Global Jihad or Islamic Enlightenment?


Ed Hudgins

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Global Jihad or Islamic Enlightenment?

By Edward Hudgins

The murders of French journalists by Islamist jihadists make clear even to the dogmatically self-blinded that the values of the modern world are in mortal danger. But an underreported ray of hope came recently from Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has called for a revolution to banish violent jihad from Islam.

How many Islamist massacres?

How many Islamist massacres will it take to make the point that the values of the modern world are under threat? A dozen at Charlie Hebdo in Paris? Hundreds of school children with their teachers in Pakistan? Hundreds more in a subway in London, a restaurant in Bali, and trains in Madrid? Thousands in the World Trade Center? Tens of thousands in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan?
These slaughters are not simply blowback from American foreign policy. They are manifestations of a clash of values between the civilized world and the Islamic one. It is true that there are Muslims who support tolerance for different religions and lifestyles, and who give priority to peace and prosperity. Many say that “true” Islam does not involve jackbooted theocracy. But for millions of others, Islam demands violence, or at least finds it acceptable.
A religion is to a great extent a construct of its adherents. It consists of the beliefs, values, priorities, assumptions, and expectations shared by those adherents and reinforced by their culture and institutions. Academics arguing that particular acts of violence and repression are not condoned by the Koran do not negate the fact that millions of Muslims still believe they are.
Islam is in a civil war with itself.

Islam values violence

What values are reflected in the fact that when Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed were published ten years ago, tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets of Europe calling for repression and violence against the infidel, while others murdered hundreds, especially Christians, worldwide in orgies of mindless revenge?
What does it say about peaceful Islam when, on the anniversaries of the September 11 attacks, there were no massive demonstrations in America or elsewhere to mourn the dead and to declare “Ours is a religion of peace,” but on the first anniversary there was a major conference in London by Muslim leaders to celebrate the attacks?
What can we deduce about Muslim culture when we consider that the Nazis had to hide their genocide for fear that Germans, even the most anti-Semitic ones, would be repulsed by death camps, but that ISIS sees it as an effective recruiting strategy to post videos of beheadings, butchery, and mass murder?
These facts reflect the pre-modern values that still permeate many Muslim communities—dogmatic orthodoxy and superstition; rejection of reason and free expression; contempt of individual autonomy and dignity; subservience to dictatorial authority; death doled out casually to all who disagree. Add to this the model of Mohammad spreading the religion with the sword and the ideal of a Caliphate that unites church and state and the distance between the sentiments of many Muslims and those of more secular Westerners is clear.

A new Dark Age?

The West went through centuries of religious wars and oppression before gradually integrating Enlightenment values into its culture and political institutions, and they’re still only imperfectly realized. The Islamic world never went through such a transformation. It now struggles to do so in only a few decades lest it continue to be the vanguard of war and oppression.
The problem is acute in European countries where Muslims have become a large portion of those countries’ populations through immigration and high birth rates. But a legacy of European nationalism means Muslims are not integrated well into those countries, nor are they instilled with the values of open societies. As Muslims become the majority in those countries in decades to come, the remnants of Enlightenment culture could succumb to demands for Dark Age sharia law.

A ray of Islamic hope

One ray of hope comes from Egypt. After its Arab Spring, with the thousands rising up to overthrow the repressive Mubarak regime, the potentially even more repressive Muslim Brotherhood took power. Another uprising, backed by the military, overthrew the Brotherhood.

Now Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a Muslim, is trying to bring his country into the ranks of modernity in terms of religious toleration.

On Christmas Day, for example, he became the first Egyptian president to attend mass at a Coptic Christian church. And in an extraordinary speech marking the birth of Mohammad, he declared, “We are in need of a religious revolution.”
He asked, “Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims worldwide) should want to kill the rest of the world’s population—that is, 7 billion people—so that they themselves may live? Impossible.”
He argued that “We need a revolution of the self, a revolution of consciousness and ethics to rebuild the Egyptian person.”
He maintained that "It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.” And concerning the thinking behind extremist opinion, he stated, “You have to get out of it, inspect it, and read it with a real enlightened thought.”
Sisi addressed his remarks to Dar al-Iftaa, a prestigious Sunni religious institution founded over a millennium ago and sponsored by the Egyptian government. It is carrying out Sisi’s enterprise. For example, it has launch a campaign to rectify what it considers to be an incorrect image of Islam with views that “suit the modern age,” and it recently held an interfaith conference to combat extremism.

Celebrate Enlightenment

If Sisi and his allies make a priority of bringing Islam into modernity, they could be a major force offering the alternative to al Qaida, ISIS, Hamas, and the theocrats both in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, a major barrier to this alternative could be the politically correct or cowardly leaders in the West who coddle extremists rather than celebrate Enlightenment values and insist that Muslims and everybody else be held to their standards.
Those are the values of civilization that apply to all individuals at all times, and will make Europe, America, and the Middle East places fit for human life and achievement.
----
Hudgins is director of advocacy and a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.
Posted on January 9, 2014.
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Ed,

I sure hope el-Sisi's reform movement grows.

He's got a big bullhorn in Egypt. Let's see how far it can be heard in the Islamic world.

I'm optimistic that change is coming. Actually, I believe it is happening right under our noses.

It would have been unthinkable for a Middle East head of state to say those things after 9/11.

Less than 15 years later, one is.

By our time, that's slow. By historical time, that's pretty fast.

Michael

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The problem is acute in European countries where Muslims have become a large portion of those countries populations through immigration and high birth rates. But a legacy of European nationalism means Muslims are not integrated well into those countries, nor being are they instilled with the values of open societies. As Muslims become the majority in those countries in decades to come, the remnants of Enlightenment culture could succumb to demands for Dark Age sharia law.

I highlight a couple of notions suggested by Ed.

What is the evidence that Muslims will become a majority in any European country?

Moreover, which European countries are held in mind by Ed? Brant has repeatedly cited France as the nation which will become Muslim-majority, but has not offered any supporting information.

Edited by william.scherk
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Here are some demographics from my piece of September 11, 2011. High birthrates among Muslim immigrants together with virtually no net population increase among the natives of Western European countries equal the following:

"Some 90 percent of the population growth in Western Europe since 1990 has been the result of Islamic immigration. In France, 30 percent of children under 20 years old are Muslim. In 40 years the majority in France could be Muslim. In the Netherlands, about half of newborns are Muslim. In 15 to 20 years the majority in the Netherlands could be Muslim. In Germany, a government report from the Federal Statistics Office says that the Fatherland could be majority Muslim by 2050."

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Ed, I see that the quoted material comes from your article "9/11 A Decade Later."

But you haven't given any supporting evidence beyond your opinion. Please let us know from where you got the statistics in your six claims:

  1. Some 90 percent of the population growth in Western Europe since 1990 has been the result of Islamic immigration.
  2. In France, 30 percent of children under 20 years old are Muslim.
  3. In 40 years the majority in France could be Muslim.
  4. In the Netherlands, about half of newborns are Muslim.
  5. In 15 to 20 years the majority in the Netherlands could be Muslim.

This one, I will try to hunt down on my own:

"In Germany, a government report from the Federal Statistics Office says that the Fatherland could be majority Muslim by 2050."

Why should any of us accept -- without evidence -- that what you have claimed is true? More importantly, what are the standards of evidence that you would accept countering your claims? If I can meet your exacting standards of evidence, would you be prepared to alter/update/add postscript to your claims?

(wholly separate from these matters of fact/speculation, your article touches on important questions. It is too bad that it is marred by what is (in my opinion) unwarranted nonsense and demographic scaremongering).

Cue Google. "Eurabia"!!!

Edited by william.scherk
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These are impressive numbers, but they don't strictly prove that Muslims are on their way to a majority by 2050 (or any other date). Note that the quote says "90 percent of the population growth" [emphasis added]. If that continues indefinitely they will eventually be a majority, but you'd have to know how quickly the population is growing to calculate when they'll overtake the rest of the population. In addition, you can't be sure that the imbalance will continue. Most Muslims in western Europe are immigrants, with lower incomes; people with lower incomes tend to have more children than better-off people. To the extent that Muslims make more money we would expect them to have fewer children.

If 30% of the under-20s in France are Muslim and if this continues (a big if, as I noted), then eventually they will be 30% of the population; if 50% as in the Netherlands, 50%. Neither is a majority.

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On any topic to do with Islam, chances are Ali Sina has an essay on it. For example why can't Islam be reformed.

Ali Sina grew up in Iran as a Muslim. Now he is an ex-Muslim and an Islam scholar and he is thumbs down on Islam in the worst way and he has the most extreme contempt for Islam and he calls Muhammad, founder of Islam, a psychopath.

the myth of peaceful Muslims

the fall of Europe

are Muslims humans?

bunch more essays by Ali Sina

Somewhere (I seem to be unable to find it), Ali Sina says Islam will not outlast 30 years. I don't know how he figures that, but he says he knows the Muslim mind.

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The problem is acute in European countries where Muslims have become a large portion of those countries populations through immigration and high birth rates. But a legacy of European nationalism means Muslims are not integrated well into those countries, nor being are they instilled with the values of open societies. As Muslims become the majority in those countries in decades to come, the remnants of Enlightenment culture could succumb to demands for Dark Age sharia law.

I highlight a couple of notions suggested by Ed.

What is the evidence that Muslims will become a majority in any European country?

Moreover, which European countries are held in mind by Ed? Brant has repeatedly cited France as the nation which will become Muslim-majority, but has not offered any supporting information.

I don't think I ever said this this way prior to this post of yours, William. I think I said they would take over. You don't need a majority to do that. Such is the virtue of a democracy. Hitler did it, for instance. True, the political structure was different; they all are. That's how Allende tried to Marxify Chile. That's how the media and academic elites rule America and the intelligentsia dominates France with left-wing Marxist claptrap (exporting genocide to Cambodia and Ho to Vietnam). Because of Muslim warrior testosterone, however, the likely outcome is more war than what France has going on right now and massive deportations of French Muslims over the oncoming generation and political fascism and ancillary wars in Europe as the European Union breaks up (with the euro going first). When you're a young man you fuck or fight. These young Muslim men can do both. Fuck at night and fight by day or vice versa. The fight is the main thing; the fucking is gravy. They don't want to make widgets and sell cars or study the history of man or contemplate the wonders of the natural world. Now, before you ask me for evidence on all points note I am only waxing poetic as I clean and sight my guns. Yes, I can still get it up and all to the Battle Hymn of the Republic!

--Brant (reveling in bloody glory!)

http://youtu.be/7cMxJBenigY

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What is the evidence that Muslims will become a majority in any European country?

Moreover, which European countries are held in mind by Ed? Brant has repeatedly cited France as the nation which will become Muslim-majority, but has not offered any supporting information.

I don't think I ever said this this way prior to this post of yours, William. I think I said they would take over.

You don't need a majority to do that. Now, before you ask me for evidence on all points note I am only waxing poetic as I clean and sight my guns.

I have felt chagrin at my inability to get you to look a bit more critically at doom-gloom alarmist notions of a Muslim demographic time-bomb. I took issue with your notions at least once, and you thanked me for updating your mental data-base,

Remember this?

the only thing the Arabs have going for them is the demographic weapon of out-breeding host countries' native populations as in France, so France will go absolutely fascist in 10-20 years (sooner is possible) to keep them from taking over the country by democratic means

-- silliness aside, the demographic threat of Them to France is mostly hoax and bad math. What is clear is that the general trend toward smaller families is also catching the Muslim population. So the inevitable incline of bad muslim births against good non-muslim births is, er, evitable. I would say the greater problem for France vis a vis Les Musulmans is integration. The system in France has allowed or encouraged or built racial segregation and social exclusion. This is the tinderbox, the menace to society, in my opinion.

(Brant, near to half the Muslims in France are not Arab, just so you know)

Below are a few quote/links to you waxing all French Muslim Menace. It's true you do not make the bold claim Ed did -- "In 40 years the majority in France could be Muslim,"** but your estimations (and poetic fancies) rest on faulty assumptions about demographics. Your end point -- that France will probably expel Muslims citizens and go all fascist in the face of this menacing bulge of near-majority -- is not warranted. It is alarming nonsense,

You wouldn't accept your kind of argument if it was transposed to Global Warming Alarmism, so I wonder why you employ it in re French Muslim Menace. My chagrin remains.

Why haven't you drug up something solid by now to support your alarmism? Why don't you man up and say you could be wrong on this issue, at least?

_____________________________________________

** Ed Hudgin's claim is still hanging there, waiting for some evidence to back it up. It is disturbing that Ed blows off pertinent questions about his sources of information. He didn't just pull the specific French, German and Dutch statistics out of his ass, so they must rest on someone else's authority. Who is that authority, where is the source?

None of your beeswax, OLers. Ed has 'given us the numbers,' and where they came from is no concern,

I think Ed may have cribbed his numbers from a few places, one of which is perhaps JihadWatch. It is interesting that every single one of Ed's six claims also appears in a viral video first uploaded in 2009, in exactly the same order:

  1. Some 90 percent of the population growth in Western Europe since 1990 has been the result of Islamic immigration. @ 2:38
  2. In France, 30 percent of children under 20 years old are Muslim. @ 2:58
  3. In 40 years the majority in France could be Muslim. @ 3:19
  4. In the Netherlands, about half of newborns are Muslim. @ 3:41
  5. In 15 to 20 years the majority in the Netherlands could be Muslim. @ 3:50
  6. In Germany, a government report from the Federal Statistics Office says that the Fatherland could be majority Muslim by 2050. @ 4:32

Now, it's not plagiarism, but I suggest Ed add "according to the video 'Muslim Demographics'" to that very detailed paragraph in his 2011 article:

Some 90 percent of the population growth in Western Europe since 1990 has been the result of Islamic immigration. In France, 30 percent of children under 20 years old are Muslim. In 40 years the majority in France could be Muslim. In the Netherlands, about half of newborns are Muslim. In 15 to 20 years the majority in the Netherlands could be Muslim. In Germany, a government report from the Federal Statistics Office says that the Fatherland could be majority Muslim by 2050 (all numbers according to the video 'Muslim Demographics').

And I wonder to myself, why didn't Ed just tell us that all his 2011 numbers came from the danged viral video. Isn't that video a fine and credible source of Muslim Menace numbers?

Edited by william.scherk
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I'm not going to nitpick about democratic takeover or play statistic basketball. I think the presence of significant and greatly increasing Muslim populations in several European nations, especially France, Germany and the Netherlands, will push those countries to the right--"right" in this sense in the direction of fascism. That's an opinion. I suspect this will spike the demographic expansion or significantly slow it down. I think there will be a call for mass deportations. How these calls will be acted on--or not--I can't possibly know. They will be intimidating and could even incite violence just by themselves. Regardless, you don't need a majority of any group to achieve significant political power through democratic processes. While Hitler's not coming back and it may work out better than I fear, there is not room for any compromise with jihad. The Muslims need another 'had'. They might have one. That's up to them.

--Brant

if there's something wrong with the unextrapolated demographic data, I'd like to know

you did all those links on me?--a great honor and I'll comment on them next

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  • 10 months later...

You're civilized. I'm civilized. The United States of America is not civilized. It never has been.

--Brant

And France has been civilized?

Algeria - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600132477/Algerians-recall-French-repression-60-years-ago.html?pg=all

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Not much reason to think about France. The United States has a long history of very unnecessary wars some of those causing or leading to wars in turn. I don't believe in civilization inside the eggshell of imperialistic/moralistic endeavor no matter how many within are acting civilized just because they are civilized.

--Brant

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