Muslim 'Moderation' = Patient Strategy Posted: 16 Sep 2011 02:22 PM PDT The following was originally posted on The English Defence League Extra, and is reprinted here with permission. Muslim Groups/Individuals Within a Non-Muslim State Much is made of how ‘moderate’ Muslims are in the UK and how many moderate Muslims there actually are. Muslims constitute a minority in the UK. The population of the UK is around 60 million, about three million or more of whom are Muslims. (The estimates vary because accurate stats aren't really kept on religious groupings, only ethnic ones. One maximum has been estimated at as much as five million Muslims.) Thus, would it make much sense for Muslims or Muslim groups to be radical, or militant, or overly vocal? As a minority, Muslims are well aware of the fact that they cannot demand too much or, indeed, be too Islamic. Overt Islamism or radicalism would quite simply backfire in a country in which Muslims are clearly a minority. We must ask ourselves this: Exactly what would Muslims need to do to be immoderate, radical or militant (specifically by multiculturalist standards)? Of course most Muslims can’t introduce full or even extensive sharia law off their own backs. On the whole, they cannot pull their children out of non-Muslim schools. They cannot vocally support terrorism. They cannot admit to accepting violent jihad. And so on. To do so would be out rightly self-destructive because few of these demands would be met at this moment of time. (But in a few years?) Thus, Muslims have no choice but to be moderate. Not because they believe in Islamic moderation, but because militancy, Islamism and fundamentalism would backfire. Similarly, Muslims would find it very hard to get away with systemic kinds of Islamic of Muslim intolerance towards others or towards non-Muslim institutions, both legally and in terms of non-Muslim opinion. Thus, if blatant Islamic militancy or intolerance will definitely backfire for most Muslims, what would be the point of displaying such things? In addition, Muslims as individuals may be militant and intolerant because, as individuals committing individual acts, they can get away with it. The same is true of fringe groups like Muslim Against Crusades/Anjem Choidary and Hizb ut-Tahrir. These group do not want to be mainstream. But what about the mainstream groups like Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)? Why would they self-destructively become too demanding, too militant or, indeed, too Islamic? This would ruin things for them. This would put a halt to their long-term plans for the slow but sure Islamification of the UK. The same with Muslims as a whole, either as communities or as the sum of Muslim communities. They too know that complete Islamification would be impossible at this point of time. They know that excessive militancy would backfire. So why not wait instead? Why not increase Muslim demographic power and then start being more demanding and militant? Again, to do so now would simply backfire. Even in the case of Islamic zealots, there is only a limited amount a Muslim, or a Muslim group, can do in a non-Muslim society. That is why terrorism is so often used. There is nothing to stop a Muslim from becoming a suicide bomber or a terrorist. That is, he need not accommodate himself to British law and custom because, from the beginning, he is evidently outside that system. But for Muslims as a whole, as well as Muslim groups, they must work within British law and custom. So by definition their militancy and their Islamism will be curtailed. Curtailed not through Muslim choice, but from facing the fact that Muslims live within non-Muslim states (with their non-Muslim laws and customs). In the end, then, it is not the case of Muslims and Muslim groups being moderate, as some of them indeed are, but it is more the case that they must be moderate. They must curtail their demands and their Islamic militancy. If they do not, the Muslims know that the cause that is the Islamification of Britain will take one or more steps back. Why would Muslims or Muslim groups want Islam to take one or more steps back? Thus they play the game. They say the right things and make the right gestures. Sometimes, of course, Muslims or Muslim groups are not that careful. They overstep the mark. They are too Islamic or too demanding. This is to be expected because the boundaries need to be continuously tested. Some Muslims will even be sacrificed by their fellow Muslims on the altar of the slow, but sure, Islamification of the United Kingdom. Thus Muslim 'moderation' is actually a sign of Muslim weakness vis-à-vis the larger non-Muslim secular state or society. Numerical/demographic and political weakness is far from being the same as religious moderation or tolerance. Even a Muslim zealot will bide his time because he knows that any act of zealousness would evidently be self-destructive. And even a Muslim terrorist waits and prepares rather than selects the first target that enters his vision. Muslim periods of quiescence, or relative quiescence, and not, therefore, periods of Muslim or Islamic moderation. Islamic/Muslim States within a Non-Muslim World Imagine what would happen if Iran, the Sundan, Somalia, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. obtained nuclear weapons or had vastly increased military power. Now it will be interesting to apply the same arguments to the larger scale. Instead of talking about the relative weakness of Muslims or Muslim groups vis-a-vis British society, let us think instead about the relative weakness of Muslim or Islamic states vis-a-vis the world. Here again we can say that if all Muslims states were stronger, or even if just one were stronger, than the US or the West, what would happen? Think of Iran with nuclear weapons. Think of Saudi Arabia with a vastly increased military? Think indeed of the possible massively increased power of Hezbollah and Hamas relative to Israel. I can quite confidently say that in one, or indeed in many, of these cases we would now be experiencing massive conflict and even Armageddon. Just think of how many Muslim purists or fanatics wouldn’t think twice about using nuclear weapons against Israel. But Israel would only be the beginning. After Israel it would be the United States. Then Britain. And then Europe as a whole. Now let’s move back to the small scale and imagine British Muslims or Islamic groups having much-increased power, both demographically and politically. Even with twice as much power, if such things can be quantified at all, this country would be radically transformed. So much so that it would be largely unrecognisable. It would be well on the way to being an Islamic state, which is something virtually every Muslim group wants and which very many individual Muslims also desire. Muslims have not got such power or numbers today. That is why Muslim groups are relatively quiet and relatively undemanding. Given time, and a large increase in Muslim populations and power, things will be radically changed. No culture and no state in history has experienced long periods of stasis. And this is not going to suddenly change in the case of Great Britain and Europe as a whole - which is not to say that this change will necessarily be Islamic change. Whether it is Islamic change or not, is up to us. It is up to the non-Muslim citizens of Britain and Europe as a whole. Our destiny lies in our own hands. No one is forcing us to give way to Islam and Islamification. If sharia law and the rest becomes a reality, it is us, Britain’s non-Muslims, who will have allowed this to happen. Muslims, after all, are only being true to their religion. *) The Muslim population of the UK is rising 10 times faster than the non-Muslim population: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5621482.ece |
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