I wanted to draw your attention to David Gardner’s remarks at Financial Times attendant to the defeat of DAESH in Syria:
Syrian Kurdish fighters, supported by the US air force, will soon end the caliphate that, at its height only a few years ago, controlled a third of Syria and Iraq. Isis is about to lose Baghouz, its last enclave in the Euphrates valley, on Syria’s border with Iraq. The jihadist group’s survivors have melted away into the empty wastes, reverting to terror and suicide attacks, while some of their foreign fighters may bring the war back home.
The priority for the world’s security services will be to avert a new rash of terror attacks of the type that have scarred Paris and Nice, Brussels and Berlin, London and Manchester, Istanbul and Ankara.
But now that the territorial caliphate that menaced the region is at an end, there is urgent need for reflection on how to change the western foreign policy that has reliably engendered jihadism. It is only a matter of time before a more virulent strain emerges if the west keeps blundering about in the Middle East.
And if you insist on wearing those short skirts you have no one to blame for being raped other than yourself. He goes on to trace jihadism to, of course, the contest between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The history of spreading Islam by the sword goes right back to its foundations. Before blaming its modern incarnation on our “blundering about” it was blamed on colonialism, starting with the Padri War in Sumatra at the turn of the 19th century to a string of other, similar conflicts right up to 1940. Between 1940 and 1980 secularist Pan-Arabism took the reins for a while before yielding them to various Islamist conflicts.
Prior to 1800 there was Turkish imperialism and before the Turks there were the Arab conquests.
The reality is that as long as their holy book can be interpreted as containing a mandate to spread Islam by force (the standard interpretation until the Mongols sacked Baghdad and took the wind out of the Arabs’ sails) and there’s no one with the authority to tell them “no”, there will always be someone somewhere who will interpret it that way. Nowadays putting together a movement doesn’t require a majority of Muslims or even a large minority. It only takes a few people so inclined and social media.
We need to adjust ourselves to the idea that jihadism is endemic in Islam.
I agree that we should stop “blundering about” and accept the notion that there will be a permanent difference of opinion between the Muslim world and just about everybody else. We can either tolerate it, accepting episodic outbreaks of mass murder, we can stamp it out which will entail killing tens or even hundreds of millions of people, or we can contain it.
I’m for containment, how about you?
Convert them, or fatten them on food stamps and TV.
Killing them? That religion seems to thrive on that.
And there will be episodes.
Containment, how? Don’t think we are ready yet for a religious test before immigration/travel nor would the financial sector adjust to an ban on money from the the Ummah.
My alternative would be accept the incompatibilty and view it as a law enforcement problem internally while externally gathering intelligence to learn who should be admitted and targets fr the inevitable reprisals.
I don’t think we are, either, which is why we’ll attempt to tolerate radical Islamism. I doubt it will be successful.
The sole cause behind the rise of Jihadism is oil money. Full stop. Fracking and Drill Baby, Drill to the rescue.
If there are Imams live on television I’m unaware of it. What consists of worship in the mosque is apparently recitation of Koranic verse and then exhortations by cleric to take on the Infidel on all fronts.
Can Islamic worship services withstand public scrutiny?
“Prior to 1800 there was Turkish imperialism and before the Turks there were the Arab conquests.”
Well, yes, but then we also had the English Empire. Before that Spanish empire (killing many in North and South America, Portugese, German, French and on and on. Creating empires when you were able was pretty much the norm until modern history. By historical norms, not sure that Muslim behavior was different than everyone else’s. Aye they killed fewer people?
I think that modern jihadism is different. It results more from having their countries being fractured for many years, and from their inability to govern themselves well. Fundamentalism is a common response to fractured societies and poor economic conditions.
I would also give a bit more credit to blundering about when it comes to current circumstances. ISIS only became successful because it had the resources and experience of Saddam’s disbanded military to draw upon. Before that they are just another group of head choppers with dreams of empire.
Steve
Re-read the history, steve. If the English had spread Christianity by the sword the way Arabs spread Islam, India would be 99% Christian. The countries of the Middle East and North Africa weren’t fractured by colonialism. They were held together by force by the Ottoman. The countries can’t govern themselves because of tribalism.
And fundamentalism has been spread throughout the Muslim world by the Saudis. It’s not a consequence of Western action.