France, the West and the Islamist Challenge

by Amir Taheri • April 7, 2015 at 5:00 am

Even in poor countries that become breeding grounds for Islamic terror, the funds needed always come from richer Muslim nations. What we are facing is not a revolt of the poor.

What matters is what you are taught, where and by whom and for what purpose. Many jihadists are taught a vision of the world and the place of Islam in it that is bound to lead to conflict, violence, terror and ultimately war.

Non-Western cultures have no doubt that they are the best... it is only Western civilization that regards self-criticism as an almost sacred duty. In a civilization built on critical, and self-critical, thinking, we are invited to practice censorship and self-censorship. If danger there is, it comes from those who wish to silence such voices in the name of multiculturalism and "respect for the other."

The adepts of political correctness in the West measure everyone's worth with the degree of his or her victimhood.

The problem was misguided Islamophilia not bigoted Islamophobia. Islamophilia is often mixed with anti-Americanism, blaming America for whatever goes wrong under the sun.

The Imperialism of guilt blames the West, especially America, for everything, and denies "the other" any credit, even for his own mistakes. Every year a group of Americans travels to Jerusalem to meet Arabs and apologize to them for "the Crusades." The fact that at the time of the Crusades the U.S. did not even exist is conveniently forgotten, as is that Arabs at best played second fiddle in the Crusades, which was mostly the affair of Turks, Kurds and Mamelukes.

That ideology [Islam] is aimed at world conquest. Islam seldom tried to convert people by force, but always insisted on control of territory and imposing its values and its rule. The next step is to cleanse the area of "pockets of kufr [infidels]," such as cinemas, cafes serving alcohol, and book and music shops offering non-Islamic material. This is what the "brethren" do in the suburbs of Paris.

Jihadist movements did not come into being in reaction to American "imperialism" or Zionism.

There are those who insist that Islam is a religion of peace. There is no word for peace in Arabic. There is "silm," which means submission. They ignore the fact that Islam will be a religion of peace only after it has seized control of the entire world.

The sad fact is that Islam cannot be reformed, if only because it lacks a recognized authority capable of proposing, let alone imposing, reform. Today, the bulk of Islamic energies are devoted to political issues, with theological work not even getting a stool at the high table.

What France and the West in general face today is a war waged by part of Islam against the democratic world. The silly slogan, "this has no military solution," is based on a denial of the reality that Western democracies are being attacked in a multifaceted war. The only question that really matters in a state of war is: Are you with us or against us? The unwillingness of Western democracies to agree on an analysis of the situation enables opportunist Muslim powers by tolerating the terrorists.

Three months after the Islamic terror attacks in Paris, France is still grappling with the diagnosis of what happened and remains uncertain on how to cope with what everyone agrees could be a long-term threat to French freedom and security.

There is disagreement, even at the highest levels of state, on the designation of the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

While France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls has spoken of Islamic fascism and announced that France was at war with "terrorism, jihadism and Islamist radicalism," its President, François Hollande, has insisted that "the events had nothing to do with Islam." Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has gone even further by claiming that the men responsible for the carnage belonged to no religion at all. They were simply "men without faith."

The phrase "this had nothing to do with Islam" is found everywhere, a mantra for those who say they are concerned about pouring oil on fire.