Islamism - The problem - What is wrong with the Islamic world?

The problem - What is wrong with the Islamic world?

After 9/11, when thousands of American innocents were killed by Islamic extremists for no reason, the central question is not:

The central question is not: "What is wrong with American foreign policy?"

The central question is: What is wrong with the Islamic world, and how will it reform?

The basic problem is very clear. It is that millions of people in the Islamic world do not believe in free speech, freedom of religion, democracy, a secular state, free enterprise and human rights. Millions of Muslims also have a hatred for Israel and America that has no rational basis.





Who is our enemy? , by Steven Den Beste, has a hard time defining who exactly is the west's enemy, but correctly points out it is not just a small group of terrorists. Much of the Islamic world - and almost all of the Arab Islamic world - must change . "This war will continue until the traditional crippled Arab culture is shattered. It won't end until they embrace reform or have it forced on them . Until a year ago, we were willing to be patient and let them embrace it slowly. Now we have no choice: we have to force them to reform because we cannot be safe until they do." "what we have to do is to take the 14th century culture of our enemies and bring it into the 17th century. Once we've done that, then we can work on bringing them into the 21st century ... But they've got to accept their own failure, personally and nationally and culturally. That is the essential first step. They've got to accept that the cause of their failure is their own culture ... And they've got to accept that the only way to succeed is to change. That will be a difficult fight, and it's going to take decades. Along the way it's going to be necessary to remove many governments which come to power and yet again try to embrace the past" The war will last decades: "This war will end when they change, but not before."

, by Steven Den Beste, has a hard time defining who exactly is the west's enemy, but correctly points out it is just a small group of terrorists. Much of the Islamic world - and almost of the Arab Islamic world - must . We (the west) don't want to do this. We would far prefer to let them stay in their own failed societies. Who on earth would volunteer for the job of reforming the Middle East? What a pain that after finally winning the Cold War, and entering what we hoped was a new era of peace and prosperity, the west now has to sign up for this endless exhausting job.

to do this. We would far to let them stay in their own failed societies. Who on earth would volunteer for the job of reforming the Middle East? What a pain that after finally winning the Cold War, and entering what we hoped was a new era of peace and prosperity, the west now has to sign up for endless exhausting job. We don't want to do this. We (the west) have to do this. Because they threaten us. Because they will destroy one of our cities with nuclear weapons as soon as they get a chance. So we have to reform them. They have forced us to.

to do this. We (the west) to do this. Because they threaten us. Because they will destroy one of our cities with nuclear weapons as soon as they get a chance. So we to reform them. They have us to. "Future War", 11 May 2007, captures how annoying it is that we have to deal with these people (the Islamists). It is almost embarrassing that these medieval savages are the future we have to deal with. He notes that despite having a centuries-out-of-date medieval philosophy, they do know how to fight a 21st century media war against soft democracies: "The future is armed to the teeth and is highly motivated, it is dispersed across an ever wider landscape, and it is not waiting for us to arrive: it has begun its relentless assault regardless, chanting the ancient slogans of religious bigotry and blood for a vengeful god. Unless we step into it and learn to fight the future war more effectively than our enemies, we have already lost."

Sharia's victory in those places is recent, and so can be made temporary. It can be reversed. Sharia was losing, not winning, in those countries when I was young. And hopefully it will be losing again, not winning, when I am old. Sharia can win in other places that are currently liberal. Even in Western or Westernised countries. And people will forget that things were ever different. They will view sharia as "natural" in those places.

"A warning from history". Copy here , before sharia came.People think that sharia is thestate of these countries. But of course, it is merely the thing that is currently, having defeated the liberals, for now.The lessons of the video are:





If you want a 5 minute summary of what is wrong with the Islamic world, here it is.

Freedom House ranks countries' political freedoms and civil liberties as "Free", "Partly Free" and "Not Free".

Here is their ranking for the main belt of Islamic countries:



Or, as a map, their 2014 ranking:

Green - "Free".Yellow - "Partly Free".Purple - "Not Free".



And the entire world:



That's it, in a nutshell. That's the problem.

One of the most depressing aspects of the modern crisis has been. The West has done far more soul-searching, even though it is not to blame.

There has been depressingly little discussion among Muslims of what is wrong with the Islamic world to have: (a) produced these evil butchers (and thousands more like them), and: (b) to have so many poor and unfree and violent countries. Apart from a couple of days pause, there has been just the same old Islamic arrogance, as if it's the West that has to apologise for being rich and free.

There are a few brave voices in the Muslim world, but so few it is depressing.





A lot of Muslims "against terrorism" turn out to be anything but. You have to examine each case.It's a joke, but actually, it's serious too.Imagine, for just one second, that the above could happen.Imagine what a future of freedom and prosperity there would be for the Islamic world.Will it takebefore the Islamic world gets sense, and becomes rich and free like us, or will it only takeFrom The People's Cube





Fatwa against Terrorism by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.

That sounds great doesn't it?

Don't get your hopes up. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri supports the death sentence for blasphemy: "My point of view was, and I managed to get this made into law , that whoever commits blasphemy against the Prophet, Moslem or non-Moslem, man or woman ... their punishment will be death! ... blasphemy against the Prophet will not imply any possibility for repentance or forgiveness, rather, he must be executed immediately! ... And those who open their mouths, Moslem, Jew, Christian, believer, infidel, man or woman, will be executed like a dog!"

I think we will find that the "terrorism" he condemns is something other than what we mean by "terrorism", and does not include, say, terror attacks against Israeli civilians.

If "Fatwa against Terrorism" ever condemns terror against Israel, please tell me.

In 2013, I tweeted to both fatwaonterror and TahirulQadri to ask them did they condemn terror against Israel, and if so, where. They did not reply.

Two anti-Israel lefties, Gerry Casey and "Voodoo Criminology", rushed to their defence. But no condemnation of terror against Israel appeared. "Voodoo Criminology" later blocked me.

Robert Spencer notes that the "Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings" simply ignores the difficult Quran verses on violence, rather than addressing them. "There is a difference between reform and deception. Reformers confront what they are wishing to change. They show why they think the established view is wrong and offer an alternative. Qadri does not do that. He simply ignores key elements of the jihadist understanding of the Qur’an, offering no refutation or alternative explanation of verses that all too many Muslims believe are commanding them to do violence."

Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, the guy behind the "Fatwa against Terrorism", attacks Israel, 2014.He does not condemn terror against Israel.Has hecondemned terror against Israel?





Maryam Namazie, an atheist, ex-Muslim, activist from Iran, deserves a category all of her own. She is. That makes no sense. Very few people in the world are in that category.Maryam Namazie blocked me on Twitter for unknown crimes (basically, not being left-wing). She later unblocked me.She does not really like any allies against sharia unless they are far left.And since most of the far left are pro-sharia, it is a daft strategy. It's a shame she cannot be more broad-minded.When she had me blocked, I said





Western women in the Islamic world.There are parts of the Islamic world that tolerate - for the sake of western money - westerners behaving in ways that the locals would never be allowed to.These women are bringing the dress codes of the 1950s-1960s sexual revolution - an important part of western culture - to the beach in Abu Dhabi Photo 2010. From here Let us hope that decadent western culturetraditional Arab Islamic culture over the next few decades. Let us hope that their young people are seduced by the glamour of the West. Let us hope that their traditional ways are lost forever, and the vulgar secular consumerism of the West triumphs.I am not kidding. I really do hope this will happen.





Even the Muslim victims of the jihad need to do self-criticism Question for the suffering Muslims of Iraq and Syria: How many of you stood up against jihad in the past, before it went this far?

How many of you stood up for America in the past, and said jihad against American troops was wrong?

How many of you stood up for Israel in the past, and said jihad against Israelis was wrong? Almost none of you, is the answer.

And that is the problem.

The solution - The Islamic world must change. America and the West must assert themselves.

It is sad, given its current state, to think that the Middle East was once the greatest place on earth - the centre of human civilization, the heart of all human knowledge. Will it ever be a great place again? Only if it changes its entire present, which may not involve abandoning Islam, but will certainly involve becoming more secular. The Great Pyramid of Giza , Egypt.For nearlythis was the world's tallest building (from c.2570 BC to c.1300 AD).Photo 2005 by Nina Aldin Thune . See terms of use

Egypt's lost glory: Ancient Egypt was the greatest country on earth, at the vanguard of humanity's glorious civilization. And then the torch passed to other places, and Egyptians adopted ideas of little importance to human progress. It is sad to consider Egypt now, compared with what it once was. Even the discovery of Egypt's glorious past was done by westerners - not by Egyptians, who were largely uninterested in the topic. In fact, in 1196 Egyptian Muslims vandalised the Pyramids and tried to destroy them, and it was recorded that in 1378 Egyptian Muslims vandalised the Sphinx.

Let us hope that some day Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries are again at the frontier of human thought. For that ever to happen, they must change, and abandon the culture of their ancestors.





Raymond Ibrahim uses the above pictures to make the same point.

What kind of brain could you have to regard the woman on the left as "progress" from the woman on the right 4,000 years ago?





"Helping construct a stable democracy after decades of dictatorship is a massive undertaking. Yet we have a great advantage. Whenever people are given a choice in the matter, they prefer lives of freedom to lives of fear. Our enemies in Iraq are good at filling hospitals, but they do not build any. They can incite men to murder and suicide, but they cannot inspire men to live, and hope, and add to the progress of their country. The terrorists' only influence is violence, and their only agenda is death. Our agenda, in contrast, is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. ... Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all - to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations.

Like every nation that has made the journey to democracy, Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values. I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security, not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history, and find their own way. As they do, Iraqis can be certain, a free Iraq will always have a friend in the United States of America.

We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and all the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East."

- George W. Bush, May 2004, on Iraq.

Such incredible generosity in saying "Iraq will always have a friend in the United States of America" - after Iraq had threatened the USA and its allies for so many years. America is fast to forgive, once a country changes. If the Arab Middle East can change and adopt modern ideas of freedom, everyone there can be free, rich allies of America. Heaven on earth is there for the taking.



"Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. ... It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. ... Instead of affirming the value of tribal lifestyles, people in the West - activists, thinkers, government officials - should be working to dismantle them."

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad (2010).

"The Shariah law is the best justice, not the Western democracy which gives us bad regimes like Assad's."

- A Syrian jihadist bastard called Abu Omar al-Shesheni comically says that Assad's brutal, Oriental dictatorship was somehow "Western democracy", which is now discredited, and Islamism is the answer.



"People, you have tried secular rulings (republic, Baathist, Safavids) and it pained you. Now is time for an Islamic state."

- Maniac jihadists ISIS take over Mosul, June 2014, and comically claim that secular democracy has been tried and is now discredited.



Abu Omar al-Shesheni and ISIS sum up what is wrong with the Islamic world. They will try anything - Islamism, Shariah, theocracy, caliphate, tribalism, pan-Arabism, Marxism, communism, fascism, strongman dictatorship, royal family dictatorship. Anything, anything except liberal democracy.