The West can longer complain about the lack of moderate Muslims who voice their opposition to radical Islam. For when moderates do step up, we silence them in deference to extremists.
When, Sony, the manufacturers of the videogame LittleBigPlanet found out that the game’s background music contained two phrases from the Qur’an, they immediately delayed the product’s release, so as not to upset radical Muslims who take offense at the words of their holy book being set to music. A new version, with the “offensive” song removed, is set to go on sale on November 3 in the UK, and October 29 in the U.S.
In itself, this is nothing more than another incrementally catastrophic creeping sharia story. Like the ban on Piglet ornamentation or the redesign of a Burger King sundae cup whose squiggles resembled the Arabic for “Allah,” the LittleBigPlanet recall is one more instance of the West’s permitting radical Muslims to govern every aspect of the non-Muslim world in accordance with Qur’anic law. Out of all the possible cultural reactions to 9/11, we’ve settled on political correctness enforced by death. That much we know.
But it turns out this story is significantly more sickening. It so happens that the composer and performer of the LittleBigPlanet tune in question is a Malian Muslim named Toumani Diabate. Unlike the al Qaeda set, Diabate finds no blasphemy in mixing his religion with song, and says that goes for most of Mali. “In my family there are only two things we know – the Koran and the kora [West African harp]. . . I’m really sad and I’m disappointed.”
Can you blame him? In his native country he can sing the Qur’an to his heart’s content, but we don’t allow such things in the enlightened West. No — instead we silence this Muslim artist and support the scriptural interpretations offered by jihadists. At the same time we prattle on about how most Muslims are peace-loving, moderate minded-people, and we’re only at war with a few fascists who seek to distort a beautiful faith. Why, then, are we complying with the distortion?
Sony is guilty of corporate fifth-columnism by cowardice, but they’re hardly alone. Whether through the private sector or the government, the West is by-and-large in agreement: we’ll praise one kind of Muslim while obeying another, and pray that guns, tanks, and missiles get us through.
