As someone specializing in Islamic jihadism, one would expect I’d have much to say immediately after jihadi attacks of the sort that recently occurred in San Bernardino, or Paris, or Mali, where a total of about 180 were killed. Ironically, I don’t: such attacks are ultimately symptoms of what I do deem worthy of talk, 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[1]—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 the 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 the 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 free game), and if anything, the West should go out of its way to make up for its supposedly historic “sins” by appeasing 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 inquisition—both of which have been completely distorted by the warped postmodern worldview, including by portraying 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, aside 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 super power 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 be 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-Westernism, and asinine emotionalism.
Simply put, celebrating multiculturalism and defeating the jihad is impossible.
However, if such a revolution ever does take place, 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.
[1] Although the original Mongol-Tatar conquerors were not Muslim, most of them eventually converted to Islam—finding natural appeal in its divine validation for conquest, rapine, and plunder—and articulated their later wars on Christendom and others in the name of jihad.
Raymond, I absolutely love your writing. Your insight into these issues is unmatched anywhere. I have tried to unpack the jihad-enabling decadence of the West at my blog Malsi-Tung. In particular, I have a collection of posts called “Unlocking the Liberal Mind”. Thank you so much for your great work.
Yes. Raymond Ibrahim continues to excoriate the asinine pusillanimous so-called intellectuals who are nothing but a fifth column seemingly unable to carry out any kind of critical self-examination. He has again put forward a masterly evaluation and diagnosis of the problem. Surely now the ride is starting to change as more and more thinking people take on board his valid arguments.
Well elucidated 🙂
Terrorism is the use of military force against civilian population in an undeclared war by irregular fighters in order to achieve political ends. The jihadists attack America and their spokesmen, and The Council on American Islamic Relations, The Islamic Society of North America, and The Muslim Advocates, issue their political demands: stop supporting secular dictators in the Middle East who repress jihadists, accept more Muslim immigration, accept Sharia law, accept the Islamization of America, and stop supporting Israel and the Jews.
These alleged American Muslim civil rights groups are part of the terrorist process; they are the terrorists mouthpieces, masquerading as the voices of reason. All America needs to do to stop terrorism is the submit to Islam. Mohammed gave the infidels three choices: convert SUBMIT, or die; Ibrahim is subtly doing the same.
Ironically, after America is attacked by terrorists, these groups do not call upon the U.S. government to protect all Americans against terrorism, but rather to protect American Muslims against terrorist attacks from Americans. They blame the victim, using the West’s obsession with multiculturalism and self loathing to further the narrative that America deserves to be attacked by Islamist terrorists due to how it has treated Muslims in the past.
Examples of such “mistreatment” would include saving the Somalis from starvation, saving Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion, saving the Bosnians and Kosovars from genocide, and sending a terrorist organization, The Palestinian Authority, $500 million in annual foreign aid. No matter how many Muslims America helps, Islamists will always hate and attack America until Americans convert, SUBMIT, or die.
People in the West are following a new fanatical secular religion known
as “liberal democracy” and this new secular religion is just as
Anti-Christian as islam and the two are collaborating in destroying
Christianity and its moral teachings. Liberal democracy and islamic
jihadism are United in Hate and their final aim to destroy Christianity
first in the West and then in the rest of the world and they seem to
succeeding in their demonic campaign and its only Russia that is
standing in the way of their demonic victory. America and the West hate
Russia because Christian Russia will not bend to their atheistic secular
liberal democratic fanatical religion and their “LGBT” agenda. Please
pray for Russia as fights these two evil and destructive Anti-Christian
ideologies (islamic jihadist ideology & atheistic liberal democratic
ideologies). Let us keep praying for the defeat of these two evil
ideologies.
Until mainstream media starts educating instead of merely reporting, the vileness of Islam wont be fully exposed. People elect leaders, but people are not holding those leaders to account. As you quite rightly point out it is politicians like Hollande, Obama and Mad Merkel with their worldview stupidity who are facilitating terror in the West. The time has come for media, on behalf of electors, to fully explore and expose political candidates attitudes to Islam. Even to the extent of recommending the declassification of Islam from a religion to a political ideology like Fascism or Communism.
the problem is that the Mainstream Media (MSM) is a propaganda tool for the liberal narrative. That narrative is made by Soros and pushed onto us. If that stopped. then the MSM would go back to reporting. So when you say that MSM should expose how the candidates attitude towards islam, it isn’t that ISlam is the main problem.
It is about Illegal immigration on the whole. The corruption of Capitol Hill. If no one was corrupt, We would NOT be having this issue, a lot of representatives need to be and should be recalled
As it has been up until this election People have NOT been electing Presidents, Both liberal and conservative elite, the electoral college and people who count the votes have been electing Presidents.
If the majority of the people elected the President Obama never would have been President Massive voter fraud was found, if you remember.
You are right about Islam is not being a religion, the government thanks to Obama can’t even put CAIR on a terrorist organization let alone claim that Islam isn’t a religion.
No one has mentioned the the root of a lot of this problem besides Soros is the UN. It is run by muslims, they want the world to be their caliphate. agenda 21 is another policy they hide.. We are in for a big hurt if we don’t get Washington elite straightened out.
You are correct…..unless media especially TV News report these atrocities and not whitewash them as they do…..we the people can see that Islam is not a religion but a death cult, brainwashed by a stupid mohammad who made up the Qu’ran, that it was okay to rape “infidels’ namely us, to stone their wives and daughters after being raped by a family member, no religion on earth would okay these vile acts…….wake up governments and appeasers……it may happen to you.
From the cradle to the grave, from kindergarten to university, from Hollywood to the news rooms young people are subtly programmed as a mass so-called liberal progressive ‘thinkers’. But those liberals were in the same time indoctrinated with a regressive liberal attitude to oppose and demonize those who disagree and resist their indoctrinated views of culture relativism and multiculture relativism.
Nothing more to add to this other than the fact that you NAILED it.
This is why I think America is already lost, we just haven’t figured it out!
Sharing!
Public sentimentalism, as illustrated by just about every story in the press, has replaced ethics. When the certainty of morality is undermined by relativism, people still need a measure of how to act and think (right and wrong). Immediate emotion becomes this measure. It’s the rule of ‘cute dog’.
Thought out consequences of actions that makes up public morality are no longer relevant. It all becomes a superficial. Pop stars, actors, social work politicians become the ‘opinion leaders’. Because it is all opinion.
In such relativist world, the intolerant, irrational, tightly coupled, certain culture takes over. Welcome to the future.
I agree one hundred percent but I would add that this rebellion against “The West” by the West stems from immorality and the onslaught of sexual and homosexual morality for in order to do that and justify it, the notions that there is not truth and that morality is relative and there is no common universal human rational nature had to be put forth and judgment as in judiciousness of thought had to be shut off and or attacked. In this process things seemed to keep going as normal a so it seemed there was no great change or effect but it was coming slowing as the two worldviews of morality and reason and judgment could not coexist with such radical so called liberalism.
Now ar first one might say but come on homosexuality? Are you trying to connect things that have no relation? No I’m connectimg the underpinnings of the anti rationalism and rebellion against truth and the clear light of reason so that if you can’t confidently call a man and a man something wrong and crazy and off then what can you call wrong? Call that right and acceptable and normal and what then isn’t. You have in the name of tolerance killed truth and shut down reason.
It is the horse that homosexuality, immorality, whoredoms, uncleanness, and Islam ride on.
AIDS has infected the intellectual immune system and rendered defense weak.
As Raymond indicated a whole revolution is necessary of these unquestiend assumptions and worldviews and everything resting on them and that includes all this acceptance and tolerance of public iniquity.
Homosexuality has been the number one battering ram to break down the moral door of the nation the number one cause used to create sympathy for disease in pur culture and to demonize the kind of healthy thought that is intolerant of it as well as any diseases including Islam.
I agree but also disagree. Strong religious peoples have succumbed to islam too. Look at those who thought that they made peace, or made a cease fire with them. They do not keep their word (hudna) and if they meet a force bigger than themselves they give up but come back to fight as assassins, suicide bombers, snipers, etc – their leadership lives amongst us – the imams – who are called ‘Islamic leaders’. We saw that in Iraq – they sat down and gave up their weapons but they came back setting up road bombs when we weren’t looking, were snipers, etc. Their mosques are their ‘forts’. (Read: THe Mosque Exposed) and you will also find out that jihad is all forms of tactics and strategies of war – deception, funding, building up the army/umma (hijrah and high birth rates), etc.
When we get the guts to just deal with even their women and children as a potential threat – we will continue to have a problem as will our children and their children. We fall for their wailing and whining instead of telling them to stop that form of bullying and telling the truth of their history. We continue to give money and attention to their useful idiots instead of walking away from them too. Look at academia – why do we continue to send our kids to colleges (if the parents pay for it) when they know that they are bastions of useful idiots?! Why do we continue to turn on the TV channels/news/etc that are the same sort of useful idiots?
We should be dropping leaflets – not to warn them of impending attacks so the men can flee and leave their women and children to be bombed so they can come back and tell us that we are the barbarians when it is they who are the barbarians. But we should be continually bombarding them with the truth of the foulness, perverseness, evil, etc that islam is, that allah is and that Mohamed was. And then demand our medias, academics, politicians, and even religious leaders stop being useful idiots to islam and if they want to continue they will be given the boot.
A very good analysis of the situation
Thank you for sharing it
Sorry, didn’t read through this entire article, due to time constraints and because it appears to focus on “WESTERN causes” for Islamic jihad, when the real cause is ISLAM itself. If the West were at fault for the jihad/slaughtering of so many by Muslims, it would not be happening to non-Western peoples, as it so obviously is. Islam appears to be based on bloodthirst, period. Whether they are killing Westerners or their own people appears to make little difference, so long as they are able to quench their bloodthirst. (Admittedly, the West is being foolishly and suicidally complicit in facilitating this bloodletting, but the real root cause is the perverted, hateful ideology of Islam.)
Ibrahim is saying that the West enables and furthers Islamist terrorism by refusing to recognize it for what it is and blaming it on “a few radicals” instead.
It’s the “recognizing IT for what it is” part that so many don’t seem to get, or won’t admit. On that, we can agree. Guess “it all depends on what ‘IT’ is.” (Sound familiar?) LOL.
“It” is the violence, whether military action or terrorism, which has been part of Islam since its founding. Islam began as a warrior religion, led by Mohammed and his successors, the Salaf, and was spread from Medina to the entire Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, Asia Minor, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, by military conquest.
Mustafa Kemal Attaturk reformed Islam in Turkey; he abolished the caliphate, separated the mosque and state, did away with Sharia Law, and ended jihad against non Muslims, Turkey became the first truly moderate and tolerant Muslim nation. Muslim nations and Muslim individuals vary in their beliefs and ideology, spanning from the moderate Turkish Islam to the violent Islam of ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian theocracy, Al Qaeda, and other Islamist, salafist, jihadist groups. They are all part of Islam; that is the “it” the too many in the West refuse to acknowledge.
Ironically, when these terrorists who are allegedly “not Muslims” are sent to prison, they all get Korans, prayer rugs, halal food, and imams, because, after all, “they are Muslims.” Osama Bin Laden was given an Islamic funeral at sea, by the same U.S. president who insists that Bin Laden and other terrorists are “not Muslims.” The day before they commit terrorist acts, they are Muslims. The day that they do commit them they cease to be Muslims. Then when they are arrested and imprisoned, they suddenly become Muslims again.
Excellent summation… Also, Robert Spencer has a lot of very informative books and videos (many available on youtube) that help clarify the real nature of the problem.
Thank you for your compliment. I receive Robert Spencer’s email newsletter, “Jihad Watch.” I also learned a great deal from Walid Phares, author of “Future Jihad: Future Terrorist Strategies Against America.” He is America’s foremost expert on jihadist terrorism and he also happens to be a Lebanese Arab, so he cannot be accused of being a “racist.” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, US Navy, ret., is also an excellent resource; he is the founder and president of the “American Islamic Forum for Democracy;” he is an American of Syrian Arabic ethnicity, so he cannot be accused of being a “racist” either.
Thanks for the references. Will look ’em up. 🙂
(Think I’ve seen some of these guys as guests on FOX news.)
”
Ironically, when these terrorists who are allegedly “not Muslims” are
sent to prison, they all get Korans, prayer rugs, halal food, and imams,
because, after all, “they are Muslims.” Osama Bin Laden was given an
Islamic funeral at sea, by the same U.S. president who insists that Bin
Laden and other terrorists are “not Muslims.” The day before they commit
terrorist acts, they are Muslims. The day that they do commit them they
cease to be Muslims. Then when they are arrested and imprisoned, they
suddenly become Muslims again.”
Hear hear!
ERROR! Neglects to mention PetroDollar money bags controlling our politicians and big business elite with “contributions” and “investments.”
One of the ironies of multiculturalism – defined without irony, apparently, as a distortion or misunderstanding of the Christian idea of “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” – is that it reeks of good old fashioned European colonial supremacist thinking. It shows itself through a very patronizing attitude best summed up as “I can ignore what they say, because I know what they mean and want.” In other words, it is an updated, over-intellectualized version of the White Man’s Burden to interpret the “Other’s” experience for him, for the simple reason that we know far better than they what that experience should be. Hence, we can excuse calls to violence and genocide, we can even excuse actual acts of violence and genocide, because we simply redefine them as symptoms of something deeper that only we (actually, only our elites, not the unwashed masses of their otherwise despised fellow citizens who, in parallel to non-Westerners, are assumed to be lacking in self-control ) are capable of figuring out. And, because we remain at the center of everything, the fault most often diagnosed as something the West has done. So, perhaps, multiculturalism is really the infantilization of non-Western cultures by the West’s intellectual class. Of course, we ignore what Islamists say at our own peril, no matter how loudly and insistently they say it or act on it.
More trenchant insights and illuminating historical context from the always thought-provoking Mr. Ibrahim. Thank you for the continuing education on this subject matter; your perspective and voice is invaluable.
Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey says there is no moderate Islam. Islam is Islam. Islamist terrorists take they marching orders from Islam’s Holy books, Qur’an, Hadiths and Sharia Law. America, we have a problem. President Obama refuses to name the enemy Islamist terrorism, declares the innocence of Islam, and promotes its adherents immigration, also too many Americans thru ignorance or political correctness elected Obama and enable his wrongheaded conduct of the GWOT.
This is exactly right and until Marxist Political Correctness is wiped from the face of the earth, nothing will change and Islam will continue to brutalize and criminalize society wherever it is allowed to settle. We will soon resemble the Hobbesian State of Nature – in fact ,we are in it already! Our next visit to the mall may be our last!
Thank you for this well written article that tells it like it is. I will be ordering your books. We need more people like you who speak the truth and reveal how and why our countries are deteriorating in morals and how so many, especially in government, seem to be deluded. I often wonder how can they not see what is happening? Thank you for the insight you have brought. I will be sharing it on twitter, Facebook, and google+.
I definitely get the impression this author is right.
The Quran is the Primary Manual of Islamic mass murder and terrorism.
The truth of its hate and falsehoods and those of Muhammad needs to be taught in our schools and the Islamic indoctrination machine, Islamic schools need to be shut down. That is the only way to get rid of Islam.
The failure our fight against Islam is the failure/ refusal of our leaders to identify the enemy – the ideology of Islam as utterly foreign and destructive to our western values – and take appropriate measures against it.
“If I am a terrorist, then Quran also a terrorist” Bangladesh terrorist leader Maulana Shaikh Rahman
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” (Blaise Pascal, mathematician, 1670)
Fascinating analysis, Raymond, and impossible to refute.
America and the West should make ONE BIG FAVOR FOR THE
WORLD: Stop Spreading your new godless secular religion known as “Liberal Democracy” to the rest of the world and this is because Wherever this new fanatical atheistic Western secular religion which is also known as “liberal democracy” takes root, what will immediately follow are political-correctness, moral
relativism, multiculturalism, consumerism, materialism, “gay marriage”, and
“LGBT” activism, destruction of traditional Christian moral & family values and common sense, complete emasculation of the local nationals in that country and over-emboldened and assertive local muslims who are not afraid to start jihad and take over the weakened infidels there. Please watch this discussion below:
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/326617-christianity-iraq-syria-west/
This is one of the finest and most incisive essays written about the jihadism and the West. It requires a superhuman effort of will to restrain one’s anger when one realizes how simple (in theory, at least) it would be for western nations to end this nightmare of Islamic aggression.
José Ortega y Gasset (“The Revolt of the Masses”, “Man and Crisis”, etc.) was eloquent in his analysis of the enfeebling sentimentalism of modern western societies and the root cause of it: a level of economic prosperity and material comfort unprecedented in the history of human civilization, that have made “generic man” weak, cowardly and vulnerable to those ruder and more robust (yet primitive, even “savage”) peoples of the third world.
I argue that we need not revert to Christianity as the means of fighting Islam but instead adopt a new paradigm: a fierce, militant paganism, and a cultivation of those life-affirming virtues that were the sinews of pagan life.
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.
Raymond is correct in noticing this criminal victimology is pervasive in our society.
Today’s “crybully snowflake” social justice warriors aren’t sensitive, they’ve simply all been taught extortive slander tactics.
Criminals will eventually slander and extort their way to the top of all professions, the “education system” included. That’s how countries die.
Kids are tempted to replace actual thinking with knee-jerk poses of emotive slanderous outrage.
Modern schools only seem to “teach” (abuse students with) victimology, which is extortive slander.
Schools are supposed to teach students self-reliance, but in stead abuse them with indulgent excuses to remain irresponsibly wrong. Promoting “Tolerance” and “Diversity” and how to blame others, in stead of self-reliance, is no more or less than delinquent criminal negligence.
Abusing children is illegal.
Any discussion of today’s Islamic Jihad without mentioning Saudi Arabian Wahhabism or US influenced “Mujahadeen” is a canard whose main goal is to gloss over “justified” attrocities by the West against Muslim populations. Many of which happen to live on resources ripe for Western exploitation.