"They are often young people who get together spontaneously in a desire to avenge the injustice of which they feel the Muslim world in general is the victim..."
-- from the article above, quoting Scott Atran

The "inustice" which these people "get together spontaneously in a desire to avenge" is not real injustice. Rather, it is the injustice that Muslims perdeive because of their perception of a disparity between the right and proper role of Islam -- Islam should dominate, and Muslims should rule everywhere, and even before they rule everywhere, they should be powerful, and advanced, and seen to be such, and of course they are not. In the end -- should rule not only in Dar al-Islam but that rule must extend to all of what is now called Dar al-Harb, so that the latter will simply be folded into the former. That is the "peace" of Islam, the "peace" of conquest and universal submission to the message, of the Seal of the Prophets. It cannot be, it must not be, that Infidels could conceivably rule over Believers anywhere, for ever; that is contra naturam, the natural order that the Qur'an spells out. It is not right, it is not just.

But of course the very weakness that Muslim states exhibit, and of which Muslims, somnolent and largely unaware for centuries of the superior power (but of course not superior civilization) of the Western world, is now aware of it. Yet at the same time there is hope: hope that Da'wa can appeal to a sufficient number of the economically and psychically marginal, within the Lands of the Infidels; hope that the very framework of legal rights can be exploited by Muslims within the Lands of the Infidels; hope that the wilful naivete, the alacrity with which Infidels accept every sort of transparent propaganda on behalf of Islam, and pin their dim hopes on a "dialogue" or on further appeasement.

A good example of this crazed willingness not to analyze things, even when one's posterity, one's entire civilization, is at stake is the failure, yesterday, of the governments of Western Europe to reflect the views of their own citizens. Claiming to be democracies, those governments knew perfectly well that 65% of the people in the E.U. have declared themselves against the admission of Turkey; these numbers have steadily risen despite the government and press campaigns on behalf of Turkey, and will rise higher. In some countries, the ones with the greatest experience with Muslim populations, as France, the percentage rises to 75-85%.

Yet the governments of the Western world exhibit timidity and fear, and refuse to carry out the will of those in whose name they claim to rule. Jack Straw, the inimitablly foolish Jack Straw, proclaimed that Turkey simply had to be admitted to the E.U. in order, he said, "to avoid a clash of civlizations." In other words, we must appease Turkey, we must do nothing to offend Muslim Turkey, we must do nothing to appear to be a "Christian" club -- Jack Straw actually is careful to put the epithet "so-called" before the word "Christian" -- a belittling word, a pejorative word, one he would never place before the dignified word "Islam." Of course there is not a "clash of civilizations," for neither Christians nor Jews nor Hindus nor Buddhists have been making war on peaceful Muslims either now, or ever. It is the reverse, and if Jack Straw could take a minute to read, for example, the books of Bat Ye'or on the subjugation of non-Muslims, or Robert Spencer's "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance," or Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad," he might be a little chastened. But he won't for he doesn't want to find out anything more. It would upset him. And what good would it do -- for he has no idea what, after learning such things, he could possibly think of to deal with the situation. It would be too difficult. It would fly in the face of so many assumptions. So better to pretend, to avoid, to turn away.

That way of dealing with things has been tried before in the recent history of Europe. But in the end, those "stubborn facts" (John Quincy Adams's phrase, and Adams is relevant here, for he saw right through Islam from his knowledge of the Barbary Pirates) about Islam, about its teachings and its practice, will remain.

To Muslims, it is not right that anywhere in the world the will of Muslims should be opposed -- and where it is opposed, wherever an Infidel state does not give those Muslims what they demand, then there is "oppression" and this "oppression" justifies everything that Muslims do, which some then interpret as a reaction to what has been done to them and not to simply the situation: the backwardness of Islam, the primitiveness of Islam, the inability of Muslims to create, even out of the most fantastic unearned wealth, after the largest transfer of such wealth in human history (from the oil-consuming to oil-producing nations), economies. And the political failures of Muslim states are a result of Islam itself, for Islam does not favor freedom or democracy. Man-made law presupposes the importance of man, but man, or men, are as nothing in Islam; they are slaves of Allah, and must submit to his will, must do his bidding. It would be absurd to think that a Muslim state, with real (as opposed to lukewarm or feigned Believers), could conceivably limit the power of the ruler by anything except Islam itself. The despot, the strong-man, the army itself, are all objects of veneration in Islam. Brute force is admired; brute force is often the only thing that works. The loyalty within the nation-state, which is a European invention and imposition, is not to that nation-state but to family and tribe. And supranationally, it is to the umma al-islamiyya, wherever the members of that Community are to be found. The nation-state, either that of those Infidels among whom one now lives (and for whom one hardly even bothers to kiss the lips of loyalty) or that within Dar al-Islam, hardly matters, except as a kind of mechanical identification of where one comes from, or what loot, from what oilfields, one receives. Loyalty to the tribe, the local oilfields, one's immediate protector among the rich and powerful, is not exactly loyalty to, interest in, support of, the national idea.

while Muslims rail against their perceived weakensses -- which is to say, their inability to everywhere lord it over Infidels, and to ensure that Islam dominates and is not to be dominated, they cannot ever bring themselves to connect the dots -- to see that the very sources of their own failures and weaknesses, which they so deplore, come from Islam itself. It is this that the Infidel world should first thoroughly understand, and once it has assimilated this, express that understanding on every public and private occasion, in every forum, so that Muslims themselves will at least hear it and some, the advanced some, the not-completely-benighted some, will begin to take it in, and talk about it. And that will shine the spotlight where on Islam, on every single passage in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, on the deliberate inculcation of hatred toward non-Muslims which, of course, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to integrate Muslims within an Infidel country, or to incorporate them into any international system that involves Infidels. They are deliberately set against us; it is not we who do it, it is they who do it to themselves, and must.

It is not Infidels, similarly, who have made the lives of Muslims so limited and so dull. It is Islam itself that so limits human potential, and has for at least the last 1000 years, has limited the cultural contributions of Muslims to not much more than calligraphy and some Mosques -- a pitiful legacy, compared to China, Japan, Korean, India, pre-Columbian civilizations (with more and more being uncovered) or the fabulously successful civilization of the Western world. It is not Infidels who teach Muslims not to create statues, not to paint pictures of living things, not to engage in music-making (though many ignore this, the killing of Rai singers in Algeria, and musicians in Afghanistan by the Taliban, show that the ban remains vividly alive for some to killingly enforce it). It is Islam itself. It is not Infidels who discourage Mulsims from engaging in free and skeptical inquiry, and hence contributing to modern science. The last thousand years, at least, of the inability of Muslims to produce anything of cultural value in these areas is denied by many of them, or attributed somehow to the perfidious machinations of Infidels. For it must enrage, and the rage so far has not been directed, for it cannot be directed, at the real cause of Muslim backwardness -- Islam itself. When Infidels point out, for example, any kind of problem within Islam, for example in the treatment of women, even highly educated, and outwardly Westernized Muslims (such as Leila Ahmad, a tenured professor at Harvard Divinity School) will immediately begin talking about "cultural" factors and deny that Islam has anything to do with whatever disablities women labor under in Muslim societies. The ability to deny the obvious, all in order to protect Islam, always astounds Infidels, because it comes from the very highest as well as the lowest intellectual levels. It is a powerful force, and has a powerful hold -- Islam. That is one more of its terrible effects.

While most Muslims, are angry, and some murderously so, the majority of those who are angry simply wait for the steady growth in Muslim populations in the Bilad al-kufr to cause a rise in Muslim political power, already far out of proportion to numbers because of the wilful ignorance and appeasement offered by Infidel politicians, so heedless of anything beyond the present moment and the next election. Overbreeding can do more than bombs to conquer Dar al-Harb.

Infidels must be willing to listen to those who are willing to tell them, not soothing stories, but the truth, about Islam. And whatever new understanding they arrive at -- which will make every day's events perfectly comprehensible, and tomorrow's too -- should become a permanent part of their world-view, something that lasts more than l'espace d'un matin, in that space-time phrase of the witty French.

Posted by: Hugh at October 4, 2005 8:29 AM

"They are often young people who get together spontaneously in a desire to avenge the injustice of which they feel the Muslim world in general is the victim..."
-- from the article above, quoting Scott Atran

The "injustice" which these people "get together spontaneously in a desire to avenge" is the injustice that Muslims everywhere perceive because the proper role of Islam, which is to dominate, and of Muslims, which is to rule everywhere, and certainly not to be in an inferior position anywhere (least of all among Infidels), is not apparent everywhere. Indeed, in the Infidel lands, where Muslims now live in large numbers, and where they do not yet rule, and where their demands are not automatically met, they find the behavior of Infidels, especially those Infidels who have the temerity to defend themselves, unacceptable. They find the refusal of Infidels to meet all Muslim demands for changes in the way things are done in Infidel lands, from the application of the family laws of Islam, to the setting aside of prayer rooms in schools and other public places, to limits on free speech, to changes in foreign policy, not acceptable. These are examples of "injustice" and Muslims must always see that "justice" -- i.e. the Muslim idea of justice, in which Islam and Muslims naturally prevail -- is done.

It is not right, it is not just, for Muslims not to everywhere dominate. Yet in the countries of the Infidels, they do not. And even in the world, despite gigantic unearned wealth, they do not have modern economies, modern polities, countries which are in any way desirable or attractive. More than half of all young Arabs say they wish to emigrate to the West. The problem is that they wish not a "new life" but their old life, simply with the prosperity that Infidel lands can offer, but the comparative success of which lands those young Arabs do not conect to the absence of the influence and power of Islam. They cannot bear, cannot take, the inferior position of Muslims and Muslim countries, and still less can they bear the idea that that palpable inferiority is a resutl of Islam itself. For where would that leave them, if Islam itself were the cause of their own desperate situation, their mental and emotional desarroi? But Islam is responsible. Islam is the cause of what ails them, and their societies. And this is the one thing they can never admit to themselves as long as they continue to call themselves Muslims, rather than to make the break, leap over the mental fence, and declare themselves, at least to themselves, to be Believers no more.

Islam, Muslims are tuaght, should rule not only in Dar al-Islam. That rule must extend to all of what is now called Dar al-Harb, so that the latter will simply be folded into the former. That is the "peace" of Islam, the "peace" of conquest and universal submission to the message, of the Seal of the Prophets. It cannot be, it must not be, that Infidels could conceivably rule over Believers anywhere, for ever; that is contra naturam, the natural order that the Qur'an spells out. It is not right, it is not just.

But of course the very weakness that Muslim states exhibit, and of which Muslims, somnolent and largely unaware for centuries of the superior power (but of course not superior civilization) of the Western world, is now aware of it. Yet at the same time there is hope: hope that Da'wa can appeal to a sufficient number of the economically and psychically marginal, within the Lands of the Infidels; hope that the very framework of legal rights can be exploited by Muslims within the Lands of the Infidels; hope that the wilful naivete, the alacrity with which Infidels accept every sort of transparent propaganda on behalf of Islam, and pin their dim hopes on a "dialogue" or on further appeasement.

A good example of this crazed willingness not to analyze things, even when one's posterity, one's entire civilization, is at stake is the failure, yesterday, of the governments of Western Europe to reflect the views of their own citizens. Claiming to be democracies, those governments knew perfectly well that 65% of the people in the E.U. have declared themselves against the admission of Turkey; these numbers have steadily risen despite the government and press campaigns on behalf of Turkey, and will rise higher. In some countries, the ones with the greatest experience with Muslim populations, as France, the percentage rises to 75-85%.

Yet the governments of the Western world exhibit timidity and fear, and refuse to carry out the will of those in whose name they claim to rule. Jack Straw, the inimitablly foolish Jack Straw, proclaimed that Turkey simply had to be admitted to the E.U. in order, he said, "to avoid a clash of civlizations." In other words, we must appease Turkey, we must do nothing to offend Muslim Turkey, we must do nothing to appear to be a "Christian" club -- Jack Straw actually is careful to put the epithet "so-called" before the word "Christian" -- a belittling word, a pejorative word, one he would never place before the dignified word "Islam." Of course there is not a "clash of civilizations," for neither Christians nor Jews nor Hindus nor Buddhists have been making war on peaceful Muslims either now, or ever. It is the reverse, and if Jack Straw could take a minute to read, for example, the books of Bat Ye'or on the subjugation of non-Muslims, or Robert Spencer's "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance," or Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad," he might be a little chastened. But he won't for he doesn't want to find out anything more. It would upset him. And what good would it do -- for he has no idea what, after learning such things, he could possibly think of to deal with the situation. It would be too difficult. It would fly in the face of so many assumptions. So better to pretend, to avoid, to turn away.

That way of dealing with things has been tried before in the recent history of Europe. But in the end, those "stubborn facts" (John Quincy Adams's phrase, and Adams is relevant here, for he saw right through Islam from his knowledge of the Barbary Pirates) about Islam, about its teachings and its practice, will remain.

To Muslims, it is not right that anywhere in the world the will of Muslims should be opposed -- and where it is opposed, wherever an Infidel state does not give those Muslims what they demand, then there is "oppression" and this "oppression" justifies everything that Muslims do, which some then interpret as a reaction to what has been done to them and not to simply the situation: the backwardness of Islam, the primitiveness of Islam, the inability of Muslims to create, even out of the most fantastic unearned wealth, after the largest transfer of such wealth in human history (from the oil-consuming to oil-producing nations), economies. And the political failures of Muslim states are a result of Islam itself, for Islam does not favor freedom or democracy. Man-made law presupposes the importance of man, but man, or men, are as nothing in Islam; they are slaves of Allah, and must submit to his will, must do his bidding. It would be absurd to think that a Muslim state, with real (as opposed to lukewarm or feigned Believers), could conceivably limit the power of the ruler by anything except Islam itself. The despot, the strong-man, the army itself, are all objects of veneration in Islam. Brute force is admired; brute force is often the only thing that works. The loyalty within the nation-state, which is a European invention and imposition, is not to that nation-state but to family and tribe. And supranationally, it is to the umma al-islamiyya, wherever the members of that Community are to be found. The nation-state, either that of those Infidels among whom one now lives (and for whom one hardly even bothers to kiss the lips of loyalty) or that within Dar al-Islam, hardly matters, except as a kind of mechanical identification of where one comes from, or what loot, from what oilfields, one receives. Loyalty to the tribe, the local oilfields, one's immediate protector among the rich and powerful, is not exactly loyalty to, interest in, support of, the national idea.

while Muslims rail against their perceived weakensses -- which is to say, their inability to everywhere lord it over Infidels, and to ensure that Islam dominates and is not to be dominated, they cannot ever bring themselves to connect the dots -- to see that the very sources of their own failures and weaknesses, which they so deplore, come from Islam itself. It is this that the Infidel world should first thoroughly understand, and once it has assimilated this, express that understanding on every public and private occasion, in every forum, so that Muslims themselves will at least hear it and some, the advanced some, the not-completely-benighted some, will begin to take it in, and talk about it. And that will shine the spotlight where on Islam, on every single passage in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, on the deliberate inculcation of hatred toward non-Muslims which, of course, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to integrate Muslims within an Infidel country, or to incorporate them into any international system that involves Infidels. They are deliberately set against us; it is not we who do it, it is they who do it to themselves, and must.

It is not Infidels, similarly, who have made the lives of Muslims so limited and so dull. It is Islam itself that so limits human potential, and has for at least the last 1000 years, has limited the cultural contributions of Muslims to not much more than calligraphy and some Mosques -- a pitiful legacy, compared to China, Japan, Korean, India, pre-Columbian civilizations (with more and more being uncovered) or the fabulously successful civilization of the Western world. It is not Infidels who teach Muslims not to create statues, not to paint pictures of living things, not to engage in music-making (though many ignore this, the killing of Rai singers in Algeria, and musicians in Afghanistan by the Taliban, show that the ban remains vividly alive for some to killingly enforce it). It is Islam itself. It is not Infidels who discourage Mulsims from engaging in free and skeptical inquiry, and hence contributing to modern science. The last thousand years, at least, of the inability of Muslims to produce anything of cultural value in these areas is denied by many of them, or attributed somehow to the perfidious machinations of Infidels. For it must enrage, and the rage so far has not been directed, for it cannot be directed, at the real cause of Muslim backwardness -- Islam itself. When Infidels point out, for example, any kind of problem within Islam, for example in the treatment of women, even highly educated, and outwardly Westernized Muslims (such as Leila Ahmad, a tenured professor at Harvard Divinity School) will immediately begin talking about "cultural" factors and deny that Islam has anything to do with whatever disablities women labor under in Muslim societies. The ability to deny the obvious, all in order to protect Islam, always astounds Infidels, because it comes from the very highest as well as the lowest intellectual levels. It is a powerful force, and has a powerful hold -- Islam. That is one more of its terrible effects.

While most Muslims, are angry, and some murderously so, the majority of those who are angry simply wait for the steady growth in Muslim populations in the Bilad al-kufr to cause a rise in Muslim political power, already far out of proportion to numbers because of the wilful ignorance and appeasement offered by Infidel politicians, so heedless of anything beyond the present moment and the next election. Overbreeding can do more than bombs to conquer Dar al-Harb.

Infidels must be willing to listen to those who are willing to tell them, not soothing stories, but the truth, about Islam. And whatever new understanding they arrive at -- which will make every day's events perfectly comprehensible, and tomorrow's too -- should become a permanent part of their world-view, something that lasts more than l'espace d'un matin, in that space-time phrase of the clever French.

Posted by: Hugh at October 4, 2005 8:38 AM

Another mitigating factor (in the making of jihaddists) from Daniel Pipes in today's Frontpagemag.com: The Stupid Terrorists' Club:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19705

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 4, 2005 9:44 AM

"At the end of the process they are conditioned, isolated, given moral support, convinced they are giving their lives for a cause greater than themselves, and capable of strapping a bomb to their bodies."

I've been referring to these people as 'neo-hashashins' now for about a decade ... now will people understand why?

Posted by: Machiavelli at October 4, 2005 10:28 AM

Please seek out this file on the internet:

Ayn Rand - Global Balkanization.mp3

if you want to gain insight as to the perils of collectivist or "tribal" thinking that drives the actions of nazis and Islamists alike.

The root of Islam is collectivism, not religion, or morailty or justice. It will explain how people can commit these horrible acts by sacrificing their minds to the tribe.

Posted by: VoiceOfSkippy at October 4, 2005 11:31 AM

Suicide bombers, such as those who attacked tourist targets in Bali last week, are driven by motives close to those of members of religious sects which are hard for outsiders to comprehend, experts said Tuesday.

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at October 4, 2005 12:16 PM

Are we supposed to feel sorry for these explosedopes because they are "nice" people.

Bulltoss. What of passive agression ? Someone is going to kill you , for your own good ?

A bullet for Mohamed. Two for his enabler.

Posted by: dgene at October 4, 2005 12:38 PM

Hugh:
Great piece of writing.
Agree with your comments about Turkey - (who wouldn't allow our boys in through Kurd country, which refusal cost time and lives - with friends like this, who needs ....)
Would be well for you to publish as well and gain a wider audience.

Posted by: dgene at October 4, 2005 12:47 PM

Scott Atran is the author/interviewer in this eye-opening article as well, posted today on LGF:

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=46

"If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam."

Note no mention of Israel, no mention of American foreign policy.

Bashir sure is clear... if only others would listen...

Posted by: kamala at October 4, 2005 6:46 PM

RE: These people don't do it out of hate: they do it more out of love for their own group. They're doing it because they believe they're doing good for their people. They are usually fully compassionate people. I never came across one that was a real nutcase," he said.

Why is it so hard to call a "spade" a "spade".

I am sorry but true compassion DOES NOT kill.

Give me a break with this "psychobable". The author has to be a "nutcase" to propagate such
an analysis

We will never defeat Jihad to people understand
that EVIL EXISTS! And it does and good job
of deception. The Bible calls Satan "the Great
Deceiver"

Posted by: learjet0450 at October 4, 2005 8:59 PM

THIS GUY BASHIR HAS BEEN SMOKING CAMEL POOP, TOO!

There ought to be an Islamic law prohibiting the smoking of camel poop. Look what it does to these Arabs' brains!!!(Bashir by the way is of Yemeni descent qualifying him as an Arab).

Their brains are about as useful to humanity as mashed potatoes three years old!

Posted by: pythagoras at October 4, 2005 9:38 PM