Author: Robert Spencer
Publication: Human Events
Date: June 17, 2004
URL: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4203
When I wrote recently about how
Ronald Reagan's confrontation of Communism could and should serve as a
model for confronting today's global jihad, many pointed out that the man
himself had amassed a less than stellar track record in the 1980s against
the fathers and elder brothers of today's mujahedin. After all, they said,
he cut and run after the bombing of the Beirut barracks in 1983. He cozied
up to the mullahs in the Iran-Contra imbroglio. Above all, he breathed
life into today's jihadist Frankenstein by helping the Afghan mujahedin
fight and, ultimately, defeat the Soviet Union. A model for the defense
against jihad? Some even suggested that he was one of its forefathers.
While the idea that Reagan fostered
the growth of today's jihadist movement is grossly overstated, I am unaware
of any evidence that he ever surveyed the Islamic world with the same penetrating
insight that enabled him to see that the collapse of the Soviet Union was
imminent at a time when the far-seeing analysts were drawing up plans for
twenty-first century détente initiatives. He was a religious man,
and I wouldn't be surprised if he looked upon the Afghan mujahedin and
at least some of the Iranian mullahs with a certain kind of trust -- perhaps
born out of the awareness that they, too, were religious men, and were
thus (somehow) honorable. This wouldn't be surprising; it is the way that
many, if not most, of those who have followed him into American government
regard Islam and Muslims to this day. Eisenhower once famously said that
he wanted Americans to have a religion, but he didn't care which one, and
that is that.
But Islam is different -- and it
isn't just Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell who say this, but Muslims
themselves. At the Jihad Watch website I recently posted a link to an article
in which the author recommends that the United States make repudiation
of violent jihad a condition for peace and alliance. One would think that
moderate Muslims in America, given their claims about themselves, would
be tripping over themselves in haste to make this repudiation, but no such
luck. One Muslim responded at Jihad Watch: "It is indeed amazing that the
unbelivers [sic] presume not only to define Islam, but also prescribe changes
('reforms') to Allah's (swt) commands. Just how do you imagine that you
will impose your will on the ummah? . The Islamic Caliphate will soon encompass
the Earth, and all corrupt and unjust man- made law will be replaced by
Allah's (swt) holy Sharia (Islamic law)."
Ah, but he was no doubt an extremist.
Here, then, is an exchange I had recently with another Muslim, an English
convert and self-proclaimed moderate. I wrote: "I would like nothing better
than a flowering, a renaissance, in the Muslim world, including full equality
of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies: freedom of conscience,
equality in laws regarding legal testimony, equal employment opportunities,
etc." He retorted: "So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion
and, thereby, become non-Muslims."
In light of attitudes like these,
the widespread Western assumption about Islam -- that because it is a religion,
it contains core teachings of love, peace and brotherhood that people of
good will can emphasize against those who would twist the religion to contrary
purposes -- begins to ring hollow. Self- proclaimed moderate Muslims in
the United States have insisted that they be regarded at all times as unflaggingly
patriotic and filled with civic zeal, whatever unpleasant evidence to the
contrary that individual cases may provide. But the forthright rejection
of some of the central beliefs of the Western world by the Muslims I have
quoted here and millions of others at least raises the possibility that
those professed moderates are bluffing. Americans should call their bluff
whenever and wherever possible by insisting that they acknowledge the elements
of Islamic theology, law, tradition and history that radical Muslims use
to justify violence and terrorism, and repudiate those elements not only
in words, but in forthright and honest anti-terror efforts within the Islamic
community.
It may be, however, that American
Muslims as an aggregate will reject those calls to clean their own house,
as they have done implicitly up to now. That in itself will be revealing.
Those in the West who are as decent as Reagan was must avoid the cardinal
temptation of decent men: to assume that others share their fundamental
goodness. It is long past time to regard Islam more realistically.
Mr. Spencer is the director of Jihad
Watch and the author of Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens
America and the West (Regnery Publishing -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company)
and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing
Faith (Encounter Books).
