Despite my defense of the term Islamofascism (which I stand by as a definition of the repressive and terrorized totalitarian condition of much of the Islamic world) I have been unable to settle on a terminology that adequately describes and isolates the strain in Islam that poses a grave danger to freedom and liberty in today's world. I like “Islamofascism” still but I’m afraid that the word fascism has lost a lot of its impact, not because it is not accurate but because its meaning has become blurred by the constant misuse it receives. I have also used “Islamism” but it strikes me that it is not informative enough- even something of a tautology. Political Islam has some value too. It is especially good in that it reminds us that the politicization of any religion leads to the same place. Thus it also suggests a commonality with the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches, in their movement to divest from Israel. In fact, all the mainstream liberal churches seem to be having an attendance problem because of their political nature LINK . However, in the sense that it does not specify the violence that goes along with the current variety, of political Islam, Political Islam too does not satisfy. Radical Islam has been somewhat useful too but the word, radical, is also over-used and as become fuzzy with constant misapplication.
I have come to believe that we still lack a title that focuses on the critical difference between the kind of Islam that gives rise to terror and intolerance and the rest of Islam that to some degree is amenable to living in the modern world with co-operation and tolerance.
The name I keep coming back to is “Caliphate Islam” (or Caliphatism). Here is my reasoning. As far as I am concerned, anyone is entitled to believe that their religion (whatever it may be) is the “one true faith”. What they are not entitled to is, in any way, to believe that non-members of that blessed faith should have any fewer rights or less human dignity than “the faithful”. It is the underlying assumption of those who believe in The Caliphate that the entire world should live under Muslim rule and Shari’a law and you can only be a good Muslim if you believe in bringing it about.
The Caliphate, by the way, is not the jolly, rollicking world of Walt Disney’s Aladdin. Nor is it even the hell on earth that was Afghanistan under the Taliban or the Insane purgatory of today’s Iran. The world-wide Caliphate is the entire earth gone mad. Women being beaten, hung and stoned to death for no other crime than having been raped by a gang of perverted Caliphists who have been raised to think of women not as human beings but as “meat” or weapons of the devil. The Caliphate will be a place where the ancient dhimmi status will be revived. Dhimmi-hood in the ancient Caliphate meant that Christians, Jews and anyone else who is not a Muslim will have protection under the law only in so far as the mercy of the local mullah allows.
It is Caliphate Islam that won’t accept a Jewish state in the Middle East because it is considered an affront to the will of Allah that Jews should not only not be subject to Islamic rule but might have Islamic citizens living in a Jewish country. It is Caliphate Islam that so stultifies the lives of its people that they have to emigrate to western countries only to reject the values that make those countries better places to live. Belief in the Caliphate justifies the mass murder of innocent office workers in Manhatten, school children in Beslan and tribal rivals in sub-Saharan Africa. The belief in and desire for the Caliphate is the difference between conservative Islam and the pernicious terrorists that endanger all of mankind for the sake of a utopian nightmare.
Is it fair to call it a Utopian nightmare? A cursory reading of Islamic history proves that the Caliphate idea deserves to be thrown into the same garbage dump of bad ideas and hideous failures that now holds Communism and Nazism. Would it be peaceful as they claim? Well, we know that the track record is not good. The Prophet Mohammad established a vast and secure Caliphate across a great expanse of territory, yet as soon as Mohammed died people began murdering each other to determine his successor. Right down to the present day, the issue of who the true leader should be (and should have been) is the primary divider in the Islamic world. Shias and Sunnis kill many more of each other than Americans do of either over it; and the Sunni,/Shia divide is entirely derived from the original disagreement about who should have been the first Caliph after Mohammed. Still, some Muslims continue to believe that as soon as they get Israel out of the way and they take over the western governments by demographic means there will be a world-wide peaceful caliphate. That way lies ruin and madness.
A word of caution, Caliphists are sometimes aware that this belief may be a red flag. Often their belief is so strong and insensitive to reality that they acknowledge and talk about it openly. The ones who are most dangerous know enough not to mention this belief in public. In these cases it is important to know how to recognize them by other behavior. At the risk of being accused of behavioral profiling, lets look at a few of the indicators that come to mind:
1. Dehumanizing language- calling non-Muslims names like kuffar (nonbeliever) or referring to them as pigs, monkeys dogs etc…
2. Inability to engage in reasonable discourse without flying into a rage- see my post Don’t Just Stand There, Dhimmi, Humiliate Me about Imam Al Husainy. (below)
3. Refusal to accept the existence of Israel.
4. Extreme Misogyny and gender inequality
5. Blaming all of the incompetence, inefficiency, misfortune, and rage in the Islamic world on: a. The Jews, b. America, c. The West, d. Women, e. Anybody else, f. All of the above
I know there are a lot more but you get the idea… Send me your suggestions!
26 comments:
Why not 'Jihadism'?
"A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"--Gertrude Stein
Wasting time 'calling' a thing by one or another name is a purely intellectual exercise. The thing itself remains what it intrinsically is, and renaming it won't make it one iota different. Nor will 'proper' nomenclature convince the 'usual suspects' that it is an anachronistic abomination that must be defeated by whatever means required.
Let's just agree to call it Primitive Nutbarism , and be done with the semantics.
And then let us work on finding some way or ways to put it down like the rabid monster it truly is. The 'putting down' part is important; the correct 'naming' part ---not so much.
You say: "Islamofascism: a definition of the repressive and terrorized totalitarian condition of much of the Islamic world"
Why not call it what it is. It's ISLAM.
Islam is the thing which promots that "totalitarian condition". And it does so whether it's the Shiite strain as we clearly see in hellish nation of Iran, or the predominant strain of Sunni Islam which we see in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, et al.
It's all Islam. It mandates contempt for non-'believers' -- it mandates hatred for Jews -- it mandates violence against persons of conscience who don't agree with Islam.
Islam is a nightmare as a 'religion', but it's also a doctrine of war, and a blood stained soul crushing compendium of crazy and backward 'laws' called "sharia". It's all filth.
Thanks for responding
Anonymous:
To me Jihadism is a weaker term because it is less specific about the evil core of belief system behind the Jihad.. The first is that, as I understand them, Jihads can be about a great many things and might be rationalized in a great many ways. For instance, a couple of years ago a class Muslim valedictorian at Harvard wrote his speech about Jihad and couched it in soppy pop psychology terms. He claimed that true Jihad was about self improvement and demanding more of you self. This dilutes the sense in which we need to understand the threat against us and enables the liberal enablers of the Caliphists to excuse their behavior and avoid understanding their true aims. “Caliphate Islam” as a term puts the stress precisely on the ultimate evil aim of this particular Jihad. This allows us to pin them down and force them to define themselves.
You can not believe in the Caliphate and be a trusted citizen of a free country- It is a simple syllogism. Too believe in the Caliphate is to be a terrorist, a “terrorist to be” or a terrorist sympathizer/supporter.
DougF:
I wish it were true that this definition business was an idle exercise. The fact is that until enough people in the west recognize the problem on their own, we will never be able to repulse this threat. There are too many of us out there who are still deluding and distracting themselves. By better definitions, definitions they can’t evade, we will open a few eyes at a time until we can act with enough force to insure our safety and freedom.
MORT YOU'RE WRONG.
IT'S NOT ISLAM. BECAUSE NOT EVERY MUSLIM IS A VIOLENT MODERNITY-HATING GENOCIDAL NUT-JOB.
IT'S TRUE ISLAM.
I have also been unhappy with the labelling of the barbarians who are attacking the civilized world. Accurately defining the enemy is a critical step in planning to defeat them. The difficulty with using some variation of "Caliphate" is the unfamiliarity of the general public with the term. These are the very people whose attention we must engage in order to win this contest.
Instead, how about "Medieval Muslims" or "Medieval Islamists"?
Medieval muslims have an inherent inferiority complex caused by an inability to reconcile their failure to adapt to the modern world with their delusions of religuous grandeur. Medieval brings to the general public's mind people who are uncultured, regressive throwbacks who have no place in the modern world (see Taliban). Branding them as medieval losers would make defeating them easier while deflecting the "hate Islam" PC label.
Apsco17
I like Apsco's suggestion, esp since "medieval" has a consistent implication of cruelty, callousness, rejectioncof reason/logic, and violent obscurantism to even less-educated people.
The down-side is that people might think you are referring to Muslims from that historical period. Maybe "Islamic Medievalists?"
Although "Caliphate" is currently a little alien to Western ears, a modest PR campaign by an effective Western communicator (Bush has been a dreadful failure at this) cd very well make it familiar enough to catch the imagination of the masses.
I think Odysseus is exactly right. "medieval" as evocative, as it is, is redolent of the Christian folly and western history.
As for the educational effort required, on 9/10/01 the word Jihad was unfamiliar in its implications too. I think it will catch on quickly once everyone understands that it identifies the precise point that distinguishes Hate and Intolerance from Spirituality and Culture. In fact I propose that it is an appropriate illustration of the point to spell it as CalipHate. As a mnemonic it is perfect and will help the education effort.
I have to agree with Morton Doodslag, who pretty much sums it up. Reliapundit, on the other hand, spells out his own confusion in capital letters, showing that he doesn't know the difference between Islam (the religion) and Muslims (those people who are supposed to be adherents of said religion). He should remember that the fact that not every Muslim is a violent modernity-hating genocidal nut-job does not mean that this is to Islam's credit.
As for Yaacov Ben Moshe, he should note that referring to the beast as anything other than Islam is simply Islam apologism. He should also note that there is no such thing as an Islam which "to some degree is amenable to living in the modern world with co-operation and tolerance" - the people (and if he's thinking of people, that means Muslims, not Islam) he's probably thinking of here are just "Muslims" who fail to practice their religion in various degrees.
CalipHate ... ha!
The'll counter with their own: "CaliFate -- it's destiny!"
While all the commenters have worthwhile suggestions, I do think something a bit more instantly recognizable to the average mushy-middle, Anna-Nicole-obsessed American might be more effective":
Sandbox Islam.
Abdullah Shaikh
and
Morton Doodslag:
What you have said about Islam would have applied equally well to Christianity and Judaism at some points in their histories. Modern tolerance and co-existance is more recent than we like to think and it is not yet universal. The truth is that when I was a boy I was told, at different times, by three different friends (a Catholic, a Seventh Day Adventist and a mainstream Protestant) that I was going to go to hell because I was Jewish. I am sure that there are plenty of Christians who believe this today. Islam is not the problem. All religions are formed around the core of the human longing for spiritual connection. Immature religions are exclusivist and feel the need to assert their superiority. The Muslim faith is the youngest of the great faiths and has further to evolve. There are plenty of practicing Muslims that have used the teachings of that faith in constructive and truly spiritual ways. Ahmed Mansour is one example of many. Mansour was one of the early voices to have blown the whistle on the strong Caliphatist presence in the Islamic Society of Boston. He is a practicing Muslim and exactly the kind of Muslim who will contribute to the evolution of his faith and fellow Muslims. He cannot do this if we do not have a way to recognize the difference between him and those that believe in the Caliphate.
I have been friends w/Muslims in the real world and online. Yaacov hit the nail on the head, while we must not surrender an inch in the standards of behavior we must demand from Muslims, and not shrink from its historical crimes, we must never condemn an entire faith as irredeemable and unreformable. It took Christianity ~1800 years to [officially] put barbarism behind it, we need to recognize this and remain humble.
If we condemn the Islamic faith per se, we make it dramatically more difficult--and dangerous-- for courageous men like Dr. Mansour to drain the toxins out of it. Such men are incredibly valuable allies to us in this World War IV, and it is self-defeating for us to do anything that weakens their efforts.
"Is it fair to call it a Utopian nightmare?"
No, the fair descriptor is DYS-topian nightmare!
*** Simplified Version Follows ***
There is one, and only one
Eternal Unknowable Creator
Which has made known to humankind
the Love of God (Fire), and
the Knowledge of God (Water)
through the ages, for each age
and
promising that when the Days of kings & ecclesiastics were finished,
The Creator would send
The Twin Teachers: One to prepare the way,
and the Great Teacher
(the Lord of Hosts)
(the One, like unto the Son of Man)
(the Mahdi)
But when the Qaim came, as promised by Jesus, on May 23, 1844
He was recognized by some, but REJECTED by the established clergy (Muslims)
They executed Him twice, the same day, July 9, 1850 before 10,000 witnesses.
The Holy Lord of Hosts then came, and walked among humankind from 1853 to 1892 (Micah 7:15)
But Muslims turned AWAY from Him, preferring their own clergy: mullahs and imams.
IF the Glory of God brings light, love and knowledge, THEN Muslims today have chosen darkness, hatred and ignorance.
They are people, a few of whom are now hatefully ignorant and murderously arrogant, but many of whom are God-fearing and waiting to hear the Name of God for THIS Day, Baha'u'llah.
I've recently come across the term islamosocialism. Yes Islam = nazism but they have friends today helping them in the west.
Socialists/Leftists.
my 2 cents.
Nazislam
What you have said about Islam would have applied equally well to Christianity and Judaism at some points in their histories.
And so it seems Moshe didn't get my point. He doesn't differentiate between the practice of a religion in various periods of history, and the nature of the religion as independent from its historical or contemporary practice.
The problems we see with Islam are a result of Islam being practiced as it should be practiced according to its teachings, whereas similar problems in Judaism and Christianity stem from its supposed adherents straying from the teachings of their religion.
Islam is not the problem.
In other words, Moshe opts for Islam apologism.
[Ahmed Mansour] is a practicing Muslim and exactly the kind of Muslim who will contribute to the evolution of his faith and fellow Muslims.
First of all, his whistleblowing suggests he is not actually a Muslim. Second, it is impossible for him or others to make Islam evolve, at least into something compatible with the West, because the end result would no longer be Islam.
He cannot do this if we do not have a way to recognize the difference between him and those that believe in the Caliphate.
We do indeed have a way of recognizing this difference. Ahmed Mansour is an apostate. Osama bin Laden et al, on the other hand, are not apostates, but true Muslims.
(...) we must never condemn an entire faith as irredeemable and unreformable.
In the case of Islam, it is only natural to condemn it as irredeemable and unreformable, because it is irredeemable and unreformable. Why should we pretend that it isn't?
If we condemn the Islamic faith per se, we make it dramatically more difficult--and dangerous-- for courageous men like Dr. Mansour to drain the toxins out of it.
On the contrary, Islam per se should be condemned, because if the toxins were drained out of Islam, there would be nothing left. There's nothing Dr. Mansour and others of his ilk can do to change that fact.
it is self-defeating for us to do anything that weakens their efforts.
If anything, it is self-defeating to be in denial about the identity of our enemy, to hope in vain for a "reformed" or "moderate" Islam that will never see the light of day and to make policy decisions based on this naive hope. Such delusions are probably convenient in the short term, but reality will eventually catch up.
A. Shaikh, if we review the long history of Chrsitianity, we will see that, in its lowest moments, those carrying out the massacres and inquisitions argued that their actions were in strict compliance with the tenets of the faith.
Here in 2007 CE, we look back and see those horrors only from a victor's perspective...but there are STILL losers out there who (for example) condemn the Pope as an heretic and the Jews as historical God-killers.
During the centuries, various "biblical" works have been purged from the Bible--the Apocrypha. I am sure all of those deletions horrified faithful Christians at the time. Yet, it got done, and here we are today with a well-purged Christianity.
This is why I say we need to be humble, and recoil from thoughtlessly endangering courageous reformers within Islam. I doubt you have a crystal ball to tell us what is or isn't possible. If I told you back in 1986 that in the next 7 years a lifetime Kremlin Communist would first lead Russia out of the USSR, then wreck the Communist system entirely, then send troops out to shoot down Communists in the streets of Moscow, you would have said I was insane. I prefer to recall what Lenin said: History is more cunning than anyone.
(...) if we review the long history of Chrsitianity, we will see that, in its lowest moments, those carrying out the massacres and inquisitions argued that their actions were in strict compliance with the tenets of the faith.
Well, there's a difference between something being in compliance with the tenets of a faith and its (supposed) adherents arguing that what they do is in compliance with those tenets - the adherents might be wrong in their claims.
During the centuries, various "biblical" works have been purged from the Bible--the Apocrypha. I am sure all of those deletions horrified faithful Christians at the time.
The Quran, according to Islam, contains the perfect, eternally valid words of Allah, and so "editing" or questioning its contents is apostasy, which as we all know may be hazardous to one's health (ie punishable by death). This is not the case with the Bible, so it is possible to interpret it (and I suppose even "edit" it), whereas the Quran has to be taken literally and its contents never questioned.
This is why I say we need to be humble, and recoil from thoughtlessly endangering courageous reformers within Islam.
We shouldn't thoughtlessly endanger ourselves by embracing a pipe dream for our own short-term convenience.
I doubt you have a crystal ball to tell us what is or isn't possible.
True, but I know that it isn't possible for Islam to be reformed into something compatible with the West without ceasing to be Islam. Therefore I see no reason whatsoever to embrace supposed reformers, who after all want to conserve the faith rather than abolish it or at the very least reject it for themselves.
On a general note, comparing Christianity and Islam is a bit like comparing apples and oranges - just because something is the case with Christianity doesn't mean that the same is the case for Islam.
I certainly don't mean to insult any Christians by analogizing the potential reform of Islam to the history of Christianity. And I'm well aware of the structural features in place in the Islamic religion blocking an essential reform.
But people pressed by crisis will often swallow "the impossible," and later come to value the change. We know that many courageous native Muslims are already willing to stand up and attack the entrenched, bloodthirsty religious structures of their society. My idea is to support those people to the hilt.
What is yours? Laugh at them and tell them to give up their reformist fantasy? That's a good way to make World War IV last a lot longer than it needs to, if not lose it altogether.
But people pressed by crisis will often swallow "the impossible," and later come to value the change.
But this would mean that they would to some extent abandon Islam - such actions would not change Islam.
We know that many courageous native Muslims are already willing to stand up and attack the entrenched, bloodthirsty religious structures of their society.
The very fact that they do this, suggests that they are not really Muslims, but apostates.
What is yours? Laugh at them and tell them to give up their reformist fantasy?
No, I think that rather than trying in vain to fix Islam, we should realize that Islam cannot be fixed, and make policy decisions based on that. We should realize that Islam does not belong in the West, and seek to remove Islam from the West.
That's a good way to make World War IV last a lot longer than it needs to, if not lose it altogether.
So the outcome of this war is determined by whether our enemy can cease to be our enemy? I think it's a better idea to fight our enemy and acknowledge that it is our enemy. We should not rely on our enemy to win the war.
A. Shaikh, comrade, I am concerned above all with what works to secure total victory, with minimum loss of innocent life. We have significant tactical differences, time will prove which will be more effective.
Let a hundred flowers bloom.
I am concerned above all with what works to secure total victory
If Jewish Odysseus actually were concerned about this, he would take note of the fact that Islamic reform is impossible instead of burying his head in the sand. After all, if the goal is total victory, then ignoring vital and relevant facts about reality seems like a pretty bad and counterproductive strategy.
with minimum loss of innocent life
That's why deporting Muslims is a better idea than killing them.
"If Jewish Odysseus actually were concerned about this..."
Surely ad hominem attacks are beneath you, and alien to the mission and spirit of this fine blog.
I cd as easily paint you as an agent provocateur, but it is beneath me. I accept our differences as grounded in different approaches to tactics, not ultimate objectives.
I was a warrior in WW III, and I was rarely in error, and we buried that fearful beast against the efforts of a huge % of "moderates." Those lessons have stayed with me, tho that conflict had some key differences w/WW IV. But the principal is the same: we are in a protracted conflict w/a ruthless enemy, and one or the other, us or them, must be destroyed.
I leave it to our fair-minded readers to decide which approach is likelier to obtain total victory w/minimum loss of innocent life. I think we've sufficiently elucidated our differences.
"radical islam" is pretty mush the established term.
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