#1254 Pipes blog in NRO: "Islamism's Decade of Spreading Polio"

Homepage    |     Articles    |     Blog

Join Daniel Pipes in Cyprus in October 2013. For more information, click here.

Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Dear Reader: Two videos: "Daniel Pipes Discusses Islam and Islamism in Toronto" (long). Free Thinking Film Society May 22, 2013. http://www.danielpipes.org/12948/islam-and-islamism, "[Iran:] An Election in Name Only." Battleground with David Akin, Sun News Network (Canada), May 27, 2013. http://www.danielpipes.org/12936/iran-election,  One audio: "Islamic religion: motive for terror?" Radio 4BC, Australia, May 27, 2013. http://www.danielpipes.org/12935/islamic-religion-motive-for-terror Yours sincerely, Daniel Pipes Islamism's Decade of Spreading Polio by Daniel Pipes June 1, 2013 Cross-posted from National Review Online, The Corner http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/06/islamism-decade-of-spreading-polio Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, the doctor who single-handedly kept polio alive. The polio disease was on the verge of eradication when Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, president of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria and a physician, suggested at about this time in 2003 that the vaccination program in his country was part of a Western conspiracy to render Muslim children infertile. His call for an end to the polio immunization campaign touched a nerve and spread to other Muslim religious leaders in Nigeria, causing the vaccination process to slow down and incidences of the disease to pick up. From Nigeria, this dual phenomenon of conspiracy theory and re-appearance of the disease then expanded to Muslims internationally. (For an outline of its progress over the past ten years, see my long weblog entry.) So closely connected have Islam and polio become that the Muslim-only pilgrimage to Mecca became a major mechanism of transmitting the disease to faraway places like Indonesia. By now, Ahmed's paranoia has sent the new wave of polio from Nigeria to Muslim populations in at least 17 other African countries and 6 Asian countries: Africa: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and Togo. Asia: Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Comments: (1) A single conspiracy-obsessed Islamist, equipped with an organization and credentials, has caused polio not to be eradicated but instead to win a new lease on life. (2) Thus has radical Islam brought misery to another aspect of human life – and made fellow Muslims its principal victims. (June 1, 2013) Related Topics:  Conspiracy theories, Radical Islam This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

To subscribe to this list, go to http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services:    Middle East Forum (articles and event reports)    Campus Watch (articles, blog posts)    Islamist Watch (articles, blog posts)    Legal Project (articles, blog posts) at http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php DanielPipes.org