RUTH KING’S REVIEW OF “SPRING FEVER-THE ILLUSION OF ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY” BY ANDREW McCARTHY
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/review-of-spring-fever-the-illusion-of-islamic-democracy-by-andrew-c-mccarthy
Andrew McCarthy’s second book The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America (Encounter Books May 2010)begins with the words: “And so he bowed” referring to April 2,2009, when only a few months into his term America’s 44th President’s reverentially bowed to Saudi King Abdullah, a moment captured in a photograph that is being recirculated as the Arab/Muslim world has exploded into a violent rampage against the United States. Was it to protect America’s oil supply? No, as his subsequent obsequious Cairo speech disclosed, it was abnegation of the leader of the free world to a tyrant who is the keeper of the holy Muslim city of Mecca, home of Mohammed and site of pilgrimage and travel for millions of Muslims. Furthermore, The World Assembly of Moslem Youth (WAMI) is a collaboration between the Saudi government and the Moslem Brotherhood whose chief aim is to “arm the Muslim youth with full confidence in the supremacy of the Islamic system over other systems.”
In the conclusion, McCarthy laments craven American response to a concatenation of Moslem outrages and adds very presciently: “A half a world away, King Abdullah smiled. He knew a bow when he heard one.”
The Moslem Brotherhood and assorted tribes, sects and radicals also heard the bow, while American pundits and commentators, many of whom were alert to the depredations of Communism, but seemed either blind or indifferent to totalitarian Islam, were virtually giddy with the Arab Spring.
Andrew McCarthy begins his new book “Spring Fever: The illusion of Islamic Democracy” with the following words: “Well, that didn’t take very long.” Effectively, his (Morsi’s)election has converted Egypt from a military dictatorship to a sharia dictatorship. As this book argues, that is the end to which “Islamic democracy” leads.
As events now demonstrate, we see exactly where it leads. Using a film that insults Islam as a pretext, Muslims are rioting throughout the Muslim world- Egypt, Lebanon. Libya, Tunisia, Pakistan chanting “death to America.” Why the surprise? An old saw states “if you want to know what a person is thinking, listen to what he says.” As McCarthy demonstrates, Moslems wasted no time in doing their Spring cleaning by escalating the persecution of Christians, and averring time and again: “There is no place in the Arab and Muslim world for liberal and secular democratic values,” and for good measure they reaffirmed their “struggle against Zionism.”
In a chapter appositely titled “Sharia and Factophobia” McCarthy observes, the Moslem Brotherhood clearly dominates the presentation of Islam in America, and in a witty and biting statement he derides “a government so desperate to “reach out” to Muslims that it is reliably found canoodling with, and thus increasing the cachet of, Islamic supremacists whose defining trait is contempt for the West.”
Others are not spared his wit and sarcasm. About inter-faith “dialogue” he describes how “Christian and Jewish clerics explain how much they admire Islam, then Muslim clerics reciprocate by explaining how much they admire Islam.” Touche!
While Obama is seen as more culpable, the author does not spare his predecessor George Bush, who, after a rousing speech in the aftermath of 9/11 perseverated the myths that Islam is a religion of peace “hijacked’ by a tiny fringe of fanatics, and that the West would do well to promote the yearning for freedom and moderation that beats so fiercely in their collective heart.
As McCarthy demonstrates, in a chapter titled “They Just Don’t Like Us” this attitude ineluctably contributed to the Obama faith that not only is Islam virtuous, but, more dangerous, that it is America that is to blame for their hatred. As McCarthy observes: ” Where Bush airbrushed Muslim supremacists, Obama embraces them. Where Bush retreated from such clarifying terms as jihad and Islamofascism due to caterwauling from the Brotherhood’s American grievance chorus, Obama stridently objects to utterances of the word Islam for any purpose other than hagiography – and enthusiastically contributes to the slander that anyone who sees things differently is a hate-mongering “Islamophobe.”
Much of the book demonstrates the global Renaissance of Islam, particularly in describing Turkey’s descent into Sharia rule and its present role as champion of Hamas with ties to Al-Qaeda, a collaborative port of embarkation for the Flotillas of Jihadists that sailed to Israel, and a fount of money and logistical support for terrorists.
McCarthy concludes this essential volume with the following, written before the savage riots that assault our sensitivities with daily broadcasts of chaos and unmitigated hatred for America:
“The Muslim Middle East is aflame, not with democracy but with Islamic supremacist ideology. When the conflagration will end and exactly what each theater will look like once it does, we cannot say for sure.We do know only that classical sharia is being seared into the region’s fabric. Necessarily, that means it will be more hostile to the West, more anti-American, and more committed to Israel’s destruction. “
Andrew McCarthy’s books, columns, and blogs have done more than anyone or anything else to brush away the cobwebs woven by skilled Moslem propagandists and so called “moderate” agents of disinformation who oil their way around the corridors of power and obscure America’s vision.
We are in his debt. Read this book and recommend it. And listen to the author speak about the Arab Spring in his own words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOwP9rtZvVc
Kudos to Roger Kimball and Encounter Books for publishing Andrew McCarthy’s books. See their site:
http://www.encounterbooks.com/
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