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August 19, 2006
Yes, All This Is 'Indeed About Islam'
Reader Amina, responding to this post, emailed us this link with the comment that what Salmon Rushdie kept telling the world back in 2001 is "still not being heard by too many leaders in the West." She apparently had also read Drima's piece at The Sudanese Thinker, and related it to Rushdie's comment below that violent jihad is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world:
[... ] "This isn't about Islam." The world's leaders have been repeating this mantra for weeks, partly in the virtuous hope of deterring reprisal attacks on innocent Muslims living in the West, partly because if the United States is to maintain its coalition against terror it can't afford to suggest that Islam and terrorism are in any way related.... The trouble with this necessary disclaimer is that it isn't true.
... Highly motivated organizations of Muslim men (oh, for the voices of Muslim women to be heard!) have been engaged over the last 30 years or so in growing radical political movements out of this mulch of "belief." These Islamists -- we must get used to this word, "Islamists," meaning those who are engaged upon such political projects, and learn to distinguish it from the more general and politically neutral "Muslim" -- include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the blood-soaked combatants of the Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group in Algeria, the Shiite revolutionaries of Iran, and the Taliban. Poverty is their great helper, and the fruit of their efforts is paranoia. This paranoid Islam, which blames outsiders, "infidels," for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.
... Of course this is "about Islam." The question is, what exactly does that mean? After all, most religious belief isn't very theological. Most Muslims are not profound Koranic analysts. For a vast number of "believing" Muslim men, "Islam" stands, in a jumbled, half-examined way, not only for the fear of God -- the fear more than the love, one suspects -- but also for a cluster of customs, opinions and prejudices that include their dietary practices; the sequestration or near-sequestration of "their" women; the sermons delivered by their mullahs of choice; a loathing of modern society in general, riddled as it is with music, godlessness and sex; and a more particularized loathing (and fear) of the prospect that their own immediate surroundings could be taken over -- "Westoxicated" -- by the liberal Western-style way of life.
... This is not wholly to go along with Samuel Huntington's thesis about the clash of civilizations, for the simple reason that the Islamists' project is turned not only against the West and "the Jews," but also against their fellow Islamists. Whatever the public rhetoric, there's little love lost between the Taliban and Iranian regimes. Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to deny that this self-exculpatory, paranoiac Islam is an ideology with widespread appeal.Continue reading "Yes, This Is About Islam."
Our take home message here is in two parts: Part 1 is that somehow, someway, the voices of more Muslims like Drima at The Sudanese Thinker, Amina, The Big Pharoah, Egyptian Sandmonkey, and others like them, need to be heard by Muslims being indoctrinated into violent jihad. Too many Muslims are identifying with an ummah that is increasingly violent, intolerant, and unwilling to live in peace with those that don't share their inhuman, mindless, non-spiritual, violent, fascist, jihadist ideology.
Part II is that the governments of the West, especially those of Germany, France, Britain, and the U.S., must wake up to the fact that one cannot negotiate with ideologues. The Islamists intend to kill us or themselves die trying. They understand only one thing - power and the political will to exercise it. They consider the West a paper tiger, and until they are convinced that the tiger is real and angry, and that first sanctions and lastly military action - is imminent, and the see it, feel it, and taste it, the world will continue to plummet into WW-III. And if we wait much longer, the point of no return will have been passed.
Unfortunately, we are in a war that no one in the West wanted. We've certainly made mistakes and perhaps should have/could have done some things differently. But increasingly, the Muslim world is becoming ever more violent, ever more militant, and ever more determined to destroy the West. We have only one choice now - destroy the regimes of the states that sponsor terrorism and/or have nuclear ambitions. This while working with moderate Arab governments (such as they are - albeit they talk moderation while encouraging jihadism, such as with Saudi Arabia and Wahabbism), to attempt, a t t e m p t, to defuse as much militant Islamic hate as possible. In the end, however, the only thing that will be listened to by the militant Islamic community, now approaching a majority in the Muslim world, is sheer raw military power, and the exercise thereof. I wish that this was not true, but looking back over history, it's the one truism that has proven itself over time.
Hat tip - Amina (I looked up the meaning of her name here. It's the feminine form of a name derived from Arabic Amin meaning "truthful" - although it could be her real name, alternatively, she may be trying to make a point)
Originally posted at Hyscience
Posted by Richard at August 19, 2006 8:55 AM
