Rule Britannia (earlier model).

Daniel Pipes observes that "the ultimate issue is not defeating terror but saving Western civilization."

He discusses the Daily Telegraph editorial^[1] that lists five core values of British culture:

1. Supremacy of the law of the courts and the legislature. Sharia irrelevant.
2. Citizens determine political legitimacy not priests purporting to know the will of Allah.
3. Only the state may use force. Force in the service of jihad is illegal.
4. Every citizen's primary loyalty is to the state, not his religion.
5. Secular state not a theocratic one with absolute freedom of conscience.

This is a paraphrase of a paraphrase so read the Telegraph's own words for yourself.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I believe, criticized anticommunism during the Cold War as being an empty position. One cannot define oneself merely in opposition to something. Mr. Pipes makes the same point. We can't defeat Islamic delusionaries without knowing why we have the moral authority to take a stand on anything.

On this precise point see Mr. Pipes's fascinating update:

Anthony Browne takes up similar profound questions in "The Left's war on Britishness," where he asks why Britain became "the first country in the developed world to produce its own suicide bombers" and replies with a scathing analysis:

"the real answer to why Britain spawned people fuelled with maniacal hate for their country is that Britain hates itself. In hating Britain, these British suicide bombers were as British as a police warning for flying the union flag.

"Britain's self-loathing is deep, pervasive and lethally dangerous. We get bombed, and we say it's all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over "the other," but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London's internationalism -- in other words, that there is little British left about it."

[Emphasis added.]

Internationalism and multiculturalism are the obverse of being anti-Jihad or anticommunist. They are are an embrace of otherness -- invariably linked with rejection of one's own. Just as with the essence of Islamic martyrdom so ably distilled by Dr. Sanity, internationalism and multiculturalism come inextricably packaged with that rejection of one's own people and culture.

There's a grand photo somewhere of a Catholic priest in China in the 19th century. He sits at his dining table with a fork by his plate instead of chopsticks.

Eating with chopsticks is a novelty that certainly gets the job done. But there's nothing in being in or around another culture that prevents one from appreciating its good and bad aspects while still holding fast to familiar things that are functionally equivalent or superior.

Of course, if they are inferior, only a fool does not adopt the better instrument or concept.

The Wahhabis -- and my personal hero -- are determined to cling to every antiquated and brutish feature of seventh century Arabian culture. Actually, that may have been relatively better. Make that seventh century Arabian culture as changed by the ascendancy of Mohammed.

P.S. - Ghandi, now, was more of a hypocrite than being terminallycommited to life in reverse gear. He wouldn't allow his wife to avail herself of Western medicine when she was ill but he was sure to get his shots when he was a bit under the weather. That spinning wheel and loin cloth stuff had its practical limitations, you see.

Notes
^[1] "The fundamentals of law in this country..." Editorial, Daily Telegraph, 7/14/05.