Time to write a little on this topic. Visitors to this site may recall the piece posted here, “It’s a War of the Gods,” after the Charlie Hebdo murders last winter.
You could just substitute names and places from the recent Paris terror event, and insert them in that article, and get an overview of the ideological tensions we need to understand.
I don’t believe we’re ever going to come to grips with the clash between Islamism and the West, until we “get” where they are coming from in the ideological sense. I define an “ideology” as: “an autonomous system of interdependent ideas.” You have to get the ideas and ideals sorted out, first, and then ask how they are interconnected and bolster each other as an entire system of thought and feeling.
For those who haven’t seen it before, here is a dot-connecting excerpt from Chapter 13, “Multiculturalsim, Immigration, and Terrorism, from The Trouble With Canada … Still! (2010) that focuses on hard-core Islamism (as distinct from run of the mill, mushy, nominal Islam).
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“[Jihadists] say that they are committed to the destruction of the entire secular world because they believe this is a necessary first step to create an Islamic utopia on earth.”
~ Professor Mary Habeck, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, from Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror[1]
An Environics poll of February 2007 gave this result: about 80% of Canada’s Muslims said they were satisfied with their new life in Canada, and 73% of them thought the 9/11 terrorist attacks were completely unjustified. But more sinister responses in the poll were buried. Namely, the fact that an alarming 12% of Canadian Muslims questioned in this poll thought the planned attacks for which “the Toronto 18” were arrested, were justified (Licia Corbella, Calgary Sun, February 18, 2007).[2] In other words, by extrapolation, we may have anywhere from 50,000 to 85,000 Canadian Muslims who believe that blowing up our Parliament buildings (presumably with all MPs inside) and beheading the Canadian prime minister, is a great idea. They have lots of European company. Immediately after the 9/11 attack there was much Muslim dancing and cheering in Belgium and England. In Holland Contrast magazine found that 50 percent of Dutch Muslims were “in complete sympathy” with the attacks.[3] On the second “anniversary” of the 9/11 attack, radical British Muslims put up posters honouring the terrorists as “the Magnificent 19.” Who are these people? Why was there no public outcry?
Why Are We the Enemy?
The brand of Islam we ought to fear most, the one that is at the root of modern Islamic terrorism, is called Wahhabism. It is at the root of modern jihadism (a term that originally referred to personal spiritual struggle, but which for radicals now also means struggle against all non-believers: us). Wahhabism is the spiritual foundation of Al Qaeda [and now, of ISIS].
Its main radical theorists, ancient and modern, have been three. Ibn Taymiyah (1263-1328), who told his followers, “prescribed to you is fighting;” Abdullah Azzam (1941-1989), who advocated “Jihad and the rifle alone. No negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogue;” and Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), the most cited, and most influential, who declared “It is the duty of Islam to annihilate all other systems.” Like Azzam, Qutb advocated global domination by Islam. All these theorist are united in the singular view that the decline of Islam is not due to the internal weaknesses of the faith, but “is the deliberate policy of an external religious enemy whom jihadis can –and do – blame for all the evils suffered by Muslims around the world.”[4] Hence, the term “blame culture.”
Wahhabi Muslims (same for the West’s Reformation Christians) have been encouraged “to think for themselves,” and to reject the accumulated wisdom of Islam handed down by their clerics, and to favour instead a jihadist interpretation of Islamic teachings (the hadith) and of the Qur’an, and to disregard those parts that preach tolerance and peace, and ignore the peaceful Islamic mystics.[5] Their underlying conviction is that true human liberation comes from serving God alone, and that all man-made institutions rooted in beliefs such as democratic sovereignty and materialism are false beliefs that entrap and enslave us. Men must be slaves to God, but never to each other, or to false beliefs. For this reason, “jihadis today have made a critique of democracy the centerpiece of their ideology.”[6] Democracy is false because it teaches that we can arrive at truth by voting, whereas only God knows the truth. So we must strive to know and obey only God’s will. Democratic voting enslaves us to false human truth by majority rule and through a secularizing process of spiritual disarmament. Hence, all secular regimes must be either converted, or ended. “Islamism,” a term created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s, describes the belief that Islam is “the complete, obligatory, and virtually non-negotiable guide to human existence,”[7] the foundation for which is Shari’a law. For radical Islamists, this means ending even Islamic regimes that are not truly Islamic: estimates are that 100,000 moderate Muslims have been slain by militant Islamists aiming for control of Algeria. It is a pattern repeated in many Muslim nations oppressed by their own radicals. Less than purely Islamic regimes are considered despicable “jahiliyya” – places of darkness and ignorance. They complain of modern Christians and Jews that once they secularized, they banished religion from public life and in so doing “destroyed the only source of ethics and morality, and therefore have no aim in life except to seek benefit and enjoyment.”[8] So for true believers, the United States and the West (yes, Canada too) are regimes of darkness, modern jahiliyya. To see this belief in action in Canada, go to the website of The Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, which has an important office in Toronto, and which “publicly supports armed struggle against the unbelievers.”[9] Follow the threads. Although Wahhabist radical thinking has not found deep support in the world’s wider Muslim movements, it nevertheless exists as a powerful force devoted to the use of terrorism both within and against the West to achieve its utopia. After 9/11, Swiss police raided the Lugano, Switzerland home of a key Muslim Brotherhood organizer, Youseff Nada, and found a 14-page manifesto entitled “The Project,” written in Arabic in 1982 by Wahhabi luminaries. It outlines a twelve-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth.”
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Snapshot
Islamic Terrorism In Canada, Against Canada, and Against “The West”
* Fact: Canada is the only country left on Osama Bin-Laden’s seven-country hit list, still to be bombed.
* The bomb that killed or injured more than 1,400 people in Sri Lanka’s capital city, Colombo, in 1996 was paid for from a Canadian bank account (Source: Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion)
* At a Terrorism Conference in May, 2004 the US Attorney General and the FBI revealed that Abderraouf Jdey, found with a martyrdom video, and Amer El-Maati, a licenced pilot who wanted to crash a plane into a US building … were both Canadians.
* US Intelligence awoke to the fact that Canada nurtures and exports terrorism in 1997 when one Gazi Mezer crossed our border into the USA to blow up the Atlantic Avenue Subway in Brooklyn.
* One of Osama Bin-Laden’s confidants is nicknamed “El Kanadi” – the Canadian.
* The Mississauga-based Al Fauz Institute has featured Azzam Tamimi as a faculty member who has proclaimed: “I don’t believe in democracy anymore,” explicitly praises suicide bombers, and says he is willing to blow himself up in Israel.
* In March 2009 Canadian Momin Khawaja was sentenced for financing and building explosive detonators for use in terrorist attacks.
* In a 2009 Quebec case, Sid Namouth was pronounced guilty of planning terrorist attacks.
* Zakaria Amara, leader of the Toronto 18, who pleaded guilty on October 8, 2009, confessed that his plan for U-Haul trucks loaded with explosives (and metal chips to cause more civilian casualties) were meant “to cripple Canada” and to be detonated mid-November at the Toronto Stock Exchange, at the CSIS office, and at a military base between Toronto and Kingston. In January 2010 Amara was sentenced to life in prison.
* In February 2010, Said Namouth, a Moroccan man living in Canada since 2003 who spread hatred from his Montreal apartment, was sentenced to life in prison. On his blog he wrote: “Terrorism is in our blood, and with it we will drown the unjust.”
* The ritual Islamic prayer, says Tarek Fatah (former head of the Muslim Canadian Congress, an anti-extremist Muslim group), “asking for the defeat of Christians and Jews, and the Victory of Islam, is not unique;” it is uttered by many Imams across Canada, and is “spreading hate instead of harmony.”
* In May of 2009 Canada’s CBC quoted an anonymous source who claimed that Al-Shabab, a Somali Taliban-style terrorist organization has recruited 20 to 30 young Canadian men.
* On March 8, 2010 Canada added Al-Shabab to its list of banned terrorist organizations.
* On January 3, 2009, Al Qaeda called on Muslims “to kill every Western diplomat on the Arabian Peninsula.” There are Canadian diplomats there.
* In December 2001 the National Post listed 16 Islamic terrorists who had been living in Canada, most of whom had been convicted of terrorism by other countries. They were never charged in Canada.
* Among defendants in the $1 Trillion dollar lawsuit against 9/11 attackers are Muslim groups such as The Benevolence International Fund, Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World league, Int’l Islamic Relief Organization, and the SAAR Foundation – all of which have a presence in Canada, several with offices in Ottawa.
* As of 2006 Canada, acting on a British tip, laid its first charge of terrorism – against Mohammad Khawaja – for involvement in a London bombing plot.
* On his Saudi-based web-portal Islam Q & A, Muslim cleric Al-Munajjid, who has a large Canadian following has (quoting the supposed words of Muhammad) “urged Muslim youth not to live among the non-Muslims, unless the objective of living in the West was to convert the non-Muslim to Islam” (National Post, November 9, 2009).
* On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Abdulmutallab was prevented by passengers on a flight from Europe to Detroit from igniting explosives hidden in his underwear. In a speech reported in March 2009, warning the USA to think more pro-actively about terrorist possibilities, Israeli Agent Juval Aviv said he was now just “waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosives on his underwear.” Prophetic, what?
* Conversion from Islam to Christianity (or any other religion) is punishable by beheading.
* As of 2008, “Muslim countries or groups are either at war or in a hostile truce with every civilization that Islam abuts, from Nigeria too Xinjiang [China]” (Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, p. 163)
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What Is To Be Done?
Multiculturalism
Stop Funding “multiculturalism”
Ethnic groups lobbying for money from the State are like any other lobby group. They use the money to circumvent the political process. The government must stop funding all of them—left, right, business, radical, ethnic, all of them. Let them fight for what they want through their democratically elected representatives, or through privately funded groups. Canada’s government should reconstitute, publicize, and require schools to inculcate, the key symbols of Canada’s deep culture before they are totally forgotten
Require Instruction in Canada’s Deep Culture.
Immigrants to Canada should be instructed in the core heritage and culture of this nation, which is Judeo-Christian, Graeco-Roman, and Anglo-European. And they should be expected to assimilate to that culture. This does not mean losing their own, which they are free to promote and protect, using their own resources, if they so desire. But it does mean their own culture is secondary.
End the Contradictions and Unrest of Multicultural Policy
The government must recognize that its “multicultural” policy is self-contradictory and that it is currently funding long-term social unrest by rewarding the development of cultural differences within Canada. Unity cannot be derived from “diversity.” Just as deep cultural differences lead to strife between nations, they lead, and have led, to strife between the “nations-within-Canada.”
Immigration
The People Must Set the Immigration Agenda
Government must consult the people through a democratic referendum on immigration to find out what they want their country to become. That should set the government’s immigration agenda. During the period of the referendum discussion—say two years—all immigration should be halted: visitors’ permits only. If the country belongs to Canadians, then let them decide on their own future.
Stimulate Home-Grown Population
If there is concern over zero growth, Canada should aggressively examine ways to stimulate growth in the Canadian family before resorting to costly and culturally-dislocating immigration.
Make Immigrants Sign a Vow of Citizenship
All immigrants should be required to sign a Vow of Citizenship that among many other things would include a signed statement to the effect that in the case of a conflict or war with their country of origin, they would unhesitatingly defend and fight for Canada if required. This is expected of all citizens born here, and it ought to be explicitly required of all immigrants.
End Dual Citizenship
Dual Citizenship should be banned. If you want the rights and freedoms of Canadian citizenship, you must surrender those of all other nationalities. No cherry-picking. You cannot defend or fight for Canada if in terms of patriotism you live in a divided house. Split national loyalties and “citizens of convenience” are not wanted in Canada.
Conclusion
A government that imposes a multicultural policy and non-traditional immigration on any nation in a calculated attempt to neutralize its deep culture is guilty of subverting the ethos of the nation. Such programs are a veneer disguising cynical vote-grabbing. They have had the effect of transforming Canada, in the space of two decades, into a nation that is eradicating its own historical deep culture. Unless we learn the lessons of history, this can end, at best, in long-term erosion of our civilizational greatness, and at worst in intra-ethnic strife and militancy on our own soil (such as we have seen already, and will likely see again, in Québec).
[1] Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New Haven, Conn,: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 7
[2] As reported in Daniel Stoffman, “Truths and Myths About Immigration,” in Immigration Policy and the Terrorist Threat (Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 2008), p.14. The papers in this volume were gathered from a conference on Terrorism held in Toronto, June 2007.
[3] Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p.256.
[4] Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, p.12. Habeck explains that all Jihadists share five understandings: Islam is the one true faith that will dominate the world; Muslim rulers must govern by the Shari’a alone; that their Holy Books contain the whole truth for living a righteous life; that there can be no separation between religion and life; and … that all true Muslims are in a State of conflict with unbelievers (p.17).
[5] On this note, a man I assume was my forbear, William Henry Temple Gairdner (1873-1928) a former British Anglican Canon of Cairo (referred to by his followers as “Temple Gairdner of Cairo” – which is also the title of the moving biography of his life by his secretary, Constance Padwick), published a then very successful book The Reproach of Islam (London: Church Missionary Society, 1909). That book sold over 20,000 copies, and was devoted to describing the contrast between Christianity and Islam. Gairdner’s main thesis was that Christianity had failed to do its job, and so Islam arose to fill the spiritual vacuum. He was also the founder of a very long-lived journal, “Occident and Orient,” which attempted to bring the two worlds together.
[6] Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, p.72.
[7] Andrew McCarthy, “Islam and the Left,” in The New Criterion, January, 2010, p.18.
[8] Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, p. 72
[9] Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, note 31, p.193.
