It's the Culture

Fire of Liberty
Since the terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 and the July 21, 2005 on the public transportation of the UK, I've been reading several commentaries and articles which have been looking at the different aspects of British Society that has allowed the various elements of Islamic fundamentalism to crop up. Probably the most impressive pieces I've read so far that destroys the typical strawman arguments of terrorism like poverty, aggressive westernism or some invasion of some Islamic nation is by Minette Marrin. In her very introspective piece in The Times, Marrin looks deep into the soul of British society a has observed the overbearing presence of decadence which has opened the doors to such home-grown centers of radical Islamism because of its continued permissiveness and everything goes mentality wrapped in a bundle of multiculturalism. As long as the British continue this policy of looking the other way and are fail to pass some judgment on the innappropriate nature of others out of the fear of being non-pc, they will continue to have hoodlums running in the street beating up old ladies or radical clerics telling young men to wear nail-ladden bombs to explode in subways and buses.

Aside from my brief generalities of the problems plaguing the British society, I figure it's best to read Marrin's thoughts on the manner. So here's a brief sample of her stirring piece:

For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us, we are simply rolling over and showing to the worldÂ’s scavengers and beasts of prey the soft underbelly of decadence.

It has been decadent to let extremist imams preach hatred and violence on the pavements here. These people could perfectly well have been sent to prison under existing legislation concerning incitements to violence or to racial hatred. But somehow the authorities lacked the will or the conviction to do it.

What connects all these things is an unwillingness, which has developed since the Sixties, to stand up for things that matter. I think it began with an unwillingness to reproach our own children. Some of my parents' ’ generation were very lax with their children; people began to speak of the permissive society. And since then parents (including me) have seemed ever less able, or willing, to control and discipline their children. The very word discipline sounds almost prehistoric and possibly abusive.

Yet without proper discipline from parents, children can never develop self-discipline. And it is on self-discipline and self-restraint that a civilised society rests. With a loss of self-discipline goes a loss of standards of behaviour, a loss of efficiency and a loss of a sense of what matters. There is a very painful tension between instinct and society; that is the tragic discontent of civilisation, repression its painful price. The right balance is hard to find, and harder to maintain. But we can see today in Britain and in the West generally what happens when that balance fails.

I don'’t suggest that this loss of conviction affects everyone. Yet it has to be said that almost nobody has really done much to resist what has been done to our institutions and our manners. There has been a long march through the institutions of a nameless and shapeless ideology, misleadingly called political correctness. It is far more important and powerful than that name suggests and it is largely responsible for the long decay of the institutions and has contributed a lot, indirectly, to the decadence I'm talking about.

I'd have to say that the people of Great Britain need to return to the days when they still retained the Victorian sensabilities that were prevelant prior to and after World War II. Time isn't too late to take the culture back. Hopefully they'll get it straight.

This reform is clearly needed in the prison system of Britain, especially after reading this piece in The Times by Theodore Dalrymple.

I guess folks will learn one day how important the preservation of one's culture is to one's life. After 7/7 and 7/21, it might be sooner than later