The Mind of Political Islam and the New Al Qaeda Threat of Mass Murder:

Submitted by sm on 17 July, 2007 - 12:59

By John O'Mahony
The Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri has (July 10th) threatened Prime Minister Gordon Brown with mass murder in Britain, in retaliation for the award of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie. The knighthood, al-Zawahri said, was an "insult" to Muslims. This once more expresses, and in its most brutish and blood-thirsty form, the paradoid intolerance that governs political Islam.

We analysed the "moderate" version of this mindset, in this comment on the outcry that immediately greeted the award of the knighthood.

Salman Rushdie is to be pitied for the state of mind revealed in his response to the tawdry honour of knighthood bestowed on him by the British Establishment. The poor fellow said he felt "thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour".

Yeah? Well, that’s your business, Mr. Rushdie. The response in the Muslim world to the knighting of Rushdie, is everyone’s business.

What is involved is as painfully plain in this second Rushdie Affair as it was in the first, 18 years ago. As plain as it was in the uproar about the Danish cartoons last year, and in the preposterous international outcry against the Pope, the head of another religion, for criticising Islam, soon afterwards.

It is the demand by religious people, in the first place, Muslims — Muslim states and the dominant sections of Muslim communities in countries such as Britain — on non-Muslims, to observe and be bound by Islamic rules and prejudices, which they do not share, and would not freely choose to observe. A demand backed up by dire threats, and the memory of terrible deeds.

In response to the knighthood, they "demand" that people who are not Muslim, who reject the illiberal, medievalist culture associated with Islam in the societies where it is dominant, and in Muslim communities in countries like Britain, should nonetheless treat Rushdie with the hostility Muslims feel against him. That is, they should let Muslims dictate how they treat him.

It is the attempt by religious bigots to dictate to non-Muslims, and apostate ex-Muslims that they must obey Muslim rules, and actively share — or, as with Rushdie’s knighthood, not sharing, nonetheless serve — Muslim attitudes.

Of course, it is not only a problem of bigoted Islam. There are a lot of other religious bigots lurking in the undergrowth. The same issues are raised, though in a less dramatic and immediately less acute way, by the recent political activities of the Catholic Cardinals, Murphy O’Connor and O'Brien.

In the last couple of years, Cardinals Cormac Murphy O’Connor and Keith O'Brien, have,

* Told Catholics how to vote in the General Election;
* Attacked the rights of gay people;
* Campaigned to make Catholic doctrine — on abortion — legally binding on those who do not accept it;
* Told Catholic MPs to vote in Parliament on abortion as the Church tells them to, and, where there is a conflict, to vote against the wishes of those who elected them;
* Thereby attempted to put Christian religious sectarianism centre stage in British life once again.

That does not exhaust the list, by any means.

But it is Muslim militancy that has set the example and the pace for Catholic priests and others. For recklessness and lack of inhibition, as the new Rushdie Affair shows once again, they are in a class of their own.

The statements of those who have protested against Rushdie’s knighthood, tell us much about their authors and about the mindset of militant political Islam in general. I propose to examine some of them.

Rushdie has mortally offended Islam. How? By exercising what some would say is his "God-given" freedom to think and write. He wrote a novel, The Satanic Verses, in which he drew an unflattering portrait of the founder of Islam. He was condemned to death by the Ayatollah Khomeni, the clerical-fascist then ruler of Iran. A bounty of a million dollars was put on his head. He had to go into hiding for a decade.

Now clerical fascists in Iran have again put a bounty on his head — $150,000 (£75,000). Indeed, the reaction to the knighthood shows that what some Muslims resent most bitterly is the fact that Rushdie is still alive, 18 years after he was condemned to death by Khomeini.

Effigies of Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth have been burned in Pakistani streets. Crowds have protested in Pakistan’s cities, setting fire to British flags and chanting: "Death to Britain, death to Rushdie". In Multan, Muslim students burned effigies and chanted: "Kill him! Kill him!"

This outcry may yet escalate to the scale of the international uproar last Summer over the Danish cartoons, and the outcry against the Pope soon after. It has already spread to Indonesia.

Pakistan’s National Assembly has voted unanimously to demand that Britain cancels the knighthood, because honouring Rushdie will, the rulers of Pakistan insist, encourage "contempt" for the Prophet Muhammad.

Proposing the resolution in the Pakistan Parliament, Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, explained:

"The 'sir' title from Britain for blasphemer Salman Rushdie has hurt the sentiments of the Muslims across the world… I demand the British government immediately withdraw the title, as it is creating religious hatred."

Nobody is allowed to honour one condemned by the Islamic clergy? Yes; and isn’t that how it should be, in a well-ordered world?

Ijaz-ul-Haq, the Minister for Religious Affairs (a son of a former military dictator) called in the Assembly for suicide bombs in response to this outrage against Islam:

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'Sir' title."

"Extremism"? Not at all! What world, what century, do you, dear reader, think you’re living in?

It is not "extremism" to threaten to homicide-bomb those who honour a critic of Mohammed! The "extremists" are the enemies of Islam, who "provoke" them, who leave the faithful no choice but to resort to threats and violence.

Ijaz-ul-Haq later back-tracked, trying to explain it away, with these illuminating words:

"If someone blows himself up, he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism, when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West? We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims."

How do you "fight terrorism" by the "Warriors of Islam"? Obey their rules and prejudices, and thereby disarm them? Yes, of course: then they will have no occasion to suicide-bomb you. If you disobey them, then it is you who are fomenting Islamic terrorism.

That approach is one that is too often shared by invertebrate liberals in Britain.

The mindset of the leaders of the outcry, their religion-crazed arrogance and paranoia, was also on stark display in the explanation offered by Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry.

The decision to honour the novelist was "an orchestrated act of aggression against the Islamic world". Rushdie is one of that world’s " most hated figures".

"This act shows that insulting Islam…. is not accidental. It is planned, organised, guided and supported by some western countries."

"Giving a badge to one of the most hated figures in Islamic society is ... an obvious example of fighting against Islam by high-ranking British officials."

But why exactly should non-Muslims, Christians or Jews or adherents of any other religion, or atheists, refrain from "fighting Islam" if they think it a false religion, or a tissue of barbaric superstition and a relic of humankind’s Dark Ages?

Because Islam is the true religion, stupid!

In Islamic countries, Muslims "fight", harry and proscribe Christians.Why not? And, of course others have the attitude to Islam which militant Islam has to everything that is not Muslim!

Muslim leaders in Britain are more restrained in what they propose to do about the knighthood, but share fully in the outrage, the denunciation and the underlying assumptions.

Listen to the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari.

"Salman Rushdie earned notoriety amongst Muslims for the highly insulting and blasphemous manner in which he portrayed early Islamic figures," said Dr Bari.

"The granting of a knighthood to him can only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world. Many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world."

They will think most people in Britain do not share their views? That they may have positive views of their own on the freedom to write, think, speak? That they take it for granted that religion – any religion – can be criticised (or denounced, mocked, lampooned, caricatured, treated with derision and contempt)?

What is Dr. Bari’s sad reflection on Britain’s image in Muslim eyes now, if not the demand that Britain behave toward Rushdie in a way that will not harm Britain’s "image" with those who think he should be killed?

Dr Bari’s solution to the problem of Britain’s "image" in the Muslim world translates into a soft-voiced version of the demand that non-Muslims comply with the rules and judgements of the most bigoted Muslims. Or, in this case, refrain from pointedly defying them.

There are, I guess, a lot of Muslims who disagree with the bigots. But they are much less vocal. And, in the nature of things, many will be overawed morally by the raucous warriors of their religion.

Listen to the New Labour peer, Lord Ahmed.

He was, he said, appalled that Rushdie had been knighted. It was a "provocat[ion]". It would damage Britain in the Muslim world and inflame community relations at home.

"This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed... Honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of, because of what he did is going a bit too far."

That "sort of" probably means that on one level he knows he is talking arrant nonsense... But that doesn't stop him. This least "extreme" and most liberal of comments by Muslim leaders is perhaps the most subtly revealing of the mindset.

Read again: "This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings… many… killed... has blood on his hands."

The cause of bloodshed was not the crazed intolerance, the ingrained assumption that Muslims have the right to dictate rules of behaviour to non-Muslims, and anti-Muslims, and apostates of Islam like Rushdie, and the right to resort to murder, and mass murder, if they can’t get their way by threats alone?

What Lord Ahmed is saying is that the bloodshed was, for those who did the shedding of it, justified. The fault is not in them — and certainly not in the religion-rotted culture that shapes what they say, do and expect from others —
but in those who "provoke" them.

The remedy? Don’t provoke them by disobedience, defiance or indifference to their concerns? Plainly, yes.

If Muslims shed infidel blood, he who provoked them is responsible, not those who shed the blood (For example, those who shed the blood of two translators of Rushdie’s book, who were murdered for translating it… That too was Rushdie’s fault.)

The solution? Do not offend the sensibilities or hurt the "sentiments" of the self-righteous faithful. Obey them. Here, share Islam’s loathing of Rushdie.

That is the fundamental message of all Islamic - or Christian, or whatever - demands that their ideas should be treated with deference, and their prejudices bowed down to. It is a demand to let superstition and Dark Age bigotry shape public life.

Of course, all people should, as people, be treated with respect and tact. Racism disguised as "reasonable" criticism of Islam should be fought in this form as bitterly as in its naked forms. However, this demand for deference should be rejected and opposed in all its forms by anyone who think freedom of thought, speech and writing are worth defending. No matter what threats or deeds may accompany it.

The vote in the Pakistan Parliament shows up more than the state of mind of the political rulers of a state which, in the 1990s, fostered and nurtured the Taliban, and helped it win control of Afghanistan.

It shows up the hollowness of a "War On Terror", in which Pakistan, whose Minister for Religious Affairs openly endorses suicide bombings as a proper response to the British Establishment’s honouring of Rushdie, is one of America’s key allies,

For the kitsch-Left, the "Second Rushdie Affair" puts them up against the choice: break with your Islamic clerical-fascist allies, or again be the mouthpiece and outrider in Britain for extreme political and religious reaction.

Though I feel sorry for Rushdie, that he should want the stupid bauble the British Establishment is throwing to him, and the archaic royalist mummery that goes with it, I'm inclined to congratulate those, whoever they are, who decided to give it to him, despite the predictable outcry from the bigots who would rather see him dead than "honoured".

Comments

Submitted by Daniel_Randall on Tue, 26/06/2007 - 16:08

"I'm inclined to congratulate those, whoever they are, who decided to give [the knighthood] to him, despite the predictable outcry from the bigots who would rather see him dead than "honoured"."

Why?

Do you think they knighted Rushdie to strike a blow for secularism against religious bigotry? That the scurrying bureaucratic staff of the Queen - "the defender of the faith" - are making their own protest against the forwards march of organised religion?

Of course not. You may recall that Iqbal "homosexuality is a disease" Sacranie (ex-leader of the MCB) is also a "Sir". You don't have to line up behind the institution of knighthood to be clear about what's going on here. In fact, doing so somewhat muddies the waters.

Submitted by losttango on Fri, 29/06/2007 - 15:03

...it quite obvious that Rushdie is being honoured for being a successful and acclaimed writer - as with Sir Arnold Wesker, Sir Arthur C Clarke, Sir Michael Holroyd and others.

Religion doesn't really enter into the decision to grant him a knighthood. However, as Sean says, this insane outcry was predictable, and in this respect we should certainly support those who were prepared to risk it.

Honours of this sort don't I think come from the Palace but from the PM's office and while Blair (with his love of faith schools including Islamic ones) is hardly anti-religious, the decision to defy the clamour of religious bigots IS clearly a stand in favour of secularism. I think Sean gets it exactly right.

Incidentally, it's a long time since I read The Satanic Verses, but I'm not convinced it does attack Mohammed. As I recall it suggests that certain verses were excluded from the Koran because they were considered unsuitably feministic. It's probably less blasphemous than The Da Vinci Code or The Last Temptation of Christ.

Submitted by losttango on Tue, 03/07/2007 - 16:02

...the idea that freedom of speech and democracy are "western" values is not the property of the AWL, or even of "the West". You will find that the Islamists share this view, and in fact appear to have come up with it first. You should read their actual writings before making cosy assumptions about what they represent.

Liberal democracy and the AWL's kind of socialism have in common that at some level they hold that the will of the people is the highest law. Islamism holds that the word of God (as expressed in the Koran) is the highest law. (And since God is not available to submit to, people are required to submit to the Islamists).

To the extent that Marxism is a western system of thought, Marxists certainly do unashamedly privilege "western" ideas, but then the test of the validity of an idea is hardly its geographical provenance.

I have no idea who this "frantz" is, but if s/he was ever a marxist or a socialist s/he clearly ain't any more. But then fuzzy multiculturalism and/or sloganising anti-'westernism' is so much more sexy these days...

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