Attentive readers will have noticed the complete lack of posting recently, which was due to that rarest of events at TDPC HQ, a vacation. The Corgis took their rest at a local boarding kennel, where it seems they ate well and played harder; they all came back tired and a little lighter - which is all to the good.
The remainder of the family headed off for Turkey, however. First time there, and what a place. We were staying with Doggerelle's family in a fishing village on the Mediterranean coast; mountains, sunshine, and that sea - the 'it can't really be that blue' Mediterranean. Yes, it really is that blue.
Now, I had just finished reading Steyn's America Alone when I headed to the first Muslim country I had ever visited; now I am trying to reconcile the two visions of Islam I have in my head. On the one hand, Steyn's apocalyptic vision of Eurabia, on the other the experience of Turkey.
Islam in the locale of Turkey where we visited reminded me most vividly of the Church of England. Everyone claims to belong, but nobody goes. Sure, the imams chanted their call to prayer over loudspeakers from the village mosques, but the locals grinned and said that pretty much it would be just the imam in attendance for most of those prayer times.
Now, Turkey might be considered a special case, being European, or at least Europhilic, but I have to say you'd be hard pressed to see anyone we met, or anything in that country as a threat. Such a friendly place, so easy going, relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable. We ate superb food, drank the only choice of local beer - Efes - met wonderful people who will be friends the next time we go back, and generally had the best time of recent years. We discovered that Doggerette and Doggerel Junior are both excellent sailors, as we took a traditional Turkish gulet out a couple of days. Doggerette was cackling with glee as we fought our way home one day against 4 or 5 foot swells; each time the bows crashed into a trough and she got soaked with salt water she was ever more delighted. Cue Buffett's Son of a Son of a Sailor...
The one clue that all might not be quite Euro-ready came on attempting to hit Youtube: the site is blocked due to two court decisions in Ankara. However, of course, in Turkey this has to do with protecting the memory of Kemal Ataturk, rather than Islamic objections to the decadent West.
I'm also reminded of the one Islamic wedding I attended here in Canada, which was so much not what I expected.. informal, fun, the imam cracking jokes throughout and everyone having a decidedly good (although dry) time.
So where is the threat? Where does America Alone come in?
The answer, of course, is within. The true threat is not the ordinary Muslim citizen of any country, be it Canada, Europe, Arabia or Turkey. The true threat is our own leadership, those loony-left leaders who's obsession with multi-culturalism leads them to surrender the Western way of life even before they are challenged to do so. The true threat, I am more and more convinced, is not from Islam per se, but from those non-Muslims who can't wait to hand our way of life over to Islam in the name of tolerance.
Warren Kinsella, Barbara Hall, Richard Warman, the Human Rights Commissions, the Liberal Party of Canada, these are greater threats to Western democracy than the most firy of imams. And certainly way more dangerous than any ordinary man-in-the-street Muslim in any country.
