Here’s part of President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland: “The
fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.
Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have
enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire
and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would
subvert and destroy it?”
After this speech, which was warmly received by Poles, the
president encountered predictable criticism. Most of the criticism reflected
gross ignorance and dishonesty.
One example of that ignorance was penned in the Atlantic
magazine by Peter Beinart, a contributing editor and associate professor of
journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Beinart
said, “Donald Trump referred 10 times to ‘the West’ and five times to ‘our
civilization.’ His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he
means.” He added, “The West is a racial and religious term. To be considered
Western, a country must be largely Christian (preferably Protestant or
Catholic) and largely white.”
Intellectual
elites argue that different cultures and their values are morally equivalent.
That’s ludicrous. Western culture and values are superior to all others. I have
a few questions for those who’d claim that such a statement is untrue or smacks
of racism and Eurocentrism. Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced
in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally
equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Niger,
Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent? In most of the Middle East,
there are numerous limitations placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving,
employment and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female
adulterers face death by stoning. Thieves face the punishment of having their
hands severed. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in some countries.
Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western
values?
During his speech, Trump asked several vital questions. “Do we
have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough
respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the
courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and
destroy it?” There’s no question that the West has the military might to
protect itself. The question is whether we have the intelligence to recognize
the attack and the will to defend ourselves from annihilation.
Much
of the Muslim world is at war with Western civilization. Islamists’ use
multiculturalism as a foot in the door to attack Western and Christian values
from the inside. Much of that attack has its roots on college campuses among
the intellectual elite who indoctrinate our youth. Multiculturalism has not yet done the damage in the
U.S. that it has in Western European countries — such as England, France and
Germany — but it’s on its way.
My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell reveals some of the problem. He
says, “Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard
themselves as far superior to the ‘infidels’ of the West, while everything they
see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise.” Sowell adds, “Nowhere have
whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than
the peoples of the Islamic world.” Few people, such as Persians and Arabs, once
at the top of civilization, accept their reversals of fortune gracefully.
Moreover, they don’t blame themselves and their culture. They blame the West.
By the way, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values.
One just has to accept the sanctity of the individual above all else.
Walter E.
Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
Copyright © 2017 Creators.com
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