By Bruce Bawer
One of the pillars of the future totalitarian state in 1984 is the practice of doublethink, which Orwell defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”
As it happens, this is a precise description of exactly what’s been going on in many parts of Europe in recent years, as multicultural ideology has been confronted by realities about Islam that, in a doublethink-free world, would send that ideology crashing to the ground in flames.
For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting. Read more ...
One of the pillars of the future totalitarian state in 1984 is the practice of doublethink, which Orwell defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”
As it happens, this is a precise description of exactly what’s been going on in many parts of Europe in recent years, as multicultural ideology has been confronted by realities about Islam that, in a doublethink-free world, would send that ideology crashing to the ground in flames.
For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting. Read more ...
Source: Pajamas Media
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