As the story unfolds we find Sherlock Holmes in his flat at 221B Baker Street with his good friend Dr. Watson. It begins with a new client arriving. After the client explains the case, Holmes seems to have a sixth sense that allows him to give Watson an impressive evaluation of the case.

Watson is usually at a loss to figure out how Holmes could assess the case so quickly. Later we learn Holmes began his enquiry with the first reports of the event before the client arrived at his door.

What would Holmes say about our current struggle with Islamism (Islamic fundamentalism)? How serious is the case? How diabolical and cunning is the opponent? How much time do we have? And, what is at stake?

He might say it depends my good friend on whether you are from Turkey, Europe, or the United States. He would gather information about the cunningness of the enemy, other weapons at his disposal besides terrorism, and the stakes involved. So let us begin our own evaluation for, as Holmes would say, the game is a foot.

Turkey

If we were from Turkey, Holmes would inform us that the situation is critical. There is very little time to reverse course and that our very identity as a secular country with a future in the West and membership in the European Union is at stake. He would point to key speeches highlighting the recent activity of the opposition.

On October 1, 2006, Turkish President Ahmet Sezer opened the new legislative year with an address to the Turkish Parliament regarding the growing threat to secular Turkey from Islamism [Islamist fundamentalism]. President Sezer spoke about threats to the country’s “integrity, national unity, and political system.”

On the same day, General Yasar Buyukanit, the Turkish Chief of General Staff, opened the new academic year at the Turkish War Academy. His speech was titled: “A Fundamentalist Threat Exists.” General Buyukanit spoke of the threat of religious fundamentalism in Turkey and why everything must be done to protect Turkey as a secular country with a pro-Western vision.

Turkey has elections in May 2007 and there is an expectation that Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, an Islamist, and the AKP party will take complete control of the government and change the core principles of the state. President Sezer expressed concern with the Islamization of national education and other institutions, the appointment of Islamists to government positions, statements by AKP officials questioning the definition of secularism, and the increasing number of religious schools with once-banned Koran courses.

President Sezer, stated:

'Religion cannot be allowed to exceed beyond the individual's spiritual life and influence social order. Restrictions can be imposed […] to protect public order, safety, and public interests.

Europe

If we were from Europe, Holmes would inform us that due to demographics there is an alarming inevitability about the outcome. He would point to the impossibility of assimilating the unwilling and inform us that drastic measures are past due. The enemy is using our traditions, our laws, and our culture to strip away our identity. Their goal is to establish a theocracy under Sharia law and to remove all vestiges of our Age of Enlightenment and Renaissance. He would highlight some of the continuing skirmishes and the gradual escalation of aggressiveness and violence as the opposition grows stronger. Also, he would point to comments by writers such as Oriana Fallaci who saw the enemy in plain view earlier than most.

* Skirmishes and Escalation

There is almost a daily sort of inevitability with “objections to Muslim sensibilities.” There was a race and sexism row when Jack Straw, the former British foreign secretary, admitted he asked female Muslim constituents who visit him to remove their veils and an investigation in London about a Muslim policeman being excused from guarding the Israel embassy due to moral objections.

While these incidents might seem minor by themselves, they are a harbinger of what is to come. The more serious cases:

A. Challenge to an author (e.g., Dante, Voltaire, Marlowe) in any course of study if a particular work of the author is deemed objectionable. (Fallaci, The Force of Reason)

B. Challenges to expression in the arts, e.g., the Barbican Center Theater of London censored a scene from a 1587 drama, Tamburlaine the Great (Id. at 301). Recently in Germany, the theater crew cancelled a production of a Mozart opera when there were objections to a scene in an adaptation of a Mozart Opera in Germany.

C. Reports of Muslims rioting in Sweden and recent reports from France announce an intifada is underway. Unlike the summer of 2005 when Muslim youths turned over cars and set them aflame, youths “now try to kill French police and burn police cars.”

* Oriana Fallaci Warned Her Native Italy And Europe

Oriana Fallaci described immigration as “the bloodless war,” a Trojan horse, and an invasion.

The current invasion … is not carried out only by the ‘terrorists who blow up themselves along with skyscrapers or buses’ but also by ‘the immigrants who settle in our home, and who, with no respect for our laws, impose their ideas, their customs, their God.’

Fallaci argued forcefully that this Trojan horse included twenty-five countries that form the European Union with at least twenty-five million Muslims and probably another fifteen million or more in Europe illegally. She reports:

[G]iven the Muslim…fertility, such figure is expected to double in 2016. To triple or to quadruple if Turkey becomes a European Union member. In fact Bernard Lewis prophesies that within 2100 the whole of Europe will be also numerically dominated by Muslims. And Bassam Tibi (the official deputy of the so-called Moderate Islam in Germany) adds: ‘[t] he problem is not to establish whether within 2100 the greatest majority or the totality of Europeans will be Muslim: one way or another, they will. The problem is whether Islam destined to dominate Europe will be an Euro-Islam or the Islam of Sharia.’ (The Force of Reason) [p.30][Emphasis added.]

On September 15, 2006, the Washington Post wrote, Combative Writer Oriana Fallaci Dies. They reported that …in her final years she challenged Italy and Europe about the loss of European culture and the lack of assimilation underway with immigrants:

….

[She] accused Europe of having sold its soul to … an Islamic invasion. It [She] also took the Catholic Church to task for being what she considers too weak before the Muslim world.

Describing Europe as ‘Eurabia,’ Fallaci said the continent "has sold itself and sells itself to the enemy like a prostitute.’

‘Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam,’ she wrote.

Another writer quoted her:

In a Spenglerian interview for this page last June, she told me: ‘The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period.’ [Emphasis added.]

United States

If we were from the United States, Holmes would inform us that if we have the will there is time to prepare. The stakes are very high. You must aid your friends so that you are not isolated. There is a reason you are called “the Great Satan.” As with Europe you will experience the same daily skirmishes about “Muslim sensibilities.” You must stay true to bedrock principles as written in your constitution. Be mindful of future demographics; listen to people with the best knowledge of how the enemy works, like former terrorist, and above all “beware the foot soldiers of Islamic fundamentalism.”

In the United States there are reports of: a U.S. publisher in New York who cancelled the publication of a book due to concerns over the staffs safety and the refusal of Islamic taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St Paul International airport to accept customers carrying alcohol from airport duty free shops. (Recent updates call the objection into question.)

The United States population is about to pass the 300 million barrier. Future projections are for around 400 million by mid-century. To the extent that followers of Islamism increase as a percentage of the population in the US (through conversions, higher Muslim birth rates (e.g., in Europe, the European rate is less than the replacement rate of 2 children per family while the Muslim birth rate is greater than 4.0 per family), and immigration, we could see challenges such as those facing Europe today.

In a recent interview with three former Muslim terrorists (plus video link), Ibrahim Abdullah from Dearborn, Michigan (agreed with Walid Shoebat (from the Middle East) that indoctrination of children begins as early as 6 in school. Shoebat said when he went to school at 6 years of age we sing Arabs are beloved and Jews are dogs.

Ibrahim Abdullah says (or words to the effect):

A. I was born in Dearborne, Michigan but Dearborn …is one of the largest Muslim populations in the country and it’s just like having a village in the West Bank in Israel today. It is very similar.

Q. [Is there an] effort [in Dearborn] to cultivate young Arabs in U.S. to join Al Queda or to form own splinter cells like what happened in London?

A. No question. We have seen government rounding up terrorist orgainzations and funding operations and usually … find they have start in Dearborn, Michigan.

A. As for cultivating the mentality of the children, just like throughout the Middle East.

A. … part of the culture; you are born and raised with this hatred in your mind and heart for America and Israel, primarily the Jew and the Christian; that is what the target is…and you are born and bred to believe this.

As Holmes might say: the game is a foot. He might even say something similar to what Jean-Paul Sartre said: “We cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and as mute as stones, our very passivity would be an act.”

What about Holmes warning to “beware the foot soldiers of Islamic fundamentalism” you ask? Patience, he says, more about that shortly in another meeting.