Enoch Powell was greatly misunderstood

Thinks no-one (or at least, I hope no-one) on this messageboard.

The problem, as I see it, is this. What do Daesh want to create above all else? Holy war. And they don't just want Sunnis (or rather, their particular kind of Sunnis) to turn on the Shia, or many other sects within Islam. They also want to foment unrest and conflict across Western societies. They WANT us to blame Islam; because that would simply create more and more grievance amongst those they're trying to tap into.

I think most British people understand that very well. I've maybe never been more proud of being a Londoner than immediately after 7/7. Onlooking Israelis, used to dealing with terrorism so often, were astonished by just how calm, how phlegmatic our reaction was. No paranoia from us, no fear, no desire for revenge either. We just got on with our lives.

But in our desire to (correctly) not blame Islam, and (correctly) not play into the terrorists' hands, there's a whopping great danger. That is: we become s**t scared of saying absolutely anything at all even vaguely related to one particular religion, and one alone.

We don't feel that fear about criticising Christianity, Judaism or any other faith. We do about criticising Islam. Yet that's precisely what the Paris attackers wanted; they wanted us to be cowed, they wanted us to just abandon freedom of speech, freedom of expression and yes, freedom to cause offence - because freedom to cause offence is part of freedom of speech too.

Last week, Boris Johnson referred to Daesh as "porn watching w**kers". He's almost certainly right about a huge number of their recruits. Daesh rape and enslave women and children, throw those they accuse of homosexuality off tall buildings in front of cheering crowds, behead (slowly) and burn alive men. They then put videos of some of this stuff on the internet for their entertainment and to terrorise us.

It's not about religion; it's about power. Raw, macho, male power at the most twisted, sadistic and depraved anyone could ever conceive of. It's what happens if any semblance of law or civilization breaks down - and we know that because of humanity's quite deplorable history of barbarism and inhumanity to our fellow man.

Yet after Johnson ridiculed these bastards, what happened? Up popped spokespeople for the Qulliam Foundation and Islamix to complain. The latter even said Johnson's comments were those we'd "expect from the EDL or BNP".

But he wasn't attacking Islam. He was attacking these mass murdering bastards who pervert, seek to poison Islam, and turn Muslims against their fellow Muslims. But no no, being nice to Daesh is apparently much more important.

I found that response pretty darn instructive. Because those organisations I mentioned, and Muslim leaders beyond that, have simply not been successful in rooting out extremists from within Muslim communities. That's true not only in Britain or France, but across the Muslim world, where Islamo-fascist/Islamist/call it what you like terrorism is a quite enormous problem. And that it's a quite enormous problem within so many Muslim countries rather gives the lie, I'm afraid, to those who seek to blame the West for absolutely everything.

Many Muslims within the most affected countries are naturally scared to speak out - but their almost all corrupt or authoritarian governments (the number of Muslim democracies is vanishingly small) do almost nothing to encourage them doing so. Muslims are also often scared of condemning fellow Muslims: for many (though hardly all), it's seen as a taboo, and Daesh play on that.

Why did they murder this poor, poor, poor Jordanian man in such a way? Because Jordan is so fragile; because the government there, however much we admire it, doesn't really represent its people; because Jordan, as well as being relatively moderate and enlightened, is home to many, many extremists too. Daesh are trying to set a tinderbox alight there: it's as simple as that.

But for our part? We can't be scared to speak about this, discuss this - and where necessary, that includes asking if the Muslim community or Muslims in general are doing enough to stop this. Not demanding, not blaming, not tarring with one brush; asking and discussing. I see that as all part of taking this in our stride and refusing to be intimidated in any way.

Yes, Western foreign policy is frequently grotesque; yes, we've committed many, many crimes ourselves; yes, our propping up the vile Saudi regime (amongst many others) is a very big problem. But blaming ourselves isn't the answer; embarking on some all-encompassing apologia isn't the answer; and jumping on someone when they mention Islamism sure as heck isn't the answer either.

Posted By: thebigfeller on February 3rd 2015 at 23:35:17

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in