Islam versus Europe

Source: The Guardian

The Guardian's recent interview with Baroness Warsi was very revealing of the Muslim mindset. In a speech she gave in January she objected to the term "moderate Muslim".

And we should be careful about language around religious “moderates”.

..we need to stop talking about moderate Muslims, and instead talk about British Muslims.

And when it comes to extremism, we should be absolutely clear:

These people are extremists, plain and simple, because their behaviour has detached them from the thought process within their religion.

Source

What she's saying essentially is that "extremists" aren't Muslims. She reiterates this view in the extract from the interview above. As soon as a Muslim does a bad thing, he ceases to be a Muslim and becomes, in Warsi's view, merely a generic "extremist".

"From the Islam that I have been taught, and grown up with … and most people have been bought up with, it has to be rationed, reasoned, contextualised. Now if you detach reason from religion, then you are no longer a follower of that faith. If you are a follower of a religion that is so clear in its support of humanity [and you behave the way they do] then you are no longer part of that faith."

Asked by Harris whether Anjem Choudury had "forfeited" being able to call himself a Muslim, Warsi replied: "Well, they follow a religion, and the prophet who bought religion to earth, and yet nothing about the way they conduct themselves is in accordance with the teachings.

"Now I could stand up and say, I actually am Chinese. You take one look at me and say, 'well you're not Chinese, you don't look Chinese, and there's nothing about you that would allow you to say that'. That doesn't stop me from saying it, but it doesn't make me Chinese either. In my view, I fundamentally believe that the minute they detach reason from religion, they're not part of that faith any more."

Source: The Guardian

The last paragraph is very interesting, not least because if you substitute the word "British" for "Chinese" you will get at the truth.

Most mainstream commentators use the term "Islamist" in a similar way. As soon as a Muslim does or says a bad thing, he ceases to be a Muslim and magically transforms into an "Islamist".

The journalists and politicians who routinely substitute the term "Islamist" for "Muslim" when discussing some of the unsavoury aspects of Islam no doubt believe they are making a morally commendable choice. They're not. They are pandering to bigotry as pure as anything found in Mein Kampf. Just as Hitler believed Nordics were the master race, Muslims believe they are the "best nation" and theirs is the "perfect religion".

Because they are perfect, they are incapable of wrong-doing. When wrong-doing demonstrably occurs nonetheless, the only way Muslims can maintain their self-image as "perfect" is to cast the wrong-doers out from the tribe.

This is what Warsi is doing with her "Extremists aren't Muslims" line. This is what mainstream commentators do when they use the term "Islamist" to discuss Muslim malefactors.

At the heart of what is wrong with the Islamic mindset is an inability to admit wrong-doing. As the Ummah failed and fell behind, Muslims sought an explanation. Their explanation could not be that Islam was the problem because Islam was "perfect". Similarly, when confronted with evidence of Islam's many imperfections today, their response is to repudiate the Islamic element of the problem. Jihad murderers whose life stories show they were utterly obsessed by their faith, who cite Islamic texts in their letters or videos and whose choices were obviously influenced by the Islamic doctrine promising posthumous reward for murder were "not Muslims", we are told.

It is this sense of their own invincible perfection - a superiority complex ludicrously at odds with reality - that is the cause of Islamic backwardness and everything that springs from it.

This is the criterion you use to tell whether someone presented as a "moderate Muslim" really is one. Do they acknowledge wrong-doing? Can they admit that the Islamic doctrine of Jihad has been responsible for untold millions of deaths across history? Can they acknowledge the Muslim rule of non-Muslims was barbaric and unjust? Do they recognise that much of the terrorist violence in the world today has its roots in Islam? If they cannot acknowledge wrong-doing, then they are not honest, enlightened Muslims but deceivers whose goal is to lull the infidels to sleep until it's too late. Warsi is a deceiver. When this criterion is applied, almost every proposed "modern", "moderate" or "enlightened" Muslim turns out to be, in reality, a deceiver.

Any reform of Islam must begin with the acknowledgement of wrong-doing. By adopting the factitious distinction between "Muslim" and "Islamist", and by indulging people like Baroness Warsi who insist that Muslim wrong-doers are not Muslims, western journalists are simply postponing the day when the faults within Islam must be recognised and real reform of its faith tradition can begin.