Solsticewitch13's BOS: Can Mayor Boris Johnson Have a Talk w/his 2006 Self About Islam?

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Can Mayor Boris Johnson Have a Talk w/his 2006 Self About Islam?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/259356/can-mayor-boris-johnson-have-talk-whis-2006-self-daniel-greenfield#.VZliDshNBIc.facebook

"To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction"

July 5, 2015

Daniel Greenfield

Reading London Mayor Boris Johnson writing about Islamic terrorism these days is like listening to a corporate spokesman for a nuclear power plant that just blew up talk about nuclear power. Here's a recent article, in which after about 50 pages of praising Islam, he eventually, in the final paragraph gets around to saying that maybe there's something Islamic to this terrorism after all.

But then there are others who would go much further, and strip out any reference to the words “Muslim” or “Islam” in the discussion of this kind of terrorism – and here I am afraid I disagree. I can well understand why so many Muslims feel this way. Whatever we may think of the “truth” of any religion, there are billions of people for whom faith is a wonderful thing: a consolation, an inspiration – part of their identity.

There are hundreds of millions of Muslims for whom the word “Islamic” is a term of the highest praise. They resent the constant association of “Islam” with “terrorism”, as though the one was always fated to give birth to the other. They dislike even the concept of “Islamic extremism”, since it seems to imply a seamless continuum of Muslim belief and behaviour: from liberal to tolerant to conservative to reactionary to terrorist.
Their point is that terrorist violence is alien from Islam, and that is why they argue so strenuously that we should drop all references to “Muslim terrorists” or “Islamic terrorists”.

Notice that Johnson carefully puts words in their mouth. He doesn't even try defending the nonsense claim that "terrorist violence is alien from Islam." Instead there's a lot of talk about Muslim feelings.
So once we're going sideways to spare Muslim feelings, what do we call Islamic terrorism?

You can’t say “salafist”, because there are many law-abiding and peaceful salafists. You can’t say jihadi, because jihad – the idea of struggle – is a central concept of Islam, and doesn’t necessarily involve violence; indeed, you can be engaged in a jihad against your own moral weakness.

Ah those peaceful Salafists. Especially in non-Muslim countries which they believe are illegitimate and must be replaced by the rule of Islamic law.

And we certainly can't refer to Jihad. We all know that's an inner struggle which occasionally explodes outward in lethal fragments killing men, women and children.

Maybe Boris Johnson of 2015 could have a chat with his 2006 self. The one who wrote stuff like this.

To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers. As the killer of Theo Van Gogh told his victim’s mother this week in a Dutch courtroom, he could not care for her, could not sympathise, because she was not a Muslim.
The trouble with this disgusting arrogance and condescension is that it is widely supported in Koranic texts, and we look in vain for the enlightened Islamic teachers and preachers who will begin the process of reform. What is going on in these mosques and madrasas? When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s mediaeval ass?

Instead Boris Johnson is going all 21st century on Islam's mediaeval ass by flattering it and then explaining that Salafists and Jihadists are really mostly peaceful types. There's only a tiny minority of Jihadist extremists who cause all the problems and we really must find another name for them.

We — non-Muslims — cannot solve the problem; we cannot brainwash them out of their fundamentalist beliefs. The Islamicists last week horribly and irrefutably asserted the supreme importance of that faith, overriding all worldly considerations, and it will take a huge effort of courage and skill to win round the many thousands of British Muslims who are in a similar state of alienation, and to make them see that their faith must be compatible with British values and with loyalty to Britain. That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem.

Johnson wrote back then. Now he's so far deep in the taboo that he can't even call out Salafists or Jihadists. And while he isn't the worst UK pol, his dishonesty is blatant because there's enough of a record to show us that he knew better. Cameron may have always been a glib idiot, but Boris Johnson actually knew better.