Doing this work day in and day out can seem like shouting into the whirlwind, so it is gratifying to see some ideas that began with me or here at Jihad Watch gaining wider currency.
Recently Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy wrote a piece for the Washington Times that used the phrase “stealth jihad” in the title. The term originated with my 2008 book Stealth Jihad, which chronicled non-violent efforts to bring elements of Islamic law to the West and assert its primacy over American law. Frank also referred in his piece to “Islamist supremacism,” which is a fairly close approximation of another term I coined, “Islamic supremacism.”
My friend and colleague Pamela Geller also makes reference to “Islamic supremacism” and other terms I’ve originated, just as I borrow freely from her many memorable turns of phrase, including “Truth is the new hate speech” and her term for the jihad against the truthful expression of what we are facing: the “war on the truth.” William Murray of the Sharia Action Awareness Network and Brigitte Gabriel of ACT for America have referred to dhimmi Americans “self-enforcing Sharia” — another term that Pamela coined.
The professor of medicine and sometime anti-jihad researcher Andrew Bostom makes frequent use of another term I coined: “Islamorealism.” And even James Taranto of the dhimmi Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago used the term “Islamic supremacy,” which, like Frank’s usage, is close enough.
In short, the truth is getting out, and spreading. And that is every reason to be hopeful — as Pamela says, we will win because our ideas are better. The more these terms get into the mainstream dialogue, the more people will begin to understand what we are really up against, and be be equipped to frame an effective defense of our Constitutional freedoms.