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A man of courage stands up and is counted at NRO
Dean Ericson writes:
Over at NRO this morning an article by Clifford May caught my eye with this promising headline teaser: “A decade after 9/11, can we name our enemies?” Eager to see if we could name our enemies, or even one enemy, I clicked over, only to discover that the name of enemy was not “Islam,” but “jihadism.” Who knew?! I sent in this comment:
Mr. May,
Can we not say that Islam itself, as propounded and practiced by Mohammad, as enshrined in Koran, Sunnah, and Sira, and as its long history of violent expansion testifies, that it is Islam itself that is implacably hostile, and hostile not only to the West, but to any and all infidels? Apparently we cannot say that, even though it is manifestly true. We cannot say it, even in an article congratulating itself for having the courage to name the enemy that everyone else is reluctant to name. You, like those others you criticize, dodge the matter, naming the enemy not as Islam, but as “jihadism,” and then proceeding to split hairs by contrasting that with “Islamism.” Why not just name the enemy?—ISLAM.
LA replies:
That’s pathetic of May. Mainstream conservative writers have been commonly using the terms “jihadism” and “jihadists” to describe our enemies since around 2004-2005. Yet he thinks he’s bravely breaking new ground by saying “jihadists.”
August 26
Daniel S. writes:
I always find it amusing when neocons seek to present themselves as the courageous knights fighting political correctness, only to embrace the very enemy they claim to be fighting. Jihadism is an ultimately empty term. I noticed this several years back when reading neocon Catholic George Weigel’s book “Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism”. While proclaiming to name our enemy, he did everything to avoid naming the enemy, instead only naming a tactic of the enemy. Jihad is a means to an end, not the end itself, and radical Muslims are all to eager to abandon armed conflict if they think they can obtain shariah through political channels. Furthermore, the idea of jihad did not spring from the vacuum or from the deranged mind of Osama bin Laden, like Athena from Zeus’ head, rather it is a doctrine that has its foundation in the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad. It is not something separate from the Islamic religion, but the main means of enforcing the theo-political domination of Islam.
As far as the National Review goes, haven’t any of the writers there (aside from Andrew McCarthy) read anything by Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or, or Srdja [pron. Serdya] Trifkovic?
LA replies:
This is an interesting comment. My first reaction is to disagree with your idea that “fighting jihadism” is an empty concept equivalent to “fighting terrorism,” since, as you put it, jihadism, like terrorism, is merely a means to achieve an end, not a substantial entity that one can fight. As I see it, jihad is central to Islam, not just an instrument to reach Islamic ends. Indeed, in the Koran, the highest Islamic experience is the sacralization of self and the entry into paradise that one attains in the act of killing and dying in holy war.
At the same time, I can see your point that jihad is still the means to attain this holy end of Islam.
I still say that “jihadism” and “jihadists” are objectively descriptive and useful terms for our adversary, and should not be given up, if that is what you are suggesting. At the same time, “jihadists” and “jihadism” clearly are not the fullest and most accurate description of our adversary. “Islam” and “Muslims” are.
LA continues:
By analogy, the Eucharist is the central act of the Christian religion. But we don’t call Christianity “Eucharistism.”
Daniel S. writes:
You wrote:
This is an interesting comment. My first reaction is to disagree with your idea that “fighting jihadism” is an empty concept equivalent to “fighting terrorism,” since, as you put it, jihadism, like terrorism, is merely a means to achieve an end, not a substantial entity that one can fight. As I see it, jihad is central to Islam, not just an instrument to reach Islamic ends. Indeed, in the Koran, the highest Islamic experience is the sacralization of self and the entry into paradise that one attains in the act of killing and dying in holy war.
I should have qualified my statement: Jihadism is an ultimately empty term, when used by most neoconservatives. That is to say, like the term “Islamism”, the term “jihadism” is an attempt to sound like one is actually naming the enemy, without actually naming it. You are correct that jihad is integral to the Islamic creed, indeed Islam’s theo-political world order owes its very existence to jihad and the Koran bestows the highest praise on those who embrace jihad and martyrdom. But when most movement conservative use the term they are presenting “jihadism” as something different and apart from mainstream, orthodox Islamic doctrine, Mitt Romney is a case in point. It is akin to conservatives condemning political correctness, as if it something separate from liberalism.
I still say that “jihadism” and “jihadists” are objectively descriptive and useful terms for our adversary, and should not be given up, if that is what you are suggesting. At the same time, “jihadists” and “jihadism” clearly are not the fullest and most accurate description of our adversary. “Islam” and “Muslims” are.
No, I don’t advocate giving it up, if the correct context is used. I have used the term when I thought it appropriate and have never contested your usage of the term. At the same time, our enemy uses many more methods than armed jihad. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the Ground Zero mosque, cannot be described as a jihadist (at least in the terms presented by the neocons), but he certainly he is part of the problem we are facing. So how would Clifford May and George Weigel define the threat in light of Feisal Abdul Rauf and other “nonviolent” Muslims of his ilk?
LA replies:
Jihad in the broadest sense does not mean armed conflict alone, but the totality of expansionist means, both armed and “peaceful” (e.g., “peaceful” takeover via immigration) by which non-Muslim territory is brought under the power of the Islamic law. However, since “jihad” is generally taken to mean armed conflict, “jihadist” is probably not the best word for someone like Rauf. I would describe him simply as a Muslim who is following the Muslim command to expand the power of Islam.
As for Romney, his case is extreme, since he explicitly denies any connection between jihadism and Islam, which I had not seen any other conservative do. I was not aware of what you are saying, that neoconservatives generally are using “jihadism” in the same way that Romney uses it, and in the same way that they use “Islamism”—to denote something “different and apart from mainstream, orthodox Islamic doctrine.” If that turns out to be the case (and I don’t know yet that it is), then “jihadism” may have to go the way of “Islamism.”
August 26
Kilroy M. writes:
If it’s so cutting edge to declare that jihadism is the enemy, that would imply that it is quite ordinary to claim that jihadism is just plain dandy.
Isn’t is a truism that jihad is the enemy? The fact that it’s so novel to say so would imply that ordinarily the dominant view is that jihad is not the enemy at all, which is just bizarre. It illustrates the upside down world of the commentariat/MSM.
LA replies:
I’m not sure I agree. Mainstream media commentators have no awareness of the nature of Islam. To suggest the nature of the problem, the biggest authority for liberals on Islam is Karen Armstrong. I once read a book by her, I think it was called An Introduction to Islam. The word jihad did not appear in it. According to Armstrong, everything bad associated with Islam really comes from some non-Islamic source. For example, the great Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries were not driven by Koranic commands, but by various political/economic factors having nothing to do with Islam.
Again, Armstrong is the single most influential liberal writer on the nature of Islam. That gives you an idea of how far from reality liberals are on this issue. The very idea that Islam is a religion of war and conquest, or that there is even a thing called jihad, is basically unknown to liberals. Literally the only way that liberals can conceptualize anything bad about Islam, is to imagine that it’s an understandable Muslim response to Western oppression, e.g., the Israeli “occupation,” “Islamophobia,” “discrimination.”
So, to return to your point, if one is operating within the mainstream liberal culture, it is not such a small thing to use the term jihadism for our enemies. One is challenging the whole liberal view when one does so. That’s why Clifford May apparently thinks he’s being courageous by speaking of jihadism. In a limited sense he is. But he’s really not, because conservatives have been speaking of jihadism for a long time, and since May is a conservative he should not feel it’s a big deal to speak non-liberal truths.
August 27
Kilroy writes:
Just read your reply. Yes, that explains it. I sometimes wonder whether liberals are genuinely ignorant of these things or if this is just their way of rationalising their utopian view of man and society.
I was arguing with a lefty friend the other day and I asked him if he’d like to live in Somalia. He said no. I then asked him if we should limit the number of Somalis immigrating into our city. He said no. I then asked what he thought would happen to his suburb if it became majority populated by Somalis. At that point he just refused to answer the question and launched into a diatribe about how conservatives are divisive, etc. I feel that deep down inside he actually understood the problem but just refused to understand that he understood (if that makes sense). Like a baby holding his ears and shouting “naa naa naa, I can’t hear you!”
These people suffer a cognitive impairment that is intellectually debilitating, and they still think of themselves as enlightened and us conservatives as irrational troglodytes. Upside down world indeed!
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 25, 2011 09:37 AM | Send
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