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Terror Networks
Islamism threat to democracy
2006-05-29
By Ahmed Charai
A historic tragedy is at play before our own eyes: Another Munich, when some European democracies thought they could avoid the war by appeasing Nazism. Winston Churchill said: "You accepted shame to avoid war, now you will have both." History's verdict was simply merciless.
When the shooting's over and the last mullah's been hung — always assuming the Marshamallow People don't simply surrender, of course — history's verdict will be equally merciless toward today's Chomskies and Mother Sheehans.
Today, Arab but also Western diplomats are making the same mistake toward the "green fascism." Thus, their "smart" strategy will consist in involving these groups in a democratic process; Islamists would then, they believe, change their behavior.
To just about the same extent Hitler did.
But this is a blatant failure to recognize Islam, history and democracy. Islamism is born out of a reaction to attempts to modernize Arab/Muslim society. Its credo, "There's No Power than that of God," pretends to be democracy's antithesis, which means the People's Power. Forgetting Islamism's origin is tantamount to illusion.
Gawd knows they remind us often enough. And the world's innalekshuls seem resolutely intent on concentrating on the Abu Ghraib trees while ignoring the Islamic forest.
Extremism is a form of political activity that rejects the principles of parliamentary democracy. Extremist ideology and practices are based on intolerance, exclusion, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ultranationalism. Extremism is a danger for any democratic state because its fanatic character may be used to justify violence. Even if it doesn't directly advocate violence, extremism creates a climate conducive to violence.
Posted by:Fred

#6  Muslim world = RUSSIA = most economy-dependent, competitive, innovation-centric males die by an average age of 40-50, leaving milyuhns and zigluhns of emotions/hormones-intensive tween youths to be guided by surviving adult females = elderly whom as class are usually NOT physically strong enough over time to stop them. THE WOMEN CAN'T SPEND IT IFF THE MEN DON'T BUILD IT, OR THERE ARE NO MEN OR NOT ENUFF MEN TO BUILD IT OR PROTECT IT, NOW CAN THEY!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-05-29 23:55  

#5  Thanks, GK and a5089.
Posted by: 11A5S   2006-05-29 10:00  

#4  It is not a matter of "modernizing Islam" but of "Islamizing modernity."

GK and 11A5S : not sure at all, but I rather think this formule has been first pronounced by a french islam sepcialist (and a bit of an an apologist, since his thesis was the end of the islamist "failed revolution" in the late 90's), Gilles Kepel.
A quite serious scholar, but very "islamically correct" if you ask me.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-05-29 09:24  

#3  Modern islam = fascisim. It really is that simple. You can't have democracy and the islam the Saudi's and Ben Laden's want. We made this choice 60+ years ago and we are having to make it again. Are the going down Fascists going down or is it us that will go down?
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2006-05-29 06:39  

#2  11A5S, the essay was written by Roberto A.M. Bertacchini and Piersandro Vanzan S.I. and titled
The Islamic Question. (Scroll down to the essay.)
Here's the part you were referencing:
.... For the zealots, everything that comes from the outside is like poison to their traditional ways of life, so they hold that there is only one way to avert cultural catastrophe: expel the invader and hermetically seal off the borders, so nothing can pollute or corrupt their miniature world. This is, in part, the position of Osama Bin Laden, who is opposed to the American presence, not only in Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia.

But this defensive program would never work against Western civilization. Unlike all previous civilizations, it is not localized or territorially circumscribed. The pervasiveness of the global village is such that there is only one way to escape its grasp: destroy it. And this is Al-Zawahiri’s ideological program, which he pursues with a complex strategy. For the formula of “modernizing Islam,” he substitutes another: “Islamizing modernity,” and therefore the West.

Within the Muslim world, Islamization means de-Westernizing everything: from political and cultural institutions to economic ones, even to the point of rethinking banking operations. On the outside, it means spreading Islam through vigorous missionary activity, in both Europe and the United States: this activity is supported above all by Saudia Arabia. But according to the most radical interpretations, Islamizing the West means violently attacking its political and economic power, without sparing the civilian population.....
Posted by: GK   2006-05-29 01:48  

#1  It is not a matter of "modernizing Islam" but of "Islamizing modernity."

This is taken from a great recent essay. I wish I could remember who wrote it and where it is published. The point of the essay was that Zawahiri had realized that by staying on the defensive, modernity would slowly whittle away at traditional Islamic society and eventually overwhelm it. Declaring jihad, attacking and destroying jahili Arab regimes and promoting dawa in the West, was the only hope for Islam. Of course when Zawahiri formulated his strategy, he probably had no idea of the crises of will and demography that lay in Europe's near future. Nor did he understand that the jahili Arab regimes would be such tough nuts to crack. The author of the essay described Zawahiri's strategy as Islamizing modernity.
Posted by: 11A5S   2006-05-29 00:21  

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