By Daniel Pipes, National Review Online, The Corner
Andrew C. McCarthy and I are allies over the long term, fighting the Islamist scourge in the same trench for two decades. But alliance does not mean singlemindedness and he responded critically today at NRO in “Can Islamism Evolve?” to my earlier NRO article, “The Growth of ‘Moderate’ Islamism.”
I wrote there that while Islamism – the radical utopian movement aspiring to a consistent and global application of Islamic law under the rule of a caliph – remains in large part violent and tyrannical, developments in several countries suggest the slight possibility that this ideology will evolve in a more benign and decent direction. To which, Andy responded with three main observations, which I shall briefly answer:
1. Andy observes: “Western democracy is regressing away from a culture of individual liberty protected by limited government. If it now seems conceivable that Islamism could democratize, it can only be owing to modern democracy’s accommodation of more centralized and intrusive government.”
I reply: Indeed, democracy is a flexible concept and recent developments have mostly been negative; think of the pseudo-democratic nature of the European Union. But I am not so much talking about a debased form of democracy as an evolution toward something civilized; I am not being technical about democracy but political about freedom and the rule of law.
2. Andy disagrees with my statement that “Islamism has significantly evolved over the past 13 years,” moving away from violence in favor of working within the system. He finds that Islamism has not “materially changed at all” but there is simply more awareness today of non-terrorist Islamists.
I reply: I knew 13 years ago of non-violent Islamists; indeed, this was implicit in my 2001 assertion that while “peaceable in appearance, … they all must be considered potential killers.” I now find that “these words ring archaic” because I now recognize that some Islamists are not potential killers. Some of them are truly political with no intention to use force. Andy has not come to this conclusion but I suspect he eventually will.
3. Andy takes up a topic I did not discuss, namely the policy implications of the possible decency of Islamism. He argues there are no implications, stating that there is no worse choice than to “see a small ray of hope that Islamism could improve as a rationale for further collaboration and concessions to Islamists. Islamism is the ideology of our enemies and … needs to be defeated, not brought around.”
I reply: We agree. My seeing “a small ray of hope” does not mean Western states should go haring after Islamist movements, hoping they will moderate. No, this is indeed the ideology of our enemies that needs to be defeated and marginalized, as were fascism and communism in earlier eras.
(May 24, 2014)
The whole concept of “Islamism’ and “Islamist” is actually misleading or ill-chosen for academic discussion. It lumps Muslims together or does not define what or who is different from Islamism. Clearly it blurs the focus on who and how to resolve the problem of the threat to our way of life.
To be clearer and therefore gain the handle for dealing with the totalitarian threat that Islam espouses, we should acknowledge, by behavior those descriptors that can help us deal with the contra-democracy threats. I have described in my forthcoming book that there are Rigid Preaching Zealots (RPZ). There are Rigid Action Zealots (RAZ). There Facilitating Zealots (FZ). By their definitions we can develop ways to deal with them.
There is hope:
TOP NIGERIAN ISLAMIC CLERIC CALLS FOR UNITY AGAINST BOKO HARAM
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/25/Top-Nigerian-Islamic-cleric-calls-for-unity-against-Boko-Haram
talk about “hedging ones bets” and “grasping at straws”.
I think that this type of polemics serve only the enemy. The enemy is aware of the “slicing of the salami” type of policies of the Western world and it couldn’t be happier. The Western world does the job of preparing the infrastructure of the future caliphate better than the enemy expected. Inventing new terms like “islamism”, “moderate islam” etc., rearranging islamic tenets, interchanging the system of belief with those who practice it, using the term “islamism” to separate the top 10% of Muslims from the rest of the crowd implying that only a fraction of them are really into jihad is only pleasing the enemy. Why not mentioning that jihad may take many forms, that jihad is a life long duty of all muslims, that letting jihad and sharia take over our societies is a result of our “good will” that the muslims do not want and do not care for. They want to take over pure and simple and Europe is there to prove this point. Europe is already under dhimmitude. The more we want to look like the old continent, the faster we get there too.
Diana West’s latest column explains all of the above much better than I do:
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2839/Report-from-the-Future-The-Umma-States-of-America.aspx