The Enemy Who Must Not Be Named
Melanie Phillips is enormously unhappy with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the government response to the recent failed terror attacks by a bunch of homicidal (but thankfully technically inept) jihadi doctors. The response thus far has been to ban the word 'Muslim' from discussions of terrorists who happen to be from the religion that may no longer be named.
Britain is now fighting a war it dares not name. The recent failed car bomb attacks on a London nightclub and Glasgow airport demonstrated once again that Britain is a principal target for al-Qaeda. But even now, the British response is dangerously confused.
After eight people in the medical profession were arrested over these attacks, there was widespread shock that those who cure should also want to kill. This naive and ahistorical reaction demonstrated yet again the extraordinary state of denial about the Islamist jihad. After all, Osama bin Laden's sidekick, Ayman al-Zawahri, is a doctor. So are other Islamist terrorists, including Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas strongman in Gaza.
But because the deeply empirical British do not understand how religious fanaticism twists the human mind, they tell themselves that Islamic terrorism must be driven by rational grievances such as deprivation, "Islamophobia" or British foreign policy.
Many continue to believe that Britain is a target because of its involvement in Iraq. While the war is undoubtedly used to whip up hysteria in the Muslim world, the irrationality of believing that it is the cause of Islamic terror is clearly demonstrated by the fact that British Muslims who have been jailed for terrorist offenses were recruited even before 9/11. Al-Qaeda is also heavily engaged in places such as Indonesia or Africa, which have no connection to Iraq or the Middle East.
In Britain, all these grievance excuses are wearing very thin, thanks to the recent emergence of former jihadists who have renounced their extremism.
Ed Husain, in his book The Islamist, and another former radical, Hassan Butt, have made the case that the doctrines to which they once subscribed are rooted in nothing other than a fanatical desire to Islamize the world.
But while these courageous people are telling Britain that, far from being motivated by despair, Islamist terrorists kill as an act of religious exultation, the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has banned his ministers from using the word "Muslim" — and presumably "Islamic" or "Islamist" — in connection with the terrorist crisis. He has also put an end to the phrase "war on terror."
While I try to separate islamists from Islam when writing about the subject, it is difficult when the jihadis themselves continue to trumpet their religious trappings and their public calls for the conquest of the West. Refusing to face that reality is, as Phillips points out, a dangerous sign of weakness.
War, World news | Gaius Tuesday, 10 July , 2007
By Anthony (Los Angeles), Tuesday, 10 July , 2007 @ 9:08 am
I don’t think one can separate “Islamists” from “Islam.” By its nature a political, aggressive religion, I have this feeling that the jihadis may be more right than most want to admit, and that those we call “moderates” aren’t practicing the religion the way Muhammad intended.