Douglas Murray Quotes & Sayings

At the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 2012, just a fortnight after the murder of the American ambassador in Benghazi, President Obama talked about the YouTube video his administration were then still saying was behind the attacks. Talking about the excerpt ofa film called Innocence of Muslims, the President of the United States said, before the world's assembly, 'The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.' He didn't say why it 'must not' belong to them any more than it 'must not' belong to the South Park creators who made The Book of Mormon or the ageing Monty Python team who made The Life of Brian. But the question was left to dangle. — Douglas Murray

Even the most extreme Islamophile responses to Islam can still provoke accusations of Islamophobia. But when it comes to Christianity, it appears that you cannot uphold its doctrines without immediately being accused of obscurantism or bigotry. This results from a profound disdain in intellectual circles towards the religion underpinning the West, and a corresponding exaggerated respect for what are presumed to be the cultures of the underdeveloped world. The result positively encourages a critical approach to Christianity while refusing to permit anyone to say/write anything critical of Islam. The result is an approach to Islam which is not just uncritical but slavish. — Douglas Murray

The further Fascism receded into history and the fewer visible fascists there were on display, the more self-proclaimed anti-fascists needed fascism to retain any semblance of political virtue or purpose. It proved politically useful to describe as fascist people who were not Fascists , just as it proved politically useful to describe as racist people who were not racists. — Douglas Murray

The same uneven application of values applies in the weird worlds of academia and the think tanks. Like the media, they choose to close off their minds the moment that the question of Islam comes along. Most bizarre is that you can get away with saying anything, absolutely anything, so long as it is flattering of Islam. It doesn't matter how soppy, how sentimental, how completely unacademic it is: so long as it's about Islam, different standards apply. — Douglas Murray

On 11 September 2012 crowds of friendly locals in Kabul, Afghanistan, were chanting the usual 'Death to America' slogans. At the same time American flags were torched from London to Sydney. And in Benghazi, Libya, a group of 'spontaneous protesters' arrived at the US consulate with rocket-propelled grenades and savagely murdered the US ambassador. In Washington, members of the Obama administration were, as we have already seen, showing that they weren't taking any of this personally. It wasn't about them and it certainly wasn't about their ambassador, who had in fact been murdered by terrorists in a pre-planned attack. The administration was still claiming all this was caused by an excerpt from an amateur film which had been up on YouTube for weeks. — Douglas Murray

In such a view of society, however greatly you might wish to benefit from an endless supply of cheap labour, a wider range of cuisine or the salving of a generation's conscience, you still would not have a right to wholly transform your society. Because that which you inherited that is good should also be passed on. Even were you to decide that some of the views or lifestyles of your ancestors could be improved upon, it does not follow that you should hand over to the next generation a society that is chaotic, fractured and unrecognisable. — Douglas Murray

in June 2016, when the UN accused the Ertrean government of committing crimes against humanity, thousands of Eritrean protested outside the UN building in Geneva. The Swiss people had been told, like everyone else in Europe, that here were poeple who had come to Switzerland because they were fleeing a government they could not live under Yet, thousands of them turned out to support that same government when someone in Europe criticized them. — Douglas Murray

They are an American Delegation who are doing a tour of the region to apologize for the crusades', said Arafat. Then he, and his guest, burst out laughing. They both knew that America had little or no involvement in the wars of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. But Arafat, at any rate, was happy to indulge the affliction of anyone who believed they had and use it to his own political advantage. — Douglas Murray

For present-day politicians there are only political points to be made from such statements, and the larger the sin the larger the outrage, the larger the apology and the larger the potential political gain for sorrow expressed. Through such statements political leaders can gain the benefits of magnanimity without the stain of involvement: the person making the apology had done nothing wrong and all the people who could have received the apology are dead. — Douglas Murray

The claim that Islam is a religion of peace is a nicety invented by Western politicians so as either not to offend their Muslim populations or simply lie to themselves that everything might yet turn out fine. In fact, since its beginning Islam has been pretty violent. — Douglas Murray

A society that says we are defined exclusively by the bar and the nightclub , by self-indulgence and our sense of entitlement, cannot be said to have deep roots or much likelihood of survival. But, a society which holds that our culture consists of the cathedral, the playhouse and the playing field, the shopping mall and Shakespeare, has a chance. — Douglas Murray

Sad to say, this Islamophilia problem does not occur only at the low-ranking level of Director of the CIA. But at least you've always got the army, haven't you? Surely that is one remaining bastion of common sense that would never bend to such cravenness. — Douglas Murray