The Paroxysm of Rage 

Anthony Harrigan 

Anthony Harrigan is the author, co-author or editor of twenty books. He has lectured at Yale University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Colorado and the National War College.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing in The Washington Times (Dec. 3, 2004), warned of a “paroxysm of rage” in Europe and elsewhere if the United States launched a preemptive strike against Iran that is seeking to build nuclear weapons.

It is not surprising that rage would erupt in the world of radical Islam. The jihadists are in a stage of permanent rage directed against the United States. Far more disturbing is the phenomenon that author Anne Applebaum calls “the freedom haters” in the West. In December 2004, she cited the phenomenon in connection with leftist commentary on the protests then taking place in the Ukraine. She said

. . . the Western far left is now so anti-American that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States.

She said the London Guardian described the pro-democracy protests in the Ukraine as “a CIA sponsored third world uprising of Cold War days.”

Americans, ironically, twice saved the allied countries from German occupation and domination. Nihilists, however, have no sense of history. Indeed they positively reject history, deeming it irrelevant and pernicious. Thus America is deemed more of a threat to the Socialistic, anti-Christian new order than the Soviets ever were. They hate Christian truths and values but discover all manner of apologies for Islamic fundamentalism which regards all Westerners as infidels who must be killed and their old societies obliterated.

The far left in England hasn’t learned anything from Muslim terrorists operating in the United Kingdom. Of course, the leftists hate the ancient concept and structure of a kingdom. France has failed to recognize the peril from a jihadist population. France is reluctant to face the fact of danger from the jihaidsts, though the Muslim population of France amounts to almost 10 percent. But a breakthrough in realism has begun in the Netherlands, which has been the most permissive society in Europe. The Dutch parliamentarian Gert Wilders, for example, has called for the deportation or imprisonment of terrorists in the Netherlands, whether or not they have been naturalized.

The peril has been underlined by The Economist which reported Nov. 27, 2004, that “It officially projected that the three largest Dutch cities will have non-Western populations (most of them Muslim) by 2020.”

Bernard Lewis, professor at Princeton University and authority on the Middle East, said that by the end of the century “the European continent would be part of the Arabic West, the Maghreb.”

Over the last millennium, European populations grew from one-sixth to one-third of the world’s population.

The Family in America, September 2004, said that since World War II, it has declined to one-fifth. Fertility in Europe is now below the zero population level. This serious drop-off in fertility is related to the moral crisis in Europe that is reflected in rage at the United States, which has enjoyed healthy population growth. Europeans are not confident about their future and have come to envy the country, the United States, which is overflowing with energy.

Nihilism, which has spread rapidly in Europe since World War II, leads countries afflicted with it to a dead end and to bitterness. The opening of the doors to non-Westerners in Britain and on the Continent was produced by the European malaise, the religion of tolerance--tolerance for peoples with no links to the European peoples.

In the past, England and the continental countries focused on their national identities in educating their peoples. But this has been less and less the case since the 1950s. The denationalization of culture has accelerated very rapidly as multi-culturalism began to take hold in schools and colleges. The result has been a marked shift away from the basics of cultural nationalism, producing a smattering of information instead of hard knowledge of fundamental historical texts that lead to a solid national consciousness and identity. The ground is ripe for the development of nihilist notions. This process and the parallel process of de-christianization has undermined the moral and national basis of instruction for citizenship. Sociology has become a central theme of what passes for education, eliminating historical understanding so that the cultural memory is lost.

Except for England and Scandinavia, the peoples of Western Europe have lost their national currencies. The psychological effects of this submergence of national feeling is considerable. Then, these new people, sundered from their past, encounter strong anti-American feelings and initiatives, and they become very angry at the manifestation of a pronounced Americanism and deem it imperialist and oppressive. Hence the rage expressed in political organs such as the London Guardian.

Arnold Beichman, Hoover Institution scholar, addresses these matters in a review of David Horowitz’s book Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. He writes:

The madness that has seized many elite opinion makers is based on three assumptions 1) America can do no right, 2) even the right America appears to do is wrong, 3) those wrongs are monstrous.

These articles of faith are shared by leftists in Britain and in Old Europe. Mr. Horowitz cites the emergence of “a neo-Communist Left,” which is the ideological home of the radicalized elements in the West.

The mega-deaths for which the Soviet Communists and Saddam Hussein were responsible never brought forth the rage that is directed at the United States and other freedom-supporting societies. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has charged that the Soviets killed 50 million people. This ugly truth receives scant attention today when there is global rage at the petty humiliations imprisoned terrorists suffered at the hands of a small band of rogue troops. Such is the measure of the rage of leftists in America and Europe. It is a very sick turn of mind, but then, American and European nihilism is a moral sickness. It also is manifested in the Left’s hatred of Israel. The Israeli alleged “crimes” are the manning of protective checkpoints in Gaza and the building of a security fence. To the jihadists and the international Left, the suicide bombers are martyrs to a just cause.

To the forces of freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, suicide bombers represent an unsolved tactical challenge. Paul Kennedy, writing in Preparing for the 21st Century, describes the Palestinian intifada as “the war of stones.” It also is a war of improvised explosive devices planted in automobiles and on roadsides--a low tech but very destructive form of conflict for which advanced Western forces are unprepared. Unquestionably, the freedom forces will see more of this type of attack even as the jihadist regimes, such as the Iranian government, strive to obtain the most high tech weapons, nuclear weapons. As Dr. Kennedy notes the “monstrous tilt in global demographic balance” will continue to produce assaults on the free world. It is truly a horrendous prospect for the United States and other free societies.

The ominous reality can be seen in the population figures. In 1950, Africa’s population was half that of Europe. By 1985 it had drawn level with Europe. It is expected that by 2020, Africa’s population will be three times that of Europe. Sub-Saharan people are migrating to North Africa before jumping off to Europe, many of them making preliminary stops in Malta and Spain. The Industrialized North is the ultimate target.

There have been population movements in the past that changed the face of Europe but nothing on the scale of the current population movement that involves millions of people from the southern half of the planet. One hopes that the people of Europe and North America as well understand that they are in danger of being overwhelmed by migrants.

The United States and old Europe are not the only countries and regions faced with the problem caused by population movements. Russia is among the other nations vulnerable to population pressures on its borders. Russia’s maritime provinces on the Pacific are losing, population which they can ill afford with China’s billion plus population next door. Unless Russia can persuade more of its people to move east, this part of the country seems destined to be swallowed up by China. At the same time, Russia is faced with the threat of militant Islamists, the bitter struggle in Chechnya being only the forerunner of other secession movements as well as hostility from Islamic lands formerly part of the Soviet Union. The howl of “cultural oppression” goes up wherever old populations are being displaced by new population groups or by minorities that resent the maintenance of traditional cultural authority by traditional symbols. This is as true of East Los Angeles as the capital of Chechnya. One can be sure that the people in Chechnya are as hostile to display of pictures of Peter the Great as minorities in America’s inner cities are angered by pictures of George Washington in school classrooms.

All contacts between established and new populations will surely breed emotional reaction. The same is true of contacts between rich and poor nations. The reactions bred by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean are indicative of this. As soon as the natural disaster struck, there were complaints from certain affected nations that smacked of anti-Western emotionalism. One of the first was a complaint that American scientists failed to alert all the threatened nations of the impending dangers. This happened despite the fact that certain nations--Thailand, for example--were not eager to hear reports of possible tsunamis because they feared they would adversely affect their tourism industry.

The level of aid also immediately became an issue when a senior U.N. bureaucrat charged that rich countries, notably the United States, “were stingy”--this despite the billions provided for disaster aid by the U.S. It was asserted that the U.S. had an obligation to give a larger percent of its national income to the United Nations--a notion for which there was no warrant.

At about the same time, criticism was directed at China for allegedly offering inadequate aid for Indonesia where there was the greatest loss of life. The critics failed to take note of an historical reality. It was hard for the Chinese government of offer huge sums to Indonesia because successive Indonesian governments have been hostile to ethnic Chinese. The international leftist elites dislike historical realities and believe they should be ignored.

These issues and criticisms indicate that the natural disaster in the Indian Ocean will be followed by waves of political strife. It is naive in the extreme to imagine that the disaster and massive relief will produce permanent good will.

Even as cash for relief pours out, demands are beginning to be heard, as on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2005, that the relief efforts be supplemented by trade preferences for the countries affected by the natural disaster. One can be sure that domestic free trade advocates will pick up on the foreign demands for a bigger share of the U.S. market. There are many people in government, the media, and academia, who regard U.S. industries and industrial jobs as expendable.

The initial demand was a letter by one Supachai Panitchpakui in the Journal which called for U.S. trade preferences for Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. This demand was answered by Dr. William R. Hawkins who pointed out that in 2003 the U.S. ran a $3 billion trade deficit with Indonesia, a $1.7 billion deficit with Sri Lanka, and a $9.3 billion deficit with Thailand, which makes clear that the U.S. has no business compounding this deficit situation with respect to these countries.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, in an article on political quakes (Dec. 15, 2004), discussed what may be on the global political menus between 2005 and 2015. Among the possibilities--pessimistic--that he suggested are the following:

• With nuclear weapons in hand, Iran is automatically the region’s dominant power, after the U.S. armed forces withdraw from Iraq.
  
• China seizes new opportunities for its short- and long-ranged needs for materials in the developed world--from Brazil to sub-Saharan Africa’s pockets of mineral wealth. A furiously anti-American general takes over in Pakistan and negotiates a caliphate merging Pakistan’s nuclear weapons with Saudi reserves. Northern Nigeria petitions Islamabad and Riyadh to be considered as a member of the caliphate.
  
• The European Union can no longer cope with millions of North Africans and sub-Saharan Africans flooding into Spain, Italy, and France and who roam freely and hungry. Islamic radicals sally out of their European slum tenements to besiege U.S. embassies to protest their “jobless plight.”
• Pakistan and India, no longer restrained by the United States, miscalculate and exchange a nuclear salvo. Pakistan collapses and becomes part of India again after colossal casualties.

These ominous possibilities for the 2005-2010 period point to a paroxysm of rage against the United States and its associated countries and civilization. They clearly indicate the grim situation we are likely to face in the immediate and longer-term future.

In light of President George Bush’s second inaugural address, it is clear that the United States will face up to the difficult and dangerous challenges which lie ahead, as part of the struggle against tyranny worldwide. We must not imagine, however, that our defense of freedom for other nations will cause them to like us. They may even hate us for opposing the tyrants who hold them in thrall. Our aim must not be to gain love but to kill terrorists who threaten the United States and its people.

It is well for Americans to remember that this is not the first time that the United States has faced countries whose people are in a paroxysm of rage against them. Such was the case with imperial Japan that launched a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor and subjected Americans on the Bataan death march and prison camp to horrifying abuse and torture, including beheadings. They surrendered and settled down to peaceful acceptance of defeat, becoming cooperative and law-abiding. That should give us hope.     *

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” –Thomas Jefferson