On Leftist Cultural Suicide, the Maltese Falcon and Radical Islam

Judd Magilnick provides us with some valuable insight into the history of Western civilization with his latest offering over at The American Spectator . Sure, many of us have heard of or perhaps even seen the 1941 movie The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart, but how many of us (like me) were previously unaware of the history behind the world's most desired bird?

"In the Hammett story, the Sydney Greenstreet character explains that the crusaders of the "French Hospitaller" were given the Island of Malta in perpetual fiefdom by King Charles of Spain, then head of the Holy Roman Empire. In return, these "Knights of Malta" were to annually provide the king with one of the prized falcons from Malta. This capsule summary is correct, but deficient in explaining why this group of idealists received the island. While not germane to the story's plot, there is much more to understand about the real falcon and the real knights. The mysterious fat man does not explain why this particular group of idealists had earned the Island.

Malta is a tiny island -- but in its strategic position south of Sicily it is big enough to constitute a barrier to any Mediterranean invasion of Western Europe from the east. The Knights were given Malta after their heroic though unsuccessful defense of the Island of Rhodes from the Ottoman invaders in 1522. Then, in a famous battle on Malta in 1565, 600 knights successfully stopped the progress of Suleiman the Magnificent and 40,000 of his Ottoman fighters. Right there on that island, Western Europe was, at least for a time, saved from Moslem conquest.

Given this history, we are losing a spectacular opportunity by not treating the Maltese Falcon as a trophy of the successful resistance to Islamism. The bird is no less an icon of successful defense than is (ignoring motives) the Old North Church is to the invading British. In a rational world, schoolchildren in Europe and North America would be making falcons stuffed with candy.

Note also that the "Maltese cross" is associated with firefighting, such as the badge of the NYFD. This tradition has come down from the heroism of the Knights of Malta -- 1900 years before the World Trade Center burned -- when attempting to scale the walls of Jerusalem, the Saracens threw down naphtha and fire."

The entire article is well worth the read and if anyone doubts that there is an active, long-term plan to destablize the west and institue Shariah, simply click on this recent interview with Kamal Saleem in which this convert to Christianity is now in fear for his life. Saleems states in the interview...

"I was taught jihad; there are four kinds – war over self, political, war like 9/11, and silent war, the destruction of a civilization from within, the "Trojan horse" cancer. I was sent to America for this kind of war.

My mission in America was to take the kids, change the culture. The Muslim Brotherhood sent me; the Saudis financed us. We opened mosques and targeted universities, politicians, the jail system and poor neighborhoods."

Perhaps we here in the west need to take note of what is going on in the world and our own countries and adopt a much longer view of history. This in light of the worldview of those opposed to our way of life that would seek to take over using our own hard-fought liberties to do so.