Note: An earlier version of the following article was first published by PJ Media.
Because it is my field of study, one would expect I’d have much to say immediately after jihadi attacks of the sort that recently occurred in Brussels (35 killed), or San Bernardino (14 killed), or Paris (130). Ironically, I don’t: such attacks are ultimately symptoms of what I do deem worthy of discussion, namely, root causes. (What can one add when a symptom of the root cause he has long warned against occurs other than “told you so”?)
So what is the root cause of jihadi attacks? Many think that the ultimate source of the ongoing terrorization of the West is Islam. Yet this notion has one problem: the Muslim world is immensely weak and intrinsically incapable of being a threat. That every Islamic assault on the West is a terrorist attack — and terrorism, as is known, is the weapon of the weak — speaks for itself.
This was not always the case. For approximately one thousand years, the Islamic world was the scourge of the West. Today’s history books may refer to those who terrorized Christian Europe as Arabs, Saracens, Moors, Ottomans, Turks, Mongols, or Tatars — but all were operating under the same banner of jihad that the Islamic State is operating under.
No — today, the ultimate enemy is within. The root cause behind nonstop Muslim terrorization of the West is found in those who stifle or whitewash all talk and examination of Muslim doctrine and history; who welcome hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants while knowing that some are jihadi operatives and many are simply “radical”; who work to overthrow secular Arab dictators in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” only to uncork the jihad suppressed by the autocrats (the Islamic State’s territory consists of lands that were “liberated” in Iraq, Libya, and Syria by the U.S. and its allies).
So are Western leaders and politicians the root cause behind Islamic terrorization of the West?
Close — but still not there yet.
Far from being limited to a number of elitist leaders and institutions, the Western empowerment of the jihad is the natural outcome of postmodern thinking — the real reason an innately weak Islam can be a source of repeated woes for a militarily and economically superior West.
Remember, the reason people like French President Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are in power — three prominent Western leaders who insist that Islam is innocent of violence and who push for Muslim immigration — is because they embody a worldview that is normative in the West.
In this context, the facilitation of jihadi terror is less a top down imposition and more a grass root product of decades of erroneous, but unquestioned, thinking. (Those who believe America’s problems begin and end with Obama would do well to remember that he did not come to power through a coup but that he was voted in — twice. This indicates that Obama and the majority of voting Americans have a shared, and erroneous, worldview. He may be cynically exploiting this worldview, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s because this warped worldview is mainstream that he can exploit it in the first place.)
Western empowerment of the jihad is rooted in a number of philosophies that have metastasized into every corner of social life, becoming cornerstones of postmodern epistemology. These include the doctrines of relativism and multiculturalism on the one hand, and anti-Western, anti-Christian sentiment on the other.
Taken together, these cornerstones of postmodern, post-Christian thinking hold that there are no absolute truths and thus all cultures are fundamentally equal and deserving of respect. If any Western person wants to criticize a civilization or religion, then let them look “inwardly” and acknowledge their European Christian heritage as the epitome of intolerance and imperialism.
Add to these a number of sappy and silly ideals — truth can never be uttered because it might “hurt the feelings” of some (excluding white Christians, who are fair game), and, far from suspecting them, the West should go out of its way to appease Muslims until they “like us” — and you have a sure recipe for disaster, that is, the current state of affairs.
Western people are bombarded with these aforementioned “truths” from the cradle to the grave — from kindergarten to university, from Hollywood to the news rooms, and now even in churches — so that they are unable to accept and act on a simple truism that their ancestors well knew: Islam is an inherently violent and intolerant creed that cannot coexist with non-Islam (except insincerely, in times of weakness).
The essence of all this came out clearly when Obama, in order to rationalize away the inhuman atrocities of the Islamic State, counseled Americans to get off their “high horse” and remember that their Christian ancestors have been guilty of similar if not worse atrocities. That he had to go back almost a thousand years for examples by referencing the crusades and the Inquisition — both of which have been completely distorted by the warped postmodern worldview, including the portrayal of imperialist Muslims as victims — did not matter to America’s leader.
Worse, it did not matter to most Americans. The greater lesson was not that Obama whitewashed modern Islamic atrocities by misrepresenting and demonizing Christian history, but that he was merely reaffirming the mainstream narrative that Americans have been indoctrinated into believing. And thus, apart from the usual ephemeral and meaningless grumblings, his words — as with many of his pro-Islamic, anti-Christian comments and policies — passed along without consequence.
***
Once upon a time, the Islamic world was a superpower and its jihad an irresistible force to be reckoned with. Over two centuries ago, however, a rising Europe — which had experienced over one millennium of jihadi conquests and atrocities — defeated and defanged Islam.
As Islam retreated into obscurity, the post-Christian West slowly came into being. Islam didn’t change, but the West did: Muslims still venerate their heritage and religion — which impels them to jihad against the Western “infidel” — whereas the West learned to despise its heritage and religion, causing it to become an unwitting ally of the jihad.
Hence the current situation: the jihad is back in full vigor, while the West — not just its leaders, but much of the populace — facilitates it in varying degrees. Nor is this situation easily remedied. For to accept that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant is to reject a number of cornerstones of postmodern Western thinking that far transcend the question of Islam. In this context, nothing short of an intellectual/cultural revolution — where rational thinking becomes mainstream — will allow the West to confront Islam head on.
But there is some good news. With every Islamic attack, the eyes of more and more Western people are opened to the true nature of Muhammad’s religion. That this is happening despite generations of pro-Islamic indoctrination in the West is a testimony to the growing brazenness of the jihad.
Yet it still remains unclear whether objective thinking will eventually overthrow the current narrative of relativism, anti-Christianism, and asinine emotionalism.
Simply put, both celebrating multiculturalism and defeating the jihad is impossible.
However, if such a revolution takes place soon, the Islamic jihad will be easily swept back into the dustbin of history. For the fact remains: Islam is terrorizing the world, not because it can, but because the West allows it to.
Oh. My. Goodness. Like a slap in the face, this was hard to take, but so true. While always understanding that the left has had an ulterior motive, (destroying the West) for their defensive attitude toward Islam and Muslims, this gives me a whole other layer to examine in their relationship. Why the left thinks they may escape the consequences still baffles me. But it HAS been the slow, creeping decay of our Christian values that has contributed to this scourge.
Being on the side of the jihadis in 1979 didn’t help the Iranian socialists one bit. After they’d served their useful-idiot purpose, the mullahs liquidated them too. Liberals are amazingly ignorant of history.
Obama love. LGBT fags and cocksuckers because he wants us to be weak and cowardly. Once his ass is licked out of office, we can go after the politicians, and thenm ew can go after the Muslims.
Ideas matter. Moral judgment matters. Theocracy is evil. Individual rights are good. End states that support attacks against the US. They can easily be rendered non-threatening without risk to US troops (i.e. with missiles, bombs, etc). All collateral damage is the moral fault of the aggressor not the defender.
Kill 1.7 Billion Muslims because of Isis? Jihad is a live and well? How can there be 1.7 Billion murdering jihadists in this world and I still haven’t seen a suicide bomber in person? Try using some common sense. The truth is in the numbers. Calling all Muslims terrorists is like calling all Catholics Pedophiles.
This is so true. We have the ability to turn the Islamic world into a cinder overnight. Yet we continue to tolerate their terror, because we’d rather let them continue to attack and murder us than be perceived as colonialist bullies or whatever nonsense lefty term is being used to denigrate white people nowadays.
I read a lot of European social media. Over and over again, I see people blaming their leaders for their current problems, but never themselves. None of them seem to realize that these leaders are only able to stay in power because of the support they receive from a substantial proportion of their populations.
True, but it also tells you that the political system called Democracy is failing us. We need someone with charisma to stand and tell us like it is and to promise to banish the Muslims from Europe. That of course will lead to out and out war with them. No democratic leader will do that. So what next…vigilantes?
This is excellent. I have been attempting to unpack this worldview on my blog malsi-tung.
You are crowbarring Christianity into the story. The main cause of the red-carpet treatment of Islam is that the majority of the world’s Muslims are not white, and it is unpopular in predominantly white parts of the world to say anything critical of groups who are a different colour. This is why the fact that 25% of UK crime is committed by black people while only 3% of the population is black tends not to be a political football, while a white person saying ‘coloured’ is practically enough to start a riot.
As for moral relativism, Christianity has always had its fair share of that, from the idea that there should be no lawsuits among believers (allowing all manner of abuse by those in power in churches) to the modern idea that anyone with ‘a really good testimony’ does not have to do anything good because ‘you’ve got to understand what they’ve been through’.
Rational thinking may well defeat Islamic terrorism, but Christianity will not be able to take any credit if it does.
ri, Once again, it’s our fault. Different reasoning same result…we did it to ourselves. There are no 1.2 billion or so Muslims committed to world domination under the flag of Islam. They are a figment of our imagination. Not. Islam is radical. It is not a religion. It is a cult based on a mockery of Christianity from Allah its god, to the Quran its Bible, to Muhummand its Jesus, its scholars the disciples. The only thing its Jesus didn’t do was rise from the dead. But, the Mahdi is to climb out from under a rock or something to fulfill that prophecy.
Let’s be fair, jihad by a small percentage of Muslims is a very big army. When deployed over its mosque front line bases…need I say more?
Think about it Raymond. I point to no one more as a “to be listened to” commentator on Islam than you. But, combine a few things and consider that Progressives utopians pseudo in league with Islam, both seeking similar goals, combined with p/c Common Core will (has) produced a situation you find to be rooted in the fault of the West. IMO, it is the frog in the pot with the heat turned up slowly. Patiently and successfully directed especially at, in each case, respectively, the rising western generations.
Regards,
bf
I don’t think Raymond is saying, or even implying that it is ‘our fault’. He is simply saying, and with a most elegant clarity, that if we are foolish enough to wheel into our homes a large wooden horse gifted by an established historical enemy (currently safely outside the gates) without checking what is inside it, we must carry some of the blame if our loved ones wake up dead.
I think this is one of the best assessments – clear, concise and convincing – of the current Muslim invasion that I have read anywhere. There is a great deal more to jihad than a few, albeit savage beheadings, and the most dangerous by far, as you note with Common Core, is the infiltration and indoctrination currently taking place throughout the West, on the spurious grounds of ‘inclusiveness’.
This is only happening because too many Westerners in positions of authority are blindly and hysterically dragging the horse into the compound, babbling about “the wonderful contribution it will make”, and viciously condemning anyone who wonders what might be in it.
There is a very interesting piece on The Gates of Vienna at the moment tentatively drawing a parallel between the arrival in Europe of Islam and of the Black Death. The author notes how the latter was successfully kept out of certain countries by means of ruthless quarantining of all visitors; and ponders on the lesson that should perhaps be learnt.
That was refreshing to read. Clear words, a rarity these days. Thank you.
Thank you! This clarifies a lot for me.
Excellent analysis that deserves to be shared widely. We-the-people need this clarity. Melanie Phillips discusses these points in her 2010 book, “The World Turned Upside-Down.”
We’ve definitely gotta solve the pathology and get it into a short easy template in order to protect ourselves from destruction by destroying it first!
HERE’S SOME CLEAR THINKING:
All criminals are hypocrites who have to act like masochists in order to play victims to avoid being accused of their crimes.
The best way to control people (because criminals feel the need to pre-emptively control the potential defensive and retaliatory actions of their victims) is to convince them they can’t manage their own affairs, by seducing them with the devilish temptation that they are always really only helpless victims of someone or something else.
Victimology is also a great excuse for all your other crimes, because criminality requires free-will intent, and victims are always claiming to be helpless before all sorts of “inevitable” predestined force. They all claim to be victims of “society” (what Marxists call ‘Historical Predeterminism’) and so mere products of their environments, while their equally criminal muslim brethren claim to be helpless yet proud slaves of allah.
Therefore, to criminals, the only real crime is to accuse a criminal (“victim”) of his crimes.
Right now, Obama is the most dangerous global criminal because he gets to act out this circular reasoning scenario of masochistic victimology on the world stage.
And see Charlotte Iserbyt for why the nihilism took hold in America. Television transferred the American transformation around the world in the form of Hippie culture…it looked benign. Allan Bloom foresaw the trend in The Closing of the American Mind.