Outswimming Denial

by Roland Shirk
Jihad Watch

Raymond Ibrahim has a characteristically thoughtful essay over at Hudson New York, the blog of the Hudson Institute. In it, Ibrahim takes note of and comments on an extremely encouraging trend—one for which the long-time writers for this site and its allied movements can take some of the credit: the fact that Islam itself is for the first time in a generation or more becoming the object of critical comment. Not anti-Zionism, Arab nationalism, Third-World anti-Westernism, anti-colonialism, Islamism or even that unfortunate hybrid term Islamo-Fascism (which torments the historically-minded among us, since it refers to a real phenomenon, yet sounds eerily similar to the old canard “Judaeo-Bolshevism”).

Nor are we, thanks be to a merciful God, still talking about a war on “evil,” “hatred,” “intolerance” or “terrorism.” The notion of a war on “terrorism” always struck me, to be honest, as every bit as silly as a “war on poison gas” or a “war on landmines.” The bloviations of the Bush administration during the run-up to the futile, counterproductive war in Iraq, may have been largely generated by aging Cold Warriors eager to find a new niche. But the rhetoric, strategy and tactics these people produced were much less reminiscent of the hard-headed moral realism that won the global struggle against Communism than they were of the efforts made by the war-weary appeasers who staffed the League of Nations to “ban” aggression and “outlaw war.”

No, we have moved the ball many yards down the field, and it’s worth taking a moment to celebrate the fact, and see what it means. We’re far from the end zone, but we are approaching at last midfield, and of late we keep making our first downs—to the point that the other side is becoming hysterical. However compromised by political correctness they may be, we are at least having hearings in Congress about Islamic extremism. No, it isn’t a standing body like the House Committee on Un-American Activities—whose equivalent we could surely use today. (Started by FDR Democrats, that committee did yeoman’s work exposing pro-Nazis in 1940-41, and moved quite naturally to examine those who supported the other partner in the Hitler/Stalin alliance.) But it is something. German cabinet ministers and the French President are questioning Islam’s compatibility with their republics, while the British Prime Minister is renouncing multiculturalism; I can’t promise that any of these men can (or will even try to) accomplish very much in turning back the Islamic tide, but at the very least they are smashing taboos, dismantling the Siegfried Line that Western elites have carefully built to block the honest examination of Islam.

Ibrahim raises the crucial point that has begun to creep across unwilling Western lips:

“Suppose you prove beyond any shadow of doubt that Islam is constitutionally violent, where do you go from there?” This question was asked from the floor by Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi during a 2008 debate titled “Clash of Civilizations”…. It came in response to an assertion that Islamists seek to resurrect the caliphate, and, according to the doctrine of offensive jihad, wage war—when and wherever expedient—to bring the world under Islamic rule.

After that provocative introduction, Ibrahim proceeds to a lucid and well-informed discussion of the institution of the Caliphate, which Glenn Beck introduced to millions of U.S. viewers, thanks to the careful prep-work Robert Spencer did with his producers in advance. He notes some facts which I’ll confess I did not know before:

The very existence of a caliphate would usher a state of constant hostility: Both historically and doctrinally, the caliphate is obligated to wage jihad, at least annually, to bring the “disbelieving” world under Islamic dominion and enforce sharia law. Most of what is today called the “Muslim world”—from Morocco to Pakistan—was conquered, bit by bit, by a caliphate begun in Arabia in 632.A caliphate represents a permanent, ideological enemy, not a temporal enemy that can be bought or pacified through diplomacy or concessions — economic or otherwise. Short of agreeing either to convert to Islam or live as second-class citizens, or “dhimmis” — who, among other indignities, must practice their religions quietly; pay a higher tax [jizyah]; give way to Muslims on the street; wear clothing that distinguishes them from Muslims, the start of the yellow star of David required for the Jews by the Nazis during World War II; have their testimony be worth half of a Muslim’s; and never retaliate against Muslim abuses—the jihad continues.

A caliphate is precisely what Islamists around the world are feverishly seeking to establish — before people realize what it represents and try to prevent it. Without active, preemptive measures, it is only a matter of time before they succeed.

It’s critical that we recognize and disseminate such facts, forcing our countrymen to recognize that the pipe-dream of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 20s may well become real—and that if it does, it will function much as the Comintern did in the 1920s and 30s, a central force directing totalitarian activism in our home countries.

Yet we hit immense resistance, and once we strip away all the self-delusion, anti-Semitism, cowardice and multiculturalist anti-Westernism, we face one real source of reluctance to face the truth—the chilling question Prof. Dabashi raised, “[W]here do you go from there?” He did so, it seems, almost as a kind of taunt—as if to say, “The implications of the position you propose are too awful and ugly to contemplate; therefore it behooves you to pretend it isn’t true.”

Such a tactic is popular among those suffering from terminal cancer, advanced cirrhosis, and heroin addiction, and it has a name: Denial. It hinges on fear and sloth, and gives enormous force to otherwise weak arguments, by granting us psychological license to soothe our nerves and live by lies.

Instead, we owe it to ourselves and our descendants to face it squarely: If we do realize that Islam is intrinsically, irreformably aggressive and intolerant—by our current standards, simply evil—where do we go from there? The blackmail contained in all the warnings against “Islamophobia” depends on our rightful disgust at the last ideology that pegged a single identifiable cultural group as tainted with evil: the eliminationist anti-Semitism of the German voelkish Right between the Wars. We are warned in subtle or not so subtle ways that if we identify Islam itself (and not some exotic variant) as evil, we will begin to treat individual Muslims as sub-human, to brand them as bacilli, the way Adolf Hitler branded the Jews.

Of course, the chances that this will actually happen are almost nil. Most of the opponents of Islamic aggression possess impeccable credentials as defenders of real religious tolerance and humanistic values. No major anti-jihadist has to my knowledge, even in private, advocated inhumane treatment for peaceful Muslims, or the suspension of their legal rights. But the Left and its Muslim shock-troops can grab control of the debate if they perversely cast us as the force that threatens religious freedom and equality, and so far they have succeeded. Indeed, anyone who opposes special rights, outrageous tolerance, and fawning servility towards the Muslim bullies in our midst, is liable to find himself lumped in with historical monsters like Heinrich Himmler. How bitterly ironic it is that the fiercest Jew-haters in Europe have so far preserved their perks by summoning the ghosts of Europe’s murdered Jews.

The truth is radically different, of course. We opponents of jihad seek treatment for Muslims that roughly equals that faced by Christian believers in post-war Europe—after the secularization of states had revoked most historical privileges even from long-established churches. We demand only that legal Muslim residents be held to the same standards of patriotism and tolerance as everyone else, while urging that states exercise their absolute right to accept or reject future migrants according to their citizens’ perception of what serves their national interests. To equate such a policy with the appalling treatment of religious and ethnic minorities by totalitarian regimes of the “Right” or Left is frankly dishonest. We must refute it energetically and cheerfully with the truth. If Islam cannot withstand equal treatment with other religions, that tells us all we need to know.