Recruitment drive
The BBC on Islamists attacking mosques.
The intensity of this Friday’s attack in Sinai is unprecedented in modern Egyptian history – never before have so many people been killed in such a short time by any terrorist group.
Regrettably though, this is not the first time that a mosque has been targeted by radical extremists. Iraqis know this; Syrians know this; as do many other populations around the world.
The scourge of radical Islamist extremism has been felt far more by Muslims than any other population. Muslims, by far, are its most numerous victims. And Muslims, most of all, are the ones fighting it.
Donald Trump please note.
Until now, radical groups have been trying to recruit in Egypt, from among local Egyptians. It is difficult to see that being remotely possible following this attack – irrespective of local grievances with the Egyptian state.
If anything, this will only intensify local opposition to any group that claims the slightest bit of sympathy for attacks of this nature. Indeed, that may be why no group has claimed responsibility for it because even for supporters of the Islamic State (IS) group, this attack was grotesque.
Islamists blowing up a mosque and shooting people who flee does seem like an odd way to promote Islamism, let alone recruit new members. Unless of course the whole point is the violence, and the religious cover is just that: a disguise, a pretext, a fig leaf.
You may be onto something there.
According to some piece of shit called CJ Werleman, religion isn’t to blame!
So can we carry the motion as read? (mallet goes BANG)
Still does not exculpate religion for all the other atrocities. Just this one, tentatively.
I love how the obvious anti-Sufi motives are downplayed here and even completely ignored in other publications. And I have the bad feeling that this is occurring either out of complete ignorance for theological divisions in the Muslim world or – even worse – to push the narrative that “Muslims” are the main victims of terrorism and that the terrorist operate removed from any religious or theological considerations out of pure nihilistic love of death. The big irony is of course that this narrative rests on the assumption that “Muslims” form one big monolithic block – usually something that Islamophobes get accused of.
Fact is: nearly any terrorist attack on Muslim sites or institutions follows a very distinct pattern. Usually, the perpetrators are either associated with the Salafi or orthodox Sunni movement in the Middle East or the Deobandi movement in South and South-East Asia. And usually, the victims do belong to religious minorities with in Islam or at least movements which are in conflict with Sunni orthodoxy; Shias, Sufis, Ahmadis etc. Furthermore, many of the targeted sites were linked to practices which are considered idolatrous or polytheistic in orthodox Sunni / Salafi-circles, most importantly the worship of saints. In light of the many attacks on Sufi heritage in the MENA region (most famously the destruction of sites in Timbuktu) and in line with the fact that this is not the first case of anti-Sufi violence on the Sinau, it seems absurd that the targeting of a Sufi mosque is coincidental.
You’re right. I didn’t include the part where the BBC talked about the anti-Sufi motives because I don’t know enough about it. Thank you for alerting us.
To acknowledge anti-Sufi, or anti-Ahmadi, or the broadest anti-Shia violence, would require seeing Islam without the bogus pieties about ‘community’ and ‘community leaders.’ Islam is not a monolith, though its violent subcultures always insist that it is.
Even right-wing paranoia about ‘Sharia’ simply ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a single, unanimous, ‘Islamic Law.’
@AoS#2
Am I misunderstanding you? If the irony has flown over my head then I shall turn in my English National badge (something I feel inclined to do since Brexit anyway) and go stand in the corner.
It isn’t religion, or not religion alone, and there’s nothing about Islam as a religion that automatically makes it violent. Is Christianity peaceful? Not if you look at the Inquisition and the Crusades. Oh but that’s years ago. Thing were different then! Yes, exactly, Religion gets reflected through the lens of culture. The two are massively intertwined everywhere – and you can wind politics into the mess as well, but you have (mostly) peaceful Muslims, in peaceful corners of the world, just as you have violent Christians in parts of the world where the local culture allows violence. Look at India for Christian/Hindu/Sikh violence. In the west – including the areas I have lived for the last 30 years – the vast majority of Muslims are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. The few – the very few – who are radicalised get that way by choosing to buy into middle eastern cultural rhetoric where, alas, violence is a much more common and therefore accepted tactic. Most UK Muslims I’ve lived/worked by regard these guys and their families with a mixture of horror and pity. They fear losing their children, they fear the effects on mainstream white culture, just like white folk they fear being caught in the violence themselves. They pity the parents who have to accept their beloved sons have turned into monsters, and, just a little, they pity the boys themselves, because they have a much better idea than us white people of the pressures and temptations that have led ordinary boys down such a dreadful path.
They also tend to have a much better idea of how western interference in the middle east has destabilised the area and continues to do so. They understand the anger that comes when their young people learn about this. Being a teen frequently involves espousing fairly extreme views based on having such intense emotions that have yet to be cushioned by experience. To a teen, a perceived injustice hurts more than most of us can remember. The problem comes with this being the first generation who have easy access to others all round the world who will reinforce their views and feelings. They are the first generation who can contact someone like a Daesh recruiter with ease from the safety of their bedrooms. They are the first generation where they can have their path to a Daesh training camp explained and organised by someone in Afghanistan. The fact it’s Muslim youth who are the first generation caught up in this is pretty random. It could have been any western immigrant group, depending on where the trouble spots were at the time this new communication ability became common among young people.
Should we say Christianity is the cause of terrorism because of the IRA and the US Evangelical abortion clinic bombs? The IRA were Catholic and Catholic/Protestant violence and intimidation is still a thing in Northern Ireland. Oh, say people, but that’s really about a united Ireland! Yes, it is. Just as the Muslim terrorism has its roots in the political structures of the middle east and groups who really, really think that if they restore a theocracy – by definition a political structure – they will be able to kick out the west and western cultural influence. And that’s both a cultural and political aim at least as much – if not more so – than a religious one. Just as Shia v Sunni has been politics dressed up as religion since the Shiat Ali and Ali’s assassination.
and there’s nothing about Islam as a religion that automatically makes it violent.
How very comforting a thought that is.
Perhaps you could trade in your English National Badge for a brand new Koran.
Well there’s probably nothing about any ideology/set of ideas that makes it automatically violent, but that’s not really the issue. I think it’s reasonable to say that some ideologies do promote or valorize hatred of Outsiders, which tends to promote or valorize violence against them, and I think most religions are high on the list of ideologies that do that. The religions of The Book have texts that we can look at, so we can see the places where hatred of Outsiders is urged on the reader/listener.
@John#8
What a remarkably intelligent and cogently argued point.
(Oh, look, there’s the irony! Guess I get to keep my English national identity after all.)
Now, dear, do up your game and try actually addressing the points I made. Too hard? Oh dear. Perhaps, then, you’d better run along and play while the grown ups talk. Bye bye.
Religions are ideologies, ie they are inherently political. Anyone who lives in a majority Muslim society understands that simple fact very well. The notion that religion and political motives can be seperated is just wishful thinking. In reference to inherent violence, Islam was invented by a desert bandit and his followers, who enslaved entire tribes, massacred their enemies and robbed and murdered. Islam, unlike Christianity was spread by the sword from its invention in the 7th century. I haven’t noticed any references to Jesus or the Buddha recommending similar behaviour.
Now, dear, do up your game and try actually addressing the points I made.
I am sorry, but I see little to nothing in Islam’s core texts that could support your assertion that there be nothing about Islam…as a religion… that makes it inherently violent.
Once again, and let me be clear, I apologise for the fact Islam’s core texts fail to support your assertion
Religions are ideologies, ie they are inherently political. Anyone who lives in a majority Muslim society understands that simple fact very well.
Exactly, and the islamists patiently setting up shop amongst us legitimize, normalize and insulate their illiberal ideology from cirticism by invoking Freedom of Religion.
The principle of Freedom of Conscience is now being transformed\gerrymandered into a means to quash Freedom of Conscience.
*Islamophobia*…the scourge of our times!
John, I could make exactly the same argument about Christianity. Not the neutered, tired, Anglican, Catholic or Presbytarian varieties that have grudgingly accepted their place in a secular world (for now). Rather, the old medieval Church Militant, or the modern evangelists and dominionists who seek to influence the military and government (especially in the US, but also elsewhere).
That expression of Christianity is just as violent as the Islamists of today (and the past), and has as much backing in the Bible as they do in the Koran.
I agree with you that Islamists are a threat to our way of life, but so are religious and social conservatives of all stripes and shades.
Your particular obsession smells of something very unpleasant, based as it is on targeting a particular group who behave in an appalling way, rather than all those who do or would given a chance.
Apologies for the length of this response to Steamshovelmania, #7.
Not my words, but direct from ISIS’ magazine, Dabiq. The quote below is reason #1 of 6.
Straight from the gee-gee’s mouth, so to speak.
Now, what were you telling John about grown-ups talking?
@AoS
You’ve pretty much ignored all the points I’ve made. Can you find violent, hateful muslim rhetoric? Of course you can. Especially if the place you’re looking is a Daesh publication. Have you looked at Muslim commentary decrying Islamist extremism? Or are are you one of those people who prefers to believe that doesn’t exist?
There’s a bunch of muslim guys in my city who have a big stall in the city centre most days. They are an (apparently non-existent if you listen to the mainstream media) group who have two purposes – to engage potentially disaffected youth and stand against radicalisation and to be a showcase for peaceful Islam for non-Muslims. They loathe Daesh and speak out against them. Why is Daesh more representative of Islam as opposed that of this group who name themselves “Islam Against Extremism”?
Why do you consider Daesh to be representative of all of Islam? Do you consider Christian terrorists representative of all of Christianity or Christian culture (which would include me, and very probably you, even if you, like me are not religious). Daesh aren’t the entirety, or even the majority, of Muslims. Even in the middle east they are a minority. So why do you say that they speak for Islam? Does a Christian abortion clinic bomber speak for you?
I live in the UK. There are 3 million Muslim people in the UK, of whom an estimated 3 000 may be linked, in some way, to Daesh. That’s 1%. The percentage is probably higher in the middle east – how high – 5x? So 5% are Daesh sympathisers. 10x higher? So that’s 10%. Why are you looking at a minority extremist sect and declaring it representative of the whole? That’s not sensible, rational, or, honestly, anything other than bigoted.
I’m not representing the minority as the whole, and I defy you to show me where I did.
I posted a tweet by an Islamist apologist who claimed that an attack by one sect on another sect was political, not religious. I call that claim bullshit, as do the perpetrators of the attack.
If you have a problem with that, I can only suggest you explain to ISIS why their motivation for killing other Muslims isn’t what they repeatedly say it is.
I didn’t make mention of other religions because other religions weren’t involved in this incident. I don’t play whataboutery. I don’t doubt that the extremists of most religions would happily slaughter the opposition given the opportunity – one only has to look at the Evangelists straining at the leash to get stuck in at the End Days, or to make homosexuality a capital offence to see the truth of that, but they weren’t involved in this incident so didn’t get a mention.
I feel like I’ve just seen the goalposts go whizzing past… but in case I’m being uncharitable…
My reply to you was specifically about your first comment where you seemed to me to imply religion was to blame. I’m assuming the
was intended to be ironical in nature thus actually meaning that you do think religion is to blame. I offered you the chance to correct me on that. You didn’t, so I take it you stand by it.
My argument has always been that while religion can be (and usually is) used in a violent politicocultural struggle it is an error to therefore categorise any religion as inherently violent. Religion will be violent if the local culture is violent, it will be peaceable if the local culture is peaceable.
Your Daesh quote seemed to back up your condemnation of Islam – perhaps some more editorial comment from you might have helped (rather than sneering at me for sneering at John because he was being an arsehole as usual – and which had zero to do with the conversation with you, which I was deliberately attempting to keep civil).
From your last comment, I can only think we are talking past each other as what you post doesn’t seem to have any reflection on what I wrote and, quite frankly, I now have no damned idea what you’re actually trying to say.
Steamshovelmama, first, my apologies for getting your ‘nym wrong earlier. Opticians tomorrow, I think.
All I’m trying to say is that when one religious group/sub-group/splinter or whatever of any religion set about slaughtering others of the same nominal religion, and do so because they consider those they kill to be practicing that religion wrongly and/or insulting their religion, and when those comitting the killings openly declare that their motives are religious, why the Hell do some people feel it necessary to jump in and excuse the religious factor, blaming politics?
Daesh /ISIS are a small percentage of Muslims overall. I cannot and do not blame the vast majority of Muslims for the actions of that minority, but it is disingenuous to deflect the blame from the religious beliefs of the fanatics on to a political agenda.
I feel the same when Christian right-wingers attack abortion providers, for example, or see the ‘God hates fags’ banners. It is religiously-inspired violence and needs to be called out; as do those within the religions who disassociate themselves from the extremists by claiming that they’re not ‘real’ believers. They are ‘real’ believers, they just happen to have a more literal interpretation of their religion than the mainstream, and the literal interpretations are the violent ones.
I suppose I’m saying that in cases such as this one, religion has to be made to own the problem and not fob it off. After all, the terrorists of all stripes aren’t lying when they say that God or Allah commands them to commit acts of violence, it’s right there in their books.
@AoS
quoting myself, from my first comment:
Culture decides what you do with concepts like “jihad” or “Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us / He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” If you have reason to want to incite violence – a political grievance, a need to defend a certain cultural practice (slavery for instance) you say that jihad is a physical holy war against the unbeliever or that Yahweh has given you leave to commit genocide, up to and including dashing infants’ heads against rocks.
If, on the other hand, your political climate is stable and you live in a country that (mostly) tries to promote tolerance and coexistence, then “jihad” is recast as an internal, personal struggle against the evils of the world, and bashing baby’s heads against rocks, killing witches, homosexuals, cheeky teenagers, and all the rest of the people Leviticus gives you orders to kill, gets downplayed in favour of the “Prince of Peace” Holy Book part 2 interpretation. Despite “not one tittle of the law shall pass away.”
There are plenty of atrocities that occur without specifically religious input making religion neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of violence. It makes a damned good tool in the hands of ideologues though.
As for religion owning the violence – well, I think my guys from “Islam Against Extremism” seem to be doing just that. At least in the UK there is a myth that moderate Muslims don’t decry Islamist terrorism. It’s bollocks. It’s just something the Murdoch-media don’t report. I’ve seen three large Muslim anti-terror marches through the centre of my city (the second largest in the UK) go completely unreported while white dominated protests less than half the size make the national papers.
One of the reasons these conversations are so difficult to have is that the well has been so thoroughly poisoned from all sides. For whatever it’s worth my current view goes something like this:
1) There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the beliefs* and practices of Islam**, not to mention the political ideology of Islamism.
2) The fact that (1) is exploited by right-wing xenophobes, racists and bigots to paint all muslims – or even just people from “muslim” countries – as dangerous extremists and fanatics.
3) The fact that (2) is exploited by apologists of Islam – whether they are Muslim clerics or leftists of a certain flavor – to paint any criticism of Islam – or even Islamism – as “Islamophobia”, bigotry and hate speech.
4) The fact that (3) is exploited by the far right to paint any talk of bigotry and hate speech as “hysteria” and “political correctness gone insane”.
5) The fact that (4) is exploited by the regressive left to paint any criticism of the excesses of cultural relativism and leftist call-out culture as just an alibi for bigotry.
6) Etc… etc….
What all of these have in common is that the accusations are not entirely made up. As the word “exploited” is meant to indicate, however, whatever kernel of truth is in the mix to begin with is then overgeneralized and turned into another rhetorical weapon for scoring ideological points. It’s not limited to Islam either. It’s how conversation is done now it seems.
* Some of us think the very idea of leaving any question of real-world importance up to blind faith in the first place is an inherently bad one.
** Or Christianity, or Judaism, or Scientology etc… etc…