De-glamorizing jihad; glamorizing Rice

The Department of Homeland Security has prohibited the use by U.S. government agencies of the words “jihad” and “jihadism”—not because it will offend and anger Muslims, and so turn them into jihadists (an argument that has been made before), but because to speak of jihad “glamorizes terrorism [and] imbues [terrorists] with religious authority they do not have,” and therefore “[boosts] support for terrorists among Muslims.” In other words, it’s not the experience of hearing jihad being extolled by the Koran and other Islamic teachings that gives jihad religious authority in the minds of Muslims, it’s the experience of hearing jihad being criticized by Western governments that gives jihad religious authority in the minds of Muslims.

Wow. I thought that by now I had identified and listed every possible Non-Islam Theory of Islamic Extremism, b which Islamic extremism is blamed on everything in the world, except Islam. But the U.S. government has just come up with one I never could have imagined.

Meanwhile, the New York Post, while scorning this government regulation which prevents our government from talking about jihadism, rushes to remind us that jihadism is “not mainstream Islam, of course.” [Italics added.]

But, gosh, if just hearing Western leaders speak the word jihad is likely to excite mainstream Muslims to follow jihad, doesn’t that suggest that the attraction to jihad is part of their very formation as mainstream Muslims?

After all, it’s very easy to get a dog to bark and wag its tail, right? That’s because barking and tail wagging express something that is central to a dog’s essence. By the same token, if it’s so easy, even unintentionally, to get Muslims to become jihadists, doesn’t that suggest that jihadism is central to the essence of Islam?

Nope. According to Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society (which perfectly complements the Non-Islamic Theories of Islamic Extremism), everything bad that non-Western groups do has got to be OUR fault. By this thinking, if Muslims follow the 1,400 year old sacred Islamic command to wage holy war against infidels, it’s because the Muslims have heard Western governments opposing holy war, which in turn has made holy war seem, uh, holy to the Muslims. Which somehow had never occurred to them until they heard Westerners talk about it.

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Meanwhile, look at the photo of Condoleezza Rice that accompanies the New York Post editorial:

Have you ever seen a male public official smile with such glowing self-love, in which we see the very lineaments of satisfied (narcissistic) desire? What have I been saying about Rice for the last several years? That vanity is what she’s about, not her job, not the well-being of America, not the well-being of our allies. The worse her policies fail, the more her initiatives are rejected and discredited, the more infatuated and happy she becomes with herself. That’s what happens when you put women in high governmental positions in a feminist society. Their vanity, which in normal circumstances is a normal and natural part of their being, goes into hyper-drive and becomes toxic. They thus pervert both the official positions they occupy, and their female nature.

Feminism ruins everything it touches. NOTHING good has come from feminism. ONLY bad.

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Carol Iannone writes:

When you think about it, her using her own past in the segregated South to show her understanding of the Mideast was an example of the narcissism of which you speak. Who cares what the background of the Secretary of State is. The only important thing is what is he or she doing in developing and advancing American foreign policy. Aside from that, the comparison was inapt and confusing since there is no parallel between the Palestinians and the oppressed blacks of the American South, nor between Israel and whoever was the other end of the comparison on this point—the segregationsts? the state government? the federal government? Also, given that the Mideast is such a cauldron of fear and insecurity, and has been vexed for decades with violence and gore, for Rice, ensconced in perks and privileges, to act as if the she understands what they are going through, based on a relatively brief experience many years ago, is rather insensitive. As far as its being a woman thing, you could be right. But I don’t recall even Madeline Albright parading her personal experience as if it gave her some moral superiority to pronounce on situations in which people live in difficulties very foreign to present-day Americans.

LA replies:

My argument making Rice exemplary of female officials may be unfair in that her vanity, which you have pinpointed, seems to be well beyond the norm. At the same time, the very extremity of her vanity brings into focus a typically female trait that, while it may not be as extreme (and downright dangerous) in other female officials as in her, is still definitely there.

I agree that Albright did not seem to have any particular vanity.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 02, 2008 10:10 AM | Send