Damn You, Jonah!

Writing on the Pope's Islamic history kerfluffle over the weekend, I coined the expression "Mau-Mauing the Vatican" to describe the resultant riots and violence. This was a riff on an essay of Tom Wolfe's called "Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers" about the politics of race intimidation in San Francisco in the early 70's. My thesis was that the Muslim street demonstrations didn't have anything to do with offended religious sensibilities per se but were instead staged for purposes of playing on Western self-doubt and guilt.

Well damme if Goldberg isn't swiping my idea today. Oh, sure, he changes the book reference, but I know what's going on:

No, this is about us. The best book for illuminating what's going on in the Muslim "street" isn't some weighty treatise on Islam; it's a short little tract called "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele. The book isn't even about Islam. Steele focuses on white liberals and the black radicals who've been gaming them ever since the 1960s. Whites, he argues, have internalized their own demonization. Deep down they fear that maybe they are imperialistic, racist bastards, and they are desperate to prove otherwise. In America, black radicals figured this out a while ago and have been dunning liberal whites ever since.

The West is caught in a similarly dysfunctional cycle of extortion and intimidation with Islam, but on a grander and far more violent scale. Whether it's the pope's comments or some Danish cartoons, self-appointed spokesmen for the Islamic street say, "You have offended a billion Muslims," which really means, "There are so many of us, you should watch out." And if you didn't get the message, just look around for the burning embassies and murdered infidels. They're not hard to find.

In response, the West apologizes and apologizes. Radical Muslims, who are not stupid, take note and become emboldened by these displays of weakness and capitulation. And the next time, they demand two pounds of flesh. Meanwhile, the entire global conversation starts from the assumption that the West is doing something wrong by tolerating freedom of speech, among other things.

Grrrr. I'm warning you, Goldberg! Cut it out or I unleash the Jacobin squirrels and the volcano-lancing missiles!