The liberal democracy conundrum

I just finished reading 700 pages about Islamic fundamentalism over the last three weeks. The first book, The Looming Tower, chronicles the rise of Al-Qaeda, while the book While Europe Slept details the challenge Europe faces in its rising Islamic immigrant population. Both clearly articulate why no matter what offenses the radical Islamists claim, their irrational response is just that - an irrational one that must not be entertained or tolerated. Both books provided great insight into the wider meaning of two events that occurred this week - one reported by every media outlet (the assassination of Benazir Bhutto) and another reported only in the British media (the expulsion of British officials from Afghanistan).

Ultimately, the Bhutto assassination is only the latest display of the obvious desires of Islamic extremists that democracy, women's rights, and those who believe their philosophy is a poison on earth must be eliminated. Bhutto, although an early backer of groups like the Taliban in the misguided belief that stability equaled peace, had eventually realized the threat of Islamic terrorists and their anti-modern beliefs. Bhutto's clear championing of the anti-terrorist message and her status as a powerful woman in Pakistani made her a visible target of choice - her death was inevitable. Countries like Pakistan have a much more challenging road to democracy than Western democracies had. There is a substantial minority within their own population that fear educated women, societies where gays are not murdered, and where thieves don't get their hands chopped off.

Even more troubling than Bhutto's assassination is the expulsion of two UK "diplomats" for engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the typical lack of understanding of non-European cultures, the typical response to this expulsion by UK officials is much along the line of UN spokesman Aleem Siddique:
"Mr Siddique said the aim of the talks was 'to understand from the people on the ground what their needs are, what their concerns are and that includes people who are perhaps less than supportive of the government of Afghanistan.' "
The Taliban is "less than supportive of the government of Afghanistan"? That's like saying the KKK is less than supportive of African-Americans' civil rights. While Europe should be commended for learning from the destruction of the two World Wars and the Cold War, they should also recognized the limited number of people on earth that are so enlightened. Discussing, negotiating, and tolerating people who only despise you, find lying to you and raping your women as non-objectionable, and only want the destruction of your liberal democracy is not a recipe for maintaining such democracies. Reading this drivel made me frimly believe the worst examples given in While Europe Slept.

Ultimately, Western democracies and moderate Muslims must recognize that there must be limits to their tolerance. Liberal democracies don't have to tolerate those who wish to destroy them - from within or from another country. To do so invites one of two disasters - either destruction from such enemies of democracy, or from the response to such tolerance withing their own citizenry (often in the form of fascism). Reasonable minded democrats can clearly draw a line in the sand, welcoming the vast majority of Muslims who value our pluralistic democracies while advocating the destruction of those within the Muslim community that distort their supposed religion. If they cannot stand up to such irrationality, they will surely succumb to it.