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Jewish World Review
Nov. 25, 2003
/30 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764
Muslims have just as much to fear from militant Islam
By Barbara Amiel
Her point of reference may be British, but the message is universal. It's time to connect the dots about a global — and growing — problem that won't go away by merely wishing it. And, more importantly, it's time for some responsibility from "leadership."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
LONDON The veins of living humans show a blue tinge,
characteristic of de-oxygenated blood coursing
towards the heart. In life, all humans spill red blood
and a lot is made out of this in literature. A lot less is
made out of the fact that, when incinerated, all
human beings turn into a grey-white ash,
indistinguishable from that of incinerated buildings.
That ash covered the pavements and the gardens -
so carefully cultivated by the wife of the dead British
Consul-General - around the British diplomatic
mission in Istanbul last Thursday.
The single most important lesson to be learnt from
the events in Turkey is the obvious one, and it is a
lesson for Muslims. Namely, that they have as much
to fear from militant Islam and its Islamist dictators
and strongmen as does the West - if not more.
Whether it is the depredations of the Taliban in
Afghanistan or the murderous militants in Algeria, it
is clear that the greatest enemy Muslim societies
have are the extremists in their midst: Ba'athists,
fundamentalists and the so-called "political
Islamists". This is a battle for the soul of Islam. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be fruit on the tree of
hate, but it is not its trunk, nor its branches nor that
"root" so often invoked.
I think it was the great Islamic scholar Bernard
Lewis who first had the notion, but Daniel Pipes
coined the sentence: "If the problem is militant
Islam, the solution is moderate Islam." This plain
insight is a lesson often pointed out, but so far not
learnt. Even if the West does learn it, that alone
would not prevent what happened in Istanbul. It is
Muslim societies that have to learn and genuinely
understand that virtually all the suffering they have
endured over the past 30 years has come from the
home-grown extremists within. Western societies
can only protect themselves against militant Islam.
They cannot provide a remedy for it. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the poverty of Africa and
the scourge of Aids are not the reasons for the
bombings in Bali or the blowing up of churches by
militant Islamists in Pakistan. The sufferings of the
Middle East and Africa are not a flea in the ear of
militant Islam.
Militant Islam has a number of strands, but it has a
straightforward ideology. First, to turn all Muslim
societies into Islamic theocracies and then to
conquer the world. Blatantly wanting to conquer the
world has been out of fashion for a while - unless
you count the attempt of Karl Marx's followers to put
the proletariat (in reality, the party's cadres) in
charge of it. But for the Islamists, world domination
is a perfectly real goal.
The notion that the ills of the Muslim world can be
cured and the glory, dominance and power of the
early Muslim caliphates can be recaptured by
returning to Sharia law and some real or imagined
past, puts the fundamentalists squarely up against
Muslim reformists wanting to go forward. No doubt
the reformists are the majority of Muslims in the
West, but they seem intimidated or curiously
passive.
The Muslim organizations in Britain are an example
of this. Of the two main umbrella organizations, it is
the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) that is viewed as
the home of moderate leadership. The MCB hosted a
party attended by the Prime Minister and Cherie
Blair, at which Cherie famously wore her "shalwar
kameez". The British Board of Deputies, made up of
Jewish leaders, chose the MCB as an ecumenical
partner. And on September 29, 2001, the MCB
"convened a special meeting of imams [leaders] and
ulama [scholars] … to discuss the events of
September 11 in the United States of America and
their aftermath".
After the meeting, the MCB issued a statement
deploring the attacks of September 11. This was
widely greeted as a demonstration of domestic
Muslim moderation. That statement bears reading.
In fact, it condemns September 11 and the bombing
of al-Qa'eda and the Taliban in Afghanistan equally
and in the same terms - which translates into no
condemnation of September 11 at all.
Essentially, the statement was an example of the
verbal gymnastics of people trying to reconcile their
emotional support of militant Islam with their own
standing as respectable moderates.
Ultimately, the MCB is as ideological as the Muslim
Association of Britain, which gets its inspiration from
the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim
Association of Britain co-sponsors the "Stop the
War" marches and equates George W. Bush with
Saddam Hussein. One never knows how
representative these sorts of organizations are and
I would hazard a totally unscientific guess that their
extreme views represent less than 20 per cent of
British Muslims, if that. But small comfort. I know of
no recognized Muslim leader or Muslim organization
in Britain speaking out publicly on behalf of Western
democracies or the war on terror - or, as
importantly, against militant Islam in all its
manifestations. Any statement has to be hedged
with moral equivalence.
Perhaps the MCB means well and simply lacks
courage or intelligence, or perhaps it has been
hijacked. But no matter. Without any organized
opposition to these views by moderate Muslims, the
danger is apparent. A radical minority can take over
a country or a faith. Minorities were more than
sufficient to turn entire societies into Communist or
Nazi tyrannies. The last free elections in eastern
Europe after the war gave the communist party only
between 10 and 20 per cent of the vote. Hitler took
power with the support of one out of three
Germans.
In Britain we have our own problems. We have
created all sorts of human rights laws and
regulators, busy making sure that racial jokes are
prohibited and that people who use unpleasant
adjectives that "poison" the workplace are hauled
up before tribunals. But we seem unable to jail or
deport people who incite terrorism - or who incite
British people to disregard existing British laws
when they conflict with Islamic law.
Compromising justice for even the best purpose is a
route to be avoided, but if the laws to rid ourselves
of radical Islamists such as Sheikh Bakri Muhammad
or Abu Hamza are insufficient, surely we could
amend them or promulgate new ones without
compromising anything?
Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane was roundly
censured last week by Muslim organizations when
he told them to choose between the "British way" of
political dialogue and Islamic terrorism. Some of that
outrage, I suppose, comes from those who have a
legitimate fear that, if you keep invoking a peril, such
as the clash of civilizations, you will make it a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
But there is a parallel fallacy and it is that of closing
one's eyes to the devil that has already been
invoked. The question can be legitimately asked:
how many British consuls need to be blown up in
Turkey before Britain decides to stop appeasing the
devil on its own doorstep?
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JWR contributor Barbara Amiel is a columnist with London's Daily Telegraph, where this column
originated. Comment by clicking here.
© 2003, Barbara Amiel
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