The West’s undoing?

Re: The West’s blindness to Islamic threat, Barbara Kay, June 13

Whenever I read stories like this of our unwillingness to defend our own interests and the glorious civilization we’ve built, I’m reminded of the line from Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide wherein David Bowie mourns, “You walk past a café, but you don’t eat when you’ve lived too long.”

Have we lived too long? Does a civilization necessarily implode when it’s attained its ends, i.e. fed itself, housed itself, entertained itself, spread literacy and technology and wealth to its inhabitants? In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs the ultimate apex is what he terms “self-actualization.”

But maybe there is another stage that follows, and that is self-destruction. I can’t think of another way to explain the reaction of women like the 24-year-old rape victim in Mann- heim mentioned in Kay’s column. Deborah Maes, Toronto An excellent response by Barbara Kay to Heather Mallick’s apologist contortions. Trump, clearly, is not going about it the right way; Obama faltered in his idealist approach in this respect. There is little doubt that to ignore the Caliphate-dream that drives Islam will be the undoing of the West. A “religion” that seeks the death penalty for blasphemy (another article in paper June 13), ironically, is neither peaceful nor magnanimous nor spiritual. The suppression and repression of opposing views are what dictators do, and this is very much political. The West may bury its head in the sand at its own peril. Cyril Abraham, Whitby, Ont.