sharia restrictions on criticism of Islam, thereby establishing Muslims (including jihad terrorists) as a protected class of which criticism is not allowed. And that will be the death of free society.

Geller: Are we winning this war?

Spencer: Not at all. Muslims riot and kill over cartoons and videos, and instead of telling them to grow up and explaining the cardinal importance of the freedom of speech to them, Western leaders (chief among them Obama) declare in ringing tones that speech that offends Muslims indeed should not be allowed. The implications of this capitulation have yet to be felt. But they will be, when free people wish to speak out against tyranny and find that all their avenues for doing so have been blocked in the interests of stopping “hate speech” — which is in the eye of the beholder in any case.

Geller: What’s the biggest failing of the West?

Spencer: Ethnocentrism. And the chief ethnocentrists are the multiculturalists. They naively assume that the whole world thinks like they do, and wants what they want. It’s a false assumption, drastically false, and the fallout of its falsehood could bring down the West altogether.

Geller: What are the biggest changes under the Obama administration?

Spencer: Although Bush proclaimed Islam a Religion of Peace, he did not stop the truth about Islam and jihad from being taught to military personnel and FBI agents (by, among others, me). But Obama foreclosed on that teaching after pressure from Islamic supremacist advocacy groups, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is another decision with consequences that will be disastrous, and that have yet to be felt.

Geller: How has sharia moved into the American marketplace of ideas?

Spencer: As I explained above, it is now taken for granted even by the media that speech that offends Muslims must not be countenanced. Likewise the idea that Islamic law and culture must always be accommodated, even at the expense of American law and custom, has gained widespread traction. The danger of this is that there is always more Sharia to accommodate, and as the only ones who are opposing this are branded and dismissed as “bigots” and “Islamophobes,” there is no one I can see who can or will stop the headlong rush to total capitulation.

Geller reviewed the book as well — see her review here.