Radical Islamism the new “Dark Age”

Published 7:23 pm Tuesday, September 30, 2014

There’s something relevant here about blind squirrels finding nuts. Australian social scientist James Camilleri has asked a very perspicacious question — “Is the World at the Cusp of a New Dark Age?” — and then answered, correctly, probably so.

But he gets every single reason for this wrong.

Camilleri is one of those philosophers and academics who lots of important people read. He’s worth reading, for the rest of us, because you never know when his ideas will pop up as policy. Case in point is Samantha Power, the academic author behind the “responsibility to protect” doctrine who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Camilleri is a specialist in “international relations,” who has a high opinion of the U.N. This might be why he fails to see the true barbarians at the gates.

“Whether intellectually or intuitively, many are asking the same question: Where are we heading?” he asks in an article for RealClearPolicy.com. “How do we explain the long list of financial, environmental and humanitarian emergencies, epidemics, small and larger conflicts, genocides, war crimes, terrorist attacks and military interventions? Why does the international community seem powerless to prevent any of this? There is no simple or single answer to this conundrum.”

In fact, there is — but we’ll get to that soon.

He contends the real problem here is a “new Cold War” with old players — the U.S., Russia and China. He says it’s about the nuclear weapons.

“Both the United States and Russia are modernizing their nuclear forces, making them more lethal than ever,” Camilleri writes. “Of their combined arsenal of over 15,000 nuclear weapons, about 1,800 warheads are on high alert, ready for use at short notice. Should even a tiny fraction of these weapons be used, the humanitarian impact would be catastrophic.”

Here’s what Camilleri misses in his politically correct analysis. There is a threat of a “New Dark Age,” but it’s not a replay of the 1950s. It’s a replay of the 650s.

Islamic extremism is the real threat, and it portends a “Dark Age” much more worthy of the title than Camilleri’s prognosis. It’s the death of learning and the end of free thought. Innocent men and women will continue to be stoned and beheaded, books will be truly banned and burned, children will be married off, and death will be glorified.

Some have called Islamic extremism “medieval,” but that’s just a poor understanding of history. The Medieval Age included luminaries such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. The “Dark Age” was much darker, and was known for the destruction of culture and the misery of the people. As the historian Petrarch noted, all were “surrounded by darkness.”

This is what radical Islam promises.

Camilleri’s prescription is nearly unintelligible.

“Inter-civilisational dialogue involving intellectuals, business, professional, political, community and religious leaders can facilitate the transition from unilateralist impulses and interventions to acceptance of a truly multi-centric world,” he writes.

Except that Islamic extremists will never accept a “multi-centric world.” They have declared war on modernity. They truly want a “New Dark Age.”