Ten years ago, on October 28,
2003, I started Jihad Watch. Since then I've been at this every day
(except for two or three days out of 3,650, missed due to travel),
putting up 34,056 posts (out of a total of 44,415) containing news and
commentary about jihad activity, domestic and international, violent and
stealthy.
I have done what I set out to do: document and chronicle a certain level of violence and thuggery, as well as supremacist calls for and predictions of conquest and domination, and show how they derive their inspiration and impetus from Islamic texts and teachings. The point of doing this was not (as the relentless cliche has it) to "demonize" Islam or Muslims, but to prove that there is a problem within Islam that needs to be addressed by people of good will, Muslim and non-Muslim -- a problem that would not be solved by concession, accommodation, or appeasement. By refusing to address this problem, and instead defaming those who have dared to raise it, Muslim and Leftist organizations in the U.S. and Europe have demonized themselves.
While I was impatient with George W. Bush's "Islam is a religion of peace" posturing, it seemed so self-evidently absurd to me and so many others at the time that it never occurred to me when I started this site that the broad mainstream of the public discourse would ever consider the Jihad Watch effort, or the three books I had published about Islam before starting this site, to be remotely controversial. The point was blazingly obvious; it just had to be reinforced since it was being so brazenly denied, in the face of so much evidence.
Now, 44,415 Jihad Watch posts later, the evidence has been marshaled with numbing repetition, and yet the point is more elusive than ever -- smothered in an avalanche of propaganda from well-heeled Leftist and Islamic supremacist propaganda mills loudly claiming that to discuss this issue, to amass this evidence, to make this blazingly obvious point, is "hatred," "bigotry," "Islamophobia." The timid cower and scuttle away, afraid of being connected with something so "controversial." The opportunistic mouth the currently acceptable pieties, and climb the ladder of success to the extent that they're willing to sell their souls.
In the face of this moneyed propaganda barrage, the task is sisyphean, and perhaps pointless. At the same time, because of the ubiquity of this propaganda barrage, the task has to be done more than ever. The truth remains as obvious as it always was; it is the minds of human beings that can be so clouded that they cannot see it. And so here's to another ten years -- or as much time as we have -- of truth and clarity.
I have done what I set out to do: document and chronicle a certain level of violence and thuggery, as well as supremacist calls for and predictions of conquest and domination, and show how they derive their inspiration and impetus from Islamic texts and teachings. The point of doing this was not (as the relentless cliche has it) to "demonize" Islam or Muslims, but to prove that there is a problem within Islam that needs to be addressed by people of good will, Muslim and non-Muslim -- a problem that would not be solved by concession, accommodation, or appeasement. By refusing to address this problem, and instead defaming those who have dared to raise it, Muslim and Leftist organizations in the U.S. and Europe have demonized themselves.
While I was impatient with George W. Bush's "Islam is a religion of peace" posturing, it seemed so self-evidently absurd to me and so many others at the time that it never occurred to me when I started this site that the broad mainstream of the public discourse would ever consider the Jihad Watch effort, or the three books I had published about Islam before starting this site, to be remotely controversial. The point was blazingly obvious; it just had to be reinforced since it was being so brazenly denied, in the face of so much evidence.
Now, 44,415 Jihad Watch posts later, the evidence has been marshaled with numbing repetition, and yet the point is more elusive than ever -- smothered in an avalanche of propaganda from well-heeled Leftist and Islamic supremacist propaganda mills loudly claiming that to discuss this issue, to amass this evidence, to make this blazingly obvious point, is "hatred," "bigotry," "Islamophobia." The timid cower and scuttle away, afraid of being connected with something so "controversial." The opportunistic mouth the currently acceptable pieties, and climb the ladder of success to the extent that they're willing to sell their souls.
In the face of this moneyed propaganda barrage, the task is sisyphean, and perhaps pointless. At the same time, because of the ubiquity of this propaganda barrage, the task has to be done more than ever. The truth remains as obvious as it always was; it is the minds of human beings that can be so clouded that they cannot see it. And so here's to another ten years -- or as much time as we have -- of truth and clarity.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment