Posted on 07/16/2016 7:25:44 PM PDT by cold start
To keep insisting that terrorism has nothing to do with religion after every new jihadi atrocity is no longer tenable. It is galling for millions of people, not just Indians but around the world, when this clichéd phrase is parroted even as reports go viral of the attackers’ in-your-face assertion of religion.
Followers of most major religions have killed in the name of their faith (more on this later). But as author and TV host Fareed Zakaria has said, “The next time you hear of a terror attack – no matter where, no matter what the circumstances, you will likely think to yourself, ‘It’s Muslims again’. And you will probably be right.”
However, the vast majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims do not consider jihadi killers as representative of their religion. They stress that such killers are violating some of Islam’s basic tenets of compassion. And that most victims of such terrorism are Muslims. The spate of murderous jihadi attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, or Ramzan in South Asia, has been denounced by many Muslims as desecrating their faith.
Most world leaders echo these sentiments. With few exceptions, it is standard for politicians everywhere to publicly say that jihadis do not represent the religion they claim to. Yet that extreme political correctness of denying any connection with religion, even as terrorists shout religious slogans and test Quranic knowledge while slaughtering victims, has led to growing public anger.
Another common refrain is that only moderate Muslims can respond to this “internal” challenge in Islam. But when they do respond, they often face extreme hostility, not only from other Muslims but also, shockingly, even in secular institutions of the media and universities. There are many documented instances of these, even in that Mecca of free speech, the US.
Many disillusioned moderate Muslims have either stopped believing, at great risk since jihadis violently enforce Islam’s intolerance of apostasy, or resigned themselves into quiescence. It is these voices, and not just the good Samaritans who empathise with victims but dare not push for religious reform, that deserve the support of those who are truly secular.
After the Boston Marathon bombings, Pakistani-Canadian writer Ali A Rizvi wrote, “The ‘anything but jihad’ brigade is out in full force again. If the perpetrators of such attacks say they were influenced by politics (or) nationalism … we take them at face value. But when they consistently cite their religious beliefs as their central motivation, we back off, stroke our chins and suspect there has to be something deeper at play, a ‘root cause’. It is often religion itself … that is the root cause.”
This sort of candour is lacking among most mainstream commentators in modern, liberal democracies today. Calling out jihadi terrorism is inhibited for fear of being labelled prejudiced, Islamophobic or, oddly, even racist.
The holy texts of most ancient religions – including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism – contain exhortations to both love, tolerance and kindliness on the one hand, as well to as to revenge, misogyny and violence on the other. Barack Obama has reminded the world “that during the crusades and the inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ”.
Virtually all major religions have had fanatical, murderous adherents. Even in modern times there are several examples of religious killings besides those by Islamists. For instance, by Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar and Christian abortion-clinic bombers in the US. India has seen terrorism by Sikh extremists, and among Hindus there is Dara Singh, convicted for life for killing an Australian missionary and his children. Other instances of alleged Hindu terrorism from 2007 to 2010 (Samjhauta, Malegaon, Ajmer) are being adjudicated in courts.
But in sheer scale, number of attacks and fatalities, nothing comes close to jihadi terrorism. Even “traditional”, non-religious, left-wing extremists like Germany’s Baader-Meinhof, Italy’s Red Brigades, Columbia’s FARC, Peru’s Shining Path and our very own Naxalites are now either defunct or well past their peak.
The numbers speak for themselves. 2015 statistics cited by political scientist Ian Bremmer show that the world’s top terrorist organisations are IS (8,420 fatalities), Boko Haram (6,299), Taliban (5,215) and Al Shabab (1,586). That al-Qaida doesn’t even rank any more shows how exponential the growth of Islamist radicalisation has been.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a bestselling author and Somali refugee has said, “It simply will not do for Muslims to claim that their religion has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists. The killers of Islamic State and Boko Haram cite the same religious texts that every other Muslim in the world considers sacrosanct … The biggest obstacle to change within the Muslim world is suppression of critical thinking.”
It is not that other religions have sanitised their religious texts. But they have coped with modernity better. As Zakaria puts it, “Islamic terrorists don’t just hate America or the West. They hate the modern world.” For jihadi terrorism to subside, this must change.
What the world needs now is not more platitudes and political correctness. It needs support for those within Islam speaking up for reform, to adapt to modernity. Otherwise, the sacrifice of many brave Muslims who stand up to terrorists – like Faraaz Hossain, who died in the Dhaka attack because he refused to abandon his friends – will go in vain.
Baijayant 'Jay' Panda is a member of the Indian Parliament.
The task, even theoretically, would make that of herding cats look easy.
Unless the Boss of Hell calls a new movement in the dance. Which it seems to me he inevitably will. And it will supersede Islam. Islam was needed as a delusion in a bellicose age, but when people hanker for peace, it just won’t do. It’s too disorderly, too bumptious.
The simpler solution is to walk away from a satanic ideology. It can’t be reformed.
Correct - it’s just more of the antichrist spirit.
Yes indeed. There are very few because most don’t want to die
The article names several
Nope. Ban them all, remove them all, keep them out forever.
They can reform themselves in their own muslim countries.
You mean both of them?
A reformed Islam is Apostasy and cannot survive as Islam.
Where in basic Christian literature, the Bible, for instance, does it call for the slaughter of unbelievers generally? That cannot be answered by a liberal without changing the subject.
For a Moslem to reject Sharia is to announce his apostasy unless an imam sanctions such renunciation(which they do and have done) in the spirit of taquia. It is very plausible that it might happen if necessary to keep the flow of jihadists into America at full strength. Calling on Moslems to reject Sharia as a condition of continued residence shows an ignorance I hate to impute to Newt of what the Koran and the Hadiths say about such things. Forcible and monitored conversion to Christianity would, in the long and the short terms work. The Spanish showed the way for that a bit over 500 years ago. It worked then and would work now.
The media has effectively silenced any Muslims who oppose the Jihad. When the tide turns, they’ll be swept away in the carnage, and the left wing media will have blood on its hands. Again.
The world must support those within Islam speaking up for reform????????????? REALLY?????????
How about:
“The MUSLIM world must COME OUT AND CONDEMN ALL THE ACTS committed in the name of their religion and actually begin speaking up for reform”
Must admit, I have not read the article.
Those who deceive cannot be believed.
Reform? How about a divorce?
Zakaria has been covering up for radical Moslem extremists for years, as has Christina Amannpour.
CCN likes to downplay a lot of things, and radical Islam, until the horrors of ISIS were seen on videos, was not a hot topic of Zakaria and company.
All three of them.
Mohammad specifically forbade reformation - any meaningful reformation would mean relegating Islam’s founder to a minor role (imagine Jesus relegated to a minor role in Christianity - an absurdity).
Such a reformation would mean discarding the Second Given Half of the koran, leaving only the First Given Half which is mostly plagiarized from the Bible and the Torah.
In short there would be nothing original remaining and no founder’s footsteps to follow. Moreover all those participating in such a misadventure would be put to death by fundamentalists when found.
The only way to remove one’s self from the death cult is not to reform but to convert to a real religion.
“Our real problem is of a celestial nature. “
Yes I would agree (On peril of appearing to be “Art Bell” ish.) in that we are dealing with a metaphysical issue.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
This spiritual war is manifesting itself into the physical world as violence and degradation. You can see it all around. If you look at it through that lens then you can see it. It is as clear as a bacterial culture in a petri dish thru a microscope. You can see the problem if you know what you’re looking for.
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