WHEN ANTI-MODERNISTS COLLIDE: Swedish City Cancels “Earth Hour” Without Lights, Electricity Because Of Rape Risk.
As military historian Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote in September of 2002, “9/11 revealed an emerging geopolitical reality: that the world’s most important fault line is not between the rich and the poor, but between those who accept modernity and those who reject it.”
And that’s a perfect description of both Europe’s growing flood of Islamic fundamentalists and the reprimitivist proponents of “Earth Hour.” (A Washington Post headline from October 2010 perfectly squared the circle: “Osama bin Laden embraces his inner Al Gore.”
Related: For those wondering why the left demands its virtue-signaling hour of darkness each year, “Earth Hour’s” backstory can be found here. Found via Tim Blair, who suggests, “In solidarity with our Swedish friends, let’s make this evening’s Hour of Power the brightest yet. Keep the forces of darkness at bay with a fearsome display of household illumination, commencing at 8.30pm. Send your Hour of Power photographs to , and aim to be seen from space.”
UPDATE: Austin Bay sends a link to his November 2001 column, which begins, “Osama Bin Laden has given us notice he believes the future lies in the past, or at least his highly edited and Bowdlerized version of the last thousand years:”
In Bin Laden’s future, the caliphate is restored. The decadent modern world fades as American power dies, though techy bits of modernity are OK, such as videophones and nuclear weapons. Global rule of Bin Laden-interpreted Islamic law follows.
Don’t snicker. Violent “imperial restorationists” have an ugly track record. Benito Mussolini and his Italian Fascists dreamed of restoring the Roman Empire. The obvious choice for caesar was Benito. Who but Bin Laden serves as caliph? Add that title to Osama’s “end state.” It underlines the autocratic and despotic motives that lie behind the schemes of various religious absolutists, ethnic zealots, ultra-nationalists and eco-crazies around the world who reject the moderation and compromise that participation in the global system requires. Remember, violent eco-crazies battle for the “restoration of nature” — a green empire.
Indeed they do.