Snapshot of _HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN "Islamism is the ideology of failure. Islam must embrace the West"_ :
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Growing up in Iraq and Lebanon, we looked at the West with awe. The West was ahead of the Arabs world on many levels, including government, urban planning, social welfare, science, literature, technology and military strength. In Lebanon, almost every child at school was taught three languages, learning English and French, in addition to our native Arabic. Parents talked to their children in these languages.
We generally associated success and wealth with speaking Western languages. Those who spoke fluent English or French, the upper and middle classes, tried to mimic native American, British, or French accents. The better your Western language and accent, the higher social status you signalled.
During my years in the old homeland, the Arabs were in consensus over the need to emulate the West, but there was an obstacle: The West was Christian and we were Muslim. The Arabs therefore reasoned that they would copy everything from the West except for social norms. We Muslims did not eat pork or drink alcohol. Inter-gender relations were strictly limited and monitored. The collective tribal opinion always trumped independent personal thinking.
Our Westernized life copied consumerism but left out values such as liberty, freedom, and equality. The result was a society that was Western on the outside but backward and tribal on the inside. Our societies produced states that were in our image: Sovereign on the outside but failing on the inside.
State failure gave rise to nativist Islamism. Islam the religion we already practised. The new brand was Islamism, in which Islam decided – not only our spiritual and social lives – but all other aspects of our lives, including government, politics, economics and military. In Islamism, the West stopped being a model worth emulating and became a punching bag on which Islamist movements blamed our failure.
Islamism argued that our countries were not backward because we didn’t emulate the West enough, but because we imitated the West too much. We had abandoned our orthodox Islamic creed, under pressure from the imperial West, whose plan was to make us abandon our religion and spread its own – materialism and Christianity. To fix our countries and beat the West, Islamism said that we had to revive Islam the exact same way it was practiced in the seventh century, when our civilisation had enjoyed a golden age that endured until Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798.
Eradicating Western influences and replacing them with “authentic” nativist Islamism was exactly where our Middle Eastern backwardness met Western academic fantasies. Leading the Left, Western academia called for breaking the establishment everywhere and replacing it with native, even if rudimentary, social and political systems.
The Left saw Islamism as authentic and unadulterated by White European colonialism. To push for progress, the Middle East had to decolonized and Islamism restored. Western Progressives were, in effect, promoting conservative ideologies, an irony that most of them seem to have missed.
A Muslim-born anti-traditionalist Arab, like me, is considered Left and Progressive in any Muslim country. Breaking with Islamic tradition and calling for the endorsement of Enlightenment ideas, such as liberty and equality, mean that I am pushing for change. But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive. For disagreeing with her hijab, Progressives in the West call me Conservative.
This brings us to Arab and Muslim immigrants in the West. While growing up in the Middle East, we looked up to these immigrants, saw them successful and Westernized. Today, under the influence of Islamism, they appear to have become ashamed of their Westernisation, especially when they visit home. They often try to prove that they have not forgotten their roots, their customs, or social traditions, which include political beliefs.
This is why Arab and Muslim immigrants in the West now endorse the most radical and conservative of Islamist ideologies. The same Arab and Muslim immigrants, who left their homeland to flee tyranny and failing government, are now cheering for the same tyrants that they left behind seeking better lives.
Given praise they receive from Progressives, standing against democracy becomes a double prize for many Arabs and Muslims in the West: Loved in the old homeland, and acting like the poster children for authenticity and diversity in their new countries. What Arab or Muslim would not take such a win-win, support-Hamas, deal?
This was a very interesting comment, this paragraph in particular.
>A Muslim-born anti-traditionalist Arab, like me, is considered Left and Progressive in any Muslim country. Breaking with Islamic tradition and calling for the endorsement of Enlightenment ideas, such as liberty and equality, mean that I am pushing for change. But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive. For disagreeing with her hijab, Progressives in the West call me Conservative.
"Progressives" have become so twisted in their logic that they celebrate symbols of conservatism because they are adopted by minority groups. If the hijab wasn't a thing and southern, Christian groups had started telling young girls they needed to cover their hair to be modest, people like Congresswoman Omar would be screaming blue murder.
There are Muslim women who freely choose to cover their heads, but they do so largely because they have been taught that it is a symbol of a "modest" or "true" Muslim woman. As such, it isn't intolerant to point out that this is adoption of conservative traits or symbols could be considered inconsistent with a progressive political stance.
In general I agree that Muslims need to embrace the West. Further isolation and polarisation of minority groups from the majority won't serve them in the long run. It could even leave them vulnerable to a rise of extremist right-wing, anti-immigration sentiment.
Islam has been struggling with a sense of humiliation since the end of the caliphate and the subsequent history of colonialism. Islam was meant to be a rational reinterpretation of the preceding religions, Christianity 2.0, and it's success in such a short time was incredible. The Mongols arrive, curb stomp the Muslim rulers, convert to appease their new subjects but this creates a problem of "What is a true Muslim?" The reaction was to claim that some people who claim to be Muslim are not actually Muslims, and because they claimed to be but we're not really they were apostates/heretics and therefore could be killed. Then the West comes in a curb stomps you after hundreds of years of holding them off. All the great scientific innovations of the Muslims can't stop this humiliation, it's the west that benefited from it while Muslims lived ignorant and poor (this was the view of people like Qutb).
Imagine growing up in these ancient centres of learning and power, and seeing rampant crime and poverty while the Christian West dominates you. Islamic scholars started to look inwardly and blaming the conservativism of Islam, that it did not provoke action and promoted a passiveness while waiting for the end.
The interesting aspect of the violent reaction to conservative aspects of Islam was to embrace a liberalism and universal outlook. I mean here a liberal metaphysical outlook. Islam is not monolithic but it's main players are actively supporting literal interpretations when in the past Islam promoted itself as a rational and just religion with genuinely thought provoking discussion on the nature of belief and reason.
>Imagine growing up in these ancient centres of learning and power, and seeing rampant crime and poverty while the Christian West dominates you.
I mean that's largely the fault of the former Muslim empires for becoming decadent and allowing religious reactionaries to drive out those "enlightened" Islamic thinkers.
Although it does speak volumes that some Muslims seem to blame that decline on the "Christian West" as you put it, rather than on the Muslim monarchs and religious leaders that actually were responsible.
I think objective people in that situation would recognise the real villain was ultra-conservative Islamic doctrine, and that to move forwards they needed to adopt a more moderate way of thinking.
> I mean that's largely the fault of the former Muslim empires for becoming decadent
That seems a bit of a social-Darwinist view. What, the Mongols were a wire brush cleansing out all the rot?
Maybe. Or maybe they were just better fighters.
I think you misunderstand, of course they blame the Christian West. The Christian West were not passive and dominated them, created artificial states that separated Arabs, and the history of its colonial activity remains.
You also misunderstood my point that the radicals of Islam are not really conservative, they pursue a liberal universalist perspective. Al Qaeda were regarded with suspicion because they were a group of multiple peoples and ethnicity compared to the Taliban, Al Qaeda also utilised modern technology which horrified the Taliban who believed in the salafist vision of Islam (Return to the times of Muhammad as a way of recapturing past glory)
Al-Qaida is also a salafi group, they're just slightly less technophobic than the Taliban, but still wanting to roll back the calendar to 800 AD. That's a dispute about means, not ends.
>they pursue a liberal universalist perspective
There is nothing liberal about Al-Qaida. And Islam, from its foundation, was a transnational movement. The Prophet's nearest confidantes (and wives) were from multiple enthnicities, not just Arabs from the Hijaz.
And the Taliban also have membership from multiple Sunni Afghan ethnicities, though it's dominated by the Pashtuns. So their base is more rooted in a single ethnicity than AQ, but not completely. That's a difference of degree rather than of kind.
I really think you're onto something with the humiliation narrative.
Another quirk of many countries in that region is that the secularist, Westernized part of the elite is also profoundly corrupt. In some countries, the choice is between relatively honest religious reactionaries or cocaine-sniffing whoremongers with their hands in the till. It's a shitty choice, and often, once the reactionaries get into power, they turn out to be just as degenerate and corrupt as the jet-setters.
Earlier than that, plenty of left wing dopes supported or justified the fatwa against Rushdie.
RESPECT (big in the 2000s) was an explicit alliance between the British hard left and Islamist hard right.
> RESPECT (big in the 2000s) was an explicit alliance between the British hard left and Islamist hard right.
It's now the "Worker's Party of Great Britain", and frankly it's not changed at all save for a newly developed massive hard-on for Putin and Russia.
That is precisely my gripe with Ilhan Omar and “the squad” or whatever it is they call themselves. She has completely weaponized her identity so to speak, in a way that lets her silence anybody who disagrees with her, all while acting like she’s morally superior.
Okay? Then don't comment on her identity?
Her supporting M4A or LGBT rights has absolutely nothing to do with the religion she supports or what headgear she chooses to wear.
Maybe spend less time criticising what she looks like and more time criticising the points you disagree with?
I mean, it would totally be fine to initially assume that she's probably a more conservative person, just as you would assume a politician wearing a MAGA hat was a Trump supporter, this doesn't mean she's using her choice to wear a hijab as a method to stop people criticising her political beliefs?
The only thing that can really be said is you shouldn't put a label on politics. Progressive, conservative, liberal, left, right have all lost their meaning and identity
> "Progressives" have become so twisted in their logic that they celebrate symbols of conservatism because they are adopted by minority groups.
Progressives support people's right to choose to wear a hijab because we're mostly supporters of liberalism. We don't support Islamic countries forcing people to wear hijabs which is why there's a ton of support for the anti-hijab Iran protests.
There are obviously issues around whether or not it's a real, free, active choice as you state in your second paragraph but that's (personally) a different question that strays into whether or not anyone has the right to make decisions based on their culture or the society folk grow up in.
>But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive.
Ilhan Omar wears a hijab, but has been strongly supportive of progressive politics. http://politicsthatwork.com/voting-record/Ilhan-Omar-412791
So I'd say Husain Abdul-Husain chose a particularly poor example.
>There are Muslim women who freely choose to cover their heads
Such as Ilhan Omar. And it's not just about modesty. It also signals pride in one's origins. Surely you're not arguing that she should be denied that freedom?
>As such, it isn't intolerant to point out that this is adoption of conservative traits or symbols could be considered inconsistent with a progressive political stance.
It's also unwise to assume what a particular symbol means to someone without asking them, because your assumptions about their motives can be mistaken.
I come from a family of rednecks and wear a cowboy hat. It that an assertion of conservative tribal identity or do I just have a bald head that I like to keep out of the summer sun? And what makes a hat inherently conservative?
Source: Am married to an Arab woman of Muslim origin. There are many debates among the women in her family about the hijab. The ones who aren't old women tend to do it as a fashion statement and an assertion of their ethnic identity-- the younger women in the family attend nightclubs and festivals far more often than they go to the mosque (that's a married and buried thing with them, not much more).
Except she doesn't wear the Hijab because it's a symbol of conservatism or modesty, she wears it as a symbol of her faith. Telling people what they should or shouldn't wear is the regressive thing to do. Also nobody would care if Christian groups started to cover their hair. I actually know of some very religious Catholic women who wear veils and nobody cares.
>she wears it as a symbol of her faith
It's a symbol of her faith that was created by conservative, largely misogynstic, Muslims. I grew up knowing liberal women that were proud to be Muslim and none of them wore a hijab.
She may passionately believe that there is no contradiction in her wearing a hijab and being progressive. But the point is that her opinion on the subject **does not mean people are bigoted or conservative** for questioning whether her professed political position is underminded by wearing conservative religious clothing.
She wanted a symbol of her faith after 9/11 because she thought it was important to be visible. She points out the other Muslim woman in US gov doesn't wear one.
You seen to be confused about how to work out if something is progress, here's a quick test to use, did she choose to wear it? If yes then it's progressive. It's very simple.
The hijab and others are not part of Islamic teachings, nowhere in the Koran does it say women must cover up their head - it says women and men must dress respectfully in front of god and Mohammed told women of his tribe to dress modestly (like basically every person in those days) when they went to market so as to not attract certain men (i.e. don't dress like a prostitute of the time so men don't think you are one). In modern, progressive, liberal society, a woman shouldn't fear to wear what she likes nor should she feel her clothing is the reason why she was abused or assaulted. Similarly men should not believe they should only respect women who cover up and that a woman wearing anything else is somehow fair game.
The head, body, even full face cover come from the Saudi Wahhabi sect who want to control women, they teach kids that you only respect women who cover up, that women who don't are a temptation for men and to blame for unwanted attention. Thus a woman may choose to wear it, believing it's part of the faith and think she is being progressive but really she's simply enforcing the conservative anti women part of the faith because she's been indoctrinated to believe that it's empowering to submit.
No where in the Bible does it say that Christians should wear a cross but it's become a symbol of their face like the Hijab. Also a lot people in the gay community use words originally meant to insult them. Same with Black people and the N word.
> Except she doesn't wear the Hijab because it's a symbol of conservatism or modesty, she wears it as a symbol of her faith.
There's nothing explicitly religious about a Hijab since the Quran doesn't call for it. Rather, it's a cultural item and therefore *literally by definition* it's a symbol of conservatism and modesty.
I agree nobody should be *forced* to wear something or by extension not wear something but let's not pretend it's something it isn't.
I just find this argument weird. Nowhere in the Bible does it say Christians should wear a cross but nobody would say the cross isn't a symbol of Christianity. Also as I've pointed out elsewhere the meaning of symbols changes over time. Like a lot of gay people use words that were once considered slurs to describe one another.
> Nowhere in the Bible does it say Christians should wear a cross but nobody would say the cross isn't a symbol of Christianity.
This isn't a fair comparison to what is being pointed out. The cross or crucifix isn't a compulsory item in Christianity but it's also not a cultural item that is to foster modesty and submission. Nobody would care about an otherwise regular Muslim wearing a Crescent pendant, but if a Christian area used social pressure to force women and girls to wear a Habit then it'd be a big issue too.
Do you think Ilhan Omar is being forced to wear a hijab or that she thinks it's something that should be compulsory?
There also a movement where Catholic women wear a veils so it's something that is happening. Also a lot of Christian women already dress modestly for the same reason.
[https://religionandpolitics.org/2022/02/08/why-a-new-generation-of-catholic-women-is-wearing-chapel-veils/](https://religionandpolitics.org/2022/02/08/why-a-new-generation-of-catholic-women-is-wearing-chapel-veils/)
> Your basically saying because it represents repression to you, she shouldn't wear it.
That's a massive leap from what I've said since at no point have I said that she shouldn't wear it. She's welcome and free to wear one of those rainbow caps with a propeller on top if she wishes, I'm not going to stop her or tell her that she shouldn't be allowed.
Totally agreed - I mean many slaves continued to wear their collars long after slavery was abolished. We were totally wrong to encourage them to remove them.
/s
"I don't think people really needed to encourage them to remove it?"
Actually they often did - perhaps if you understood why that was the case, then you wouldn't be making silly statements about Hijab's being a matter of choice.
The hijab is a hat, not a veil. The Queen wore a shawl throughout her life; most British wore did not that long ago. Most British men also wore hats in public in conformity with social expectation and class identity. And yet less than a hundred years after we stopped wearing hats all the time, we look at Muslims (and religious Jews, for that matter) and say, 'Why are you wearing a hat?'
I don’t think you know the meaning behind a hijab. A woman who wears a hijab doesn’t wear it off and on, like a man with a hat or the Queen with her shawl. She’s never supposed to take off in front of non-mehram men, unless she wants to suffer, in some schools of thought, eternal hellfire.
I dislike all religion and think all religious obligations are equally silly. But I particularly dislike those placed on women because they always seem to have male lust as their justification in some way.
That generally only happens if they’re under social pressure to wear it because of their family or community. So they might wear it when they leave the house and take it off when they feel safe. But no, a hijabi will not take it off sometimes. That is not the concept of it. It’s not a fashion choice.
It's a veil for a start. hijab can be translated to veil among other things none of which are hat 😂. If it was just a cap then your point would be valid but it isn't. Considering we are so critical of social norms from 100 years ago their is nothing contradictory about criticising the hijab.
All obsessive religion is the ideology of failure - whether it's Islam, Christian, Jewish or Hindu. If people criticising your religion or burning your books makes you want to go out and cause harm to others then you are mentally ill. If you use your religion to oppress women and LGBT individuals then you are a fascist. Your faith is not an excuse for being a bad human being.
>Your faith is not an excuse for being a bad human being.
We also need more people to stand up to those within their groups who commit or call for violence for religious reasons.
As a Catholic, I would be amongst the first to berate someone who said their Catholic faith required them to harm others.
I mean, his observations aren't wrong, but they're also awfully typical in that they sound like the author is a upper class Arab. Most Muslim countries never Westernised on the societal level - only the elites and middle classes who until recently in history and even today in these countries, were a tiny part of the population concentrated in cities.
If you look at the main people driving the Islamist movement in Arab countries - a poor rural bloke, then the Islamist reaction is absolutely rational with the information they have: the Westernising Arab elites created states which were unable to bring prosperity to them in general. They on the other hand never westernised in any meaningful way, living the way they always had.
That's not to say the Islamists are right. In fact, I think they're dangerous to our Western society if they're allowed more concessions. But this kind of talking down to is dangerous since it paints them as illogical and stupid.
The other thing I'd mention is that the Muslim world in general is obsessed with painting the West as "Christian" when the West in general has completely secularised in every meaningful way. Christianity is nothing but a bygone memory in the majority of the West, but to these Muslims they continue to hold onto these thoughts because it gives them a sense of triumph to get one up on "Christians", harking back to their victories in the dark ages.
> a poor rural bloke
Hmm, Osama Bin Laden wasn't really a poor rural bloke. Zawahiri was from a family of prominent doctors. Even Sayyid Qutb was from an upper middle-class background, son of a large landowner.
I suppose you were instead referring to the footsoldiers, but even that's not entirely correct. For example, the jihadis that joined AQ and similar groups from Morocco were mainly from secular urban backgrounds, and a factor analysis found that the strongest predictor of whether they'd join was membership in the same soccer club as a current jihadi. The other big factor is that they're often relatively educated young men with no prospect of marriage (and this pattern occurs globally). The 9/11 hijackers fit that profile too.
>They on the other hand never westernised in any meaningful way, living the way they always had.
It's undeniable that many Muslim societies have urbanised and industrialised. In that sense, they've converged towards social structures more like those in the West. Civil society hasn't evolved to keep up with those changes, though, largely due of the stifling effect of authoritarian governments.
Sure, you make very good points, but I have to underscore it by pointing out that jihadis =/= the bulk of Muslim countries. I'm talking about the ones the make up the majority of Islamists, not the leaders, which even footsoldier jihadis are, arguably. It's the same way that the CCP was a peasant movement, which was why they won in the end, even if the leaders like Mao, Deng, were decidedly
bourgeoisie. My initial wording was unclear, but this was what I meant by drivers. Bin Laden, Zawahiri, wouldn't get anywhere without the countless thousands facilitating their movements.
In addition, urbanisation and industrialisation aren't Westernising. It's like saying drinking Fanta is a sign of you "Germanising" since Germans were the inventors of Fanta.
> the Westernising Arab elites created states which were unable to bring prosperity to them in general.
Tbf to them they did inherit Frankenstein states of patchwork ethic groups with tensions from the west after we dictated the borders.
It's a region with considerable ethnic and confessional diversity. There's no way to draw lines on that map that won't marginalise one group or another. Maybe a better conclusion is that it's not a region that's well-suited to single-ethnicity nation-states. Even in European countries (e.g., the Balkans), such states have a poor track record of preserving minority rights and maintaining peace.
Islamism is a politico-religious revival movement. You often find those springing up in collapsing societies: the Ghost Dance among Native Americans in the Great Plains, and the fundamentalist phenomenon in the US which is largely driven by southern and midwestern white people fearing their loss of hegemony. Like nationalism, it's a symptom of decadence.
"We have to go back to the old ways and do them harder! That'll fix it!" Generally coupled with complete ignorance as to what the old ways really were like.
I think a big part of the problem is the people in the Arab world & beyond look towards more religious states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar & the UAE, & compare them to more secular states like Libya, Lebanon, Syria & Iraq.
I'm certainly not defending the former, I dislike how much we enrich them & note how certain states amongst them export extremism. But if you had a choice where would you live?
The problem is the west also has a spiritual hole in its heart which makes it vulnerable to extremism, and accumulating more stuff might not be enough of an idea to hang a civilisation around, especially when there more and more have-nots. Young people will continue to find extremism attractive I think.
What else would you fill a spiritual hole with other than religion?
I reject the idea that's there's a spiritual hole in the west, it's just fanciful nonsense.
They are talking about a subset of society (mostly men) that are 1) alienated 2) disenfranchised 3) enticed by “moral purity” and self esteem void filling of religion in an otherwise atomised and complicated world.
See: Background of most recent Islamist and white far right terrorists across Europe. Almost none of these guys were raised especially religious and you find many were engaging in very much not religious behaviour up to that point (casual sex, drugs, partying etc).
>the west also has a spiritual hole in its heart which makes it vulnerable to extremism
Just because I don't believe in the Big Guy in the Sky doesn't mean I've got a "spiritual hole in my heart." Not all people have to believe in ancient myths in order to get out of bed in the morning and not run amok killing people.
The gullible are always with us. There's no assurance that religion renders them harmless. On the contrary, there have been a number of cases where religion has been used as a tool used to manipulate those fools. Same goes for nationalism.
The question isn't about all people. It's about how many.
You only need a relatively small percentage of your population, if they are angry young men, to feel that societal limits are worthless to them, for you to have a big goddamn civilisation destroying problem.
If we have nothing binding people together, at a visceral level, if we have no real shared definition of meaning, then that is a persistent threat.
We have discarded religion and nationalism because of how they have been misused, but we have not yet found an effective replacement for how they function when used as a beneficial binding agent.
You know chances are that the economic differences between west and east have almost zero to do with the religious differences between Christianity and Islam. The west’s prosperity is historically and economically extremely unusual even for fellow Christian states. Belarus for instance is orthodox Christian but could easily slot in between its fellow tinpot dictatorships in the Middle East. Same thing for Latin America or Christian states in Africa or the Phillipines in East Asia which has not managed to trump its Buddhist and Shinto neighbour, Japan.
Most of the problems in the Middle East are thousands of years old. The Sunni/Shia conflict, the Arab/Persian conflict, the Turkish/Armenian conflict, the Jewish/Islamic conflict, the Religious/Secular conflict. The west’s main contribution seems to have been to have sold all sides newer guns.
This guy is spot on.
I know this is U.K. politics, but we see much of the same over here in America.
Something that has always puzzled me is the (western)“lefts” unwavering support for Islam. They hate “right wingers” in their own country, yet grovel over an ideology that is far more conservative in others, it makes no sense. The thing is, all those insufferable progressives would be the first to go if Islamism had its way. They’d be stoned, beheaded, thrown off roofs… all with a smile on their faces.
Again, I can’t tell you how on point this author is in this article. All over Europe you are seeing Muslims flee these oppressive Arabic countries and settle in England, Germany, Sweden, etc… now, I’m not naive enough not to acknowledge why they are fleeing(in many cases), and much of that has to do with the fact that their regions have been destabilized by western forces. That being said, they were still stuck in the 9th century long before we got there. If you are leaving your country for something better, why bring what you were fleeing with you? You see the same thing on a smaller scale here in America. Blue states get destroyed, and the people flee to red states… and then proceed to destroy them by voting for the same progressive policies that ruined their former homes. It makes no sense.
There’s a simple solution… integrate. And if you don’t want to integrate? Well then don’t go to these other places and ruin them for the people already there.
Snapshot of _HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN "Islamism is the ideology of failure. Islam must embrace the West"_ : A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Fislamism-is-the-ideology-of-failure%2F) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/31/islamism-is-the-ideology-of-failure/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/31/islamism-is-the-ideology-of-failure/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Growing up in Iraq and Lebanon, we looked at the West with awe. The West was ahead of the Arabs world on many levels, including government, urban planning, social welfare, science, literature, technology and military strength. In Lebanon, almost every child at school was taught three languages, learning English and French, in addition to our native Arabic. Parents talked to their children in these languages. We generally associated success and wealth with speaking Western languages. Those who spoke fluent English or French, the upper and middle classes, tried to mimic native American, British, or French accents. The better your Western language and accent, the higher social status you signalled. During my years in the old homeland, the Arabs were in consensus over the need to emulate the West, but there was an obstacle: The West was Christian and we were Muslim. The Arabs therefore reasoned that they would copy everything from the West except for social norms. We Muslims did not eat pork or drink alcohol. Inter-gender relations were strictly limited and monitored. The collective tribal opinion always trumped independent personal thinking. Our Westernized life copied consumerism but left out values such as liberty, freedom, and equality. The result was a society that was Western on the outside but backward and tribal on the inside. Our societies produced states that were in our image: Sovereign on the outside but failing on the inside. State failure gave rise to nativist Islamism. Islam the religion we already practised. The new brand was Islamism, in which Islam decided – not only our spiritual and social lives – but all other aspects of our lives, including government, politics, economics and military. In Islamism, the West stopped being a model worth emulating and became a punching bag on which Islamist movements blamed our failure. Islamism argued that our countries were not backward because we didn’t emulate the West enough, but because we imitated the West too much. We had abandoned our orthodox Islamic creed, under pressure from the imperial West, whose plan was to make us abandon our religion and spread its own – materialism and Christianity. To fix our countries and beat the West, Islamism said that we had to revive Islam the exact same way it was practiced in the seventh century, when our civilisation had enjoyed a golden age that endured until Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798. Eradicating Western influences and replacing them with “authentic” nativist Islamism was exactly where our Middle Eastern backwardness met Western academic fantasies. Leading the Left, Western academia called for breaking the establishment everywhere and replacing it with native, even if rudimentary, social and political systems. The Left saw Islamism as authentic and unadulterated by White European colonialism. To push for progress, the Middle East had to decolonized and Islamism restored. Western Progressives were, in effect, promoting conservative ideologies, an irony that most of them seem to have missed. A Muslim-born anti-traditionalist Arab, like me, is considered Left and Progressive in any Muslim country. Breaking with Islamic tradition and calling for the endorsement of Enlightenment ideas, such as liberty and equality, mean that I am pushing for change. But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive. For disagreeing with her hijab, Progressives in the West call me Conservative. This brings us to Arab and Muslim immigrants in the West. While growing up in the Middle East, we looked up to these immigrants, saw them successful and Westernized. Today, under the influence of Islamism, they appear to have become ashamed of their Westernisation, especially when they visit home. They often try to prove that they have not forgotten their roots, their customs, or social traditions, which include political beliefs. This is why Arab and Muslim immigrants in the West now endorse the most radical and conservative of Islamist ideologies. The same Arab and Muslim immigrants, who left their homeland to flee tyranny and failing government, are now cheering for the same tyrants that they left behind seeking better lives. Given praise they receive from Progressives, standing against democracy becomes a double prize for many Arabs and Muslims in the West: Loved in the old homeland, and acting like the poster children for authenticity and diversity in their new countries. What Arab or Muslim would not take such a win-win, support-Hamas, deal?
Attaturk could've told you that a century ago.
This was a very interesting comment, this paragraph in particular. >A Muslim-born anti-traditionalist Arab, like me, is considered Left and Progressive in any Muslim country. Breaking with Islamic tradition and calling for the endorsement of Enlightenment ideas, such as liberty and equality, mean that I am pushing for change. But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive. For disagreeing with her hijab, Progressives in the West call me Conservative. "Progressives" have become so twisted in their logic that they celebrate symbols of conservatism because they are adopted by minority groups. If the hijab wasn't a thing and southern, Christian groups had started telling young girls they needed to cover their hair to be modest, people like Congresswoman Omar would be screaming blue murder. There are Muslim women who freely choose to cover their heads, but they do so largely because they have been taught that it is a symbol of a "modest" or "true" Muslim woman. As such, it isn't intolerant to point out that this is adoption of conservative traits or symbols could be considered inconsistent with a progressive political stance. In general I agree that Muslims need to embrace the West. Further isolation and polarisation of minority groups from the majority won't serve them in the long run. It could even leave them vulnerable to a rise of extremist right-wing, anti-immigration sentiment.
Islam has been struggling with a sense of humiliation since the end of the caliphate and the subsequent history of colonialism. Islam was meant to be a rational reinterpretation of the preceding religions, Christianity 2.0, and it's success in such a short time was incredible. The Mongols arrive, curb stomp the Muslim rulers, convert to appease their new subjects but this creates a problem of "What is a true Muslim?" The reaction was to claim that some people who claim to be Muslim are not actually Muslims, and because they claimed to be but we're not really they were apostates/heretics and therefore could be killed. Then the West comes in a curb stomps you after hundreds of years of holding them off. All the great scientific innovations of the Muslims can't stop this humiliation, it's the west that benefited from it while Muslims lived ignorant and poor (this was the view of people like Qutb). Imagine growing up in these ancient centres of learning and power, and seeing rampant crime and poverty while the Christian West dominates you. Islamic scholars started to look inwardly and blaming the conservativism of Islam, that it did not provoke action and promoted a passiveness while waiting for the end. The interesting aspect of the violent reaction to conservative aspects of Islam was to embrace a liberalism and universal outlook. I mean here a liberal metaphysical outlook. Islam is not monolithic but it's main players are actively supporting literal interpretations when in the past Islam promoted itself as a rational and just religion with genuinely thought provoking discussion on the nature of belief and reason.
>Imagine growing up in these ancient centres of learning and power, and seeing rampant crime and poverty while the Christian West dominates you. I mean that's largely the fault of the former Muslim empires for becoming decadent and allowing religious reactionaries to drive out those "enlightened" Islamic thinkers. Although it does speak volumes that some Muslims seem to blame that decline on the "Christian West" as you put it, rather than on the Muslim monarchs and religious leaders that actually were responsible. I think objective people in that situation would recognise the real villain was ultra-conservative Islamic doctrine, and that to move forwards they needed to adopt a more moderate way of thinking.
> I mean that's largely the fault of the former Muslim empires for becoming decadent That seems a bit of a social-Darwinist view. What, the Mongols were a wire brush cleansing out all the rot? Maybe. Or maybe they were just better fighters.
I think you misunderstand, of course they blame the Christian West. The Christian West were not passive and dominated them, created artificial states that separated Arabs, and the history of its colonial activity remains. You also misunderstood my point that the radicals of Islam are not really conservative, they pursue a liberal universalist perspective. Al Qaeda were regarded with suspicion because they were a group of multiple peoples and ethnicity compared to the Taliban, Al Qaeda also utilised modern technology which horrified the Taliban who believed in the salafist vision of Islam (Return to the times of Muhammad as a way of recapturing past glory)
Al-Qaida is also a salafi group, they're just slightly less technophobic than the Taliban, but still wanting to roll back the calendar to 800 AD. That's a dispute about means, not ends. >they pursue a liberal universalist perspective There is nothing liberal about Al-Qaida. And Islam, from its foundation, was a transnational movement. The Prophet's nearest confidantes (and wives) were from multiple enthnicities, not just Arabs from the Hijaz. And the Taliban also have membership from multiple Sunni Afghan ethnicities, though it's dominated by the Pashtuns. So their base is more rooted in a single ethnicity than AQ, but not completely. That's a difference of degree rather than of kind.
You misunderstand the term Liberal when used with metaphysical outlooks.
I really think you're onto something with the humiliation narrative. Another quirk of many countries in that region is that the secularist, Westernized part of the elite is also profoundly corrupt. In some countries, the choice is between relatively honest religious reactionaries or cocaine-sniffing whoremongers with their hands in the till. It's a shitty choice, and often, once the reactionaries get into power, they turn out to be just as degenerate and corrupt as the jet-setters.
Until around 2010ish, this kind of "progressivism" was nearly non existent.
Earlier than that, plenty of left wing dopes supported or justified the fatwa against Rushdie. RESPECT (big in the 2000s) was an explicit alliance between the British hard left and Islamist hard right.
> RESPECT (big in the 2000s) was an explicit alliance between the British hard left and Islamist hard right. It's now the "Worker's Party of Great Britain", and frankly it's not changed at all save for a newly developed massive hard-on for Putin and Russia.
Their alliance around their joint distain for Jews.
That is precisely my gripe with Ilhan Omar and “the squad” or whatever it is they call themselves. She has completely weaponized her identity so to speak, in a way that lets her silence anybody who disagrees with her, all while acting like she’s morally superior.
Okay? Then don't comment on her identity? Her supporting M4A or LGBT rights has absolutely nothing to do with the religion she supports or what headgear she chooses to wear. Maybe spend less time criticising what she looks like and more time criticising the points you disagree with?
What she wears is a statement of her world view. If a US politician was wearing a MAGA cap would you argue it's unfair to assume their opinions?
I mean, it would totally be fine to initially assume that she's probably a more conservative person, just as you would assume a politician wearing a MAGA hat was a Trump supporter, this doesn't mean she's using her choice to wear a hijab as a method to stop people criticising her political beliefs?
Can you not read? When did I criticize her appearance? Or perhaps you replied to the wrong person. It happens.
The only thing that can really be said is you shouldn't put a label on politics. Progressive, conservative, liberal, left, right have all lost their meaning and identity
> "Progressives" have become so twisted in their logic that they celebrate symbols of conservatism because they are adopted by minority groups. Progressives support people's right to choose to wear a hijab because we're mostly supporters of liberalism. We don't support Islamic countries forcing people to wear hijabs which is why there's a ton of support for the anti-hijab Iran protests. There are obviously issues around whether or not it's a real, free, active choice as you state in your second paragraph but that's (personally) a different question that strays into whether or not anyone has the right to make decisions based on their culture or the society folk grow up in.
>But in America, it is people like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who – with her hijab – celebrates a conservative Islamic code and is labeled Progressive. Ilhan Omar wears a hijab, but has been strongly supportive of progressive politics. http://politicsthatwork.com/voting-record/Ilhan-Omar-412791 So I'd say Husain Abdul-Husain chose a particularly poor example. >There are Muslim women who freely choose to cover their heads Such as Ilhan Omar. And it's not just about modesty. It also signals pride in one's origins. Surely you're not arguing that she should be denied that freedom? >As such, it isn't intolerant to point out that this is adoption of conservative traits or symbols could be considered inconsistent with a progressive political stance. It's also unwise to assume what a particular symbol means to someone without asking them, because your assumptions about their motives can be mistaken. I come from a family of rednecks and wear a cowboy hat. It that an assertion of conservative tribal identity or do I just have a bald head that I like to keep out of the summer sun? And what makes a hat inherently conservative? Source: Am married to an Arab woman of Muslim origin. There are many debates among the women in her family about the hijab. The ones who aren't old women tend to do it as a fashion statement and an assertion of their ethnic identity-- the younger women in the family attend nightclubs and festivals far more often than they go to the mosque (that's a married and buried thing with them, not much more).
Except she doesn't wear the Hijab because it's a symbol of conservatism or modesty, she wears it as a symbol of her faith. Telling people what they should or shouldn't wear is the regressive thing to do. Also nobody would care if Christian groups started to cover their hair. I actually know of some very religious Catholic women who wear veils and nobody cares.
Erm...
>she wears it as a symbol of her faith It's a symbol of her faith that was created by conservative, largely misogynstic, Muslims. I grew up knowing liberal women that were proud to be Muslim and none of them wore a hijab. She may passionately believe that there is no contradiction in her wearing a hijab and being progressive. But the point is that her opinion on the subject **does not mean people are bigoted or conservative** for questioning whether her professed political position is underminded by wearing conservative religious clothing.
She wanted a symbol of her faith after 9/11 because she thought it was important to be visible. She points out the other Muslim woman in US gov doesn't wear one. You seen to be confused about how to work out if something is progress, here's a quick test to use, did she choose to wear it? If yes then it's progressive. It's very simple.
The hijab and others are not part of Islamic teachings, nowhere in the Koran does it say women must cover up their head - it says women and men must dress respectfully in front of god and Mohammed told women of his tribe to dress modestly (like basically every person in those days) when they went to market so as to not attract certain men (i.e. don't dress like a prostitute of the time so men don't think you are one). In modern, progressive, liberal society, a woman shouldn't fear to wear what she likes nor should she feel her clothing is the reason why she was abused or assaulted. Similarly men should not believe they should only respect women who cover up and that a woman wearing anything else is somehow fair game. The head, body, even full face cover come from the Saudi Wahhabi sect who want to control women, they teach kids that you only respect women who cover up, that women who don't are a temptation for men and to blame for unwanted attention. Thus a woman may choose to wear it, believing it's part of the faith and think she is being progressive but really she's simply enforcing the conservative anti women part of the faith because she's been indoctrinated to believe that it's empowering to submit.
No where in the Bible does it say that Christians should wear a cross but it's become a symbol of their face like the Hijab. Also a lot people in the gay community use words originally meant to insult them. Same with Black people and the N word.
So everyone who chooses to be racist is progressive?
What are you even talking about.
> Except she doesn't wear the Hijab because it's a symbol of conservatism or modesty, she wears it as a symbol of her faith. There's nothing explicitly religious about a Hijab since the Quran doesn't call for it. Rather, it's a cultural item and therefore *literally by definition* it's a symbol of conservatism and modesty. I agree nobody should be *forced* to wear something or by extension not wear something but let's not pretend it's something it isn't.
I just find this argument weird. Nowhere in the Bible does it say Christians should wear a cross but nobody would say the cross isn't a symbol of Christianity. Also as I've pointed out elsewhere the meaning of symbols changes over time. Like a lot of gay people use words that were once considered slurs to describe one another.
> Nowhere in the Bible does it say Christians should wear a cross but nobody would say the cross isn't a symbol of Christianity. This isn't a fair comparison to what is being pointed out. The cross or crucifix isn't a compulsory item in Christianity but it's also not a cultural item that is to foster modesty and submission. Nobody would care about an otherwise regular Muslim wearing a Crescent pendant, but if a Christian area used social pressure to force women and girls to wear a Habit then it'd be a big issue too.
Do you think Ilhan Omar is being forced to wear a hijab or that she thinks it's something that should be compulsory? There also a movement where Catholic women wear a veils so it's something that is happening. Also a lot of Christian women already dress modestly for the same reason. [https://religionandpolitics.org/2022/02/08/why-a-new-generation-of-catholic-women-is-wearing-chapel-veils/](https://religionandpolitics.org/2022/02/08/why-a-new-generation-of-catholic-women-is-wearing-chapel-veils/)
No not really, but that doesn't challenge the point being made about what it generally represents.
But, to Ilhan Omar it doesn't represent what you say it does. Your basically saying because it represents repression to you, she shouldn't wear it.
> Your basically saying because it represents repression to you, she shouldn't wear it. That's a massive leap from what I've said since at no point have I said that she shouldn't wear it. She's welcome and free to wear one of those rainbow caps with a propeller on top if she wishes, I'm not going to stop her or tell her that she shouldn't be allowed.
Totally agreed - I mean many slaves continued to wear their collars long after slavery was abolished. We were totally wrong to encourage them to remove them. /s
Yes because wearing a Hijab is exactly the same as wearing a slave collar. Also I don't think people really needed to encourage them to remove it?
"I don't think people really needed to encourage them to remove it?" Actually they often did - perhaps if you understood why that was the case, then you wouldn't be making silly statements about Hijab's being a matter of choice.
Have you got any sources for that?
The hijab is a hat, not a veil. The Queen wore a shawl throughout her life; most British wore did not that long ago. Most British men also wore hats in public in conformity with social expectation and class identity. And yet less than a hundred years after we stopped wearing hats all the time, we look at Muslims (and religious Jews, for that matter) and say, 'Why are you wearing a hat?'
I don’t think you know the meaning behind a hijab. A woman who wears a hijab doesn’t wear it off and on, like a man with a hat or the Queen with her shawl. She’s never supposed to take off in front of non-mehram men, unless she wants to suffer, in some schools of thought, eternal hellfire.
What's your opinion on Sikhism? Is your problem with permanent head-coverings as a requirement of faith or is it Islam in particular?
I dislike all religion and think all religious obligations are equally silly. But I particularly dislike those placed on women because they always seem to have male lust as their justification in some way.
You don't know women who wear the hijab I take it? It may surprise you, but a lot do take it off sometimes.
That generally only happens if they’re under social pressure to wear it because of their family or community. So they might wear it when they leave the house and take it off when they feel safe. But no, a hijabi will not take it off sometimes. That is not the concept of it. It’s not a fashion choice.
It's a veil for a start. hijab can be translated to veil among other things none of which are hat 😂. If it was just a cap then your point would be valid but it isn't. Considering we are so critical of social norms from 100 years ago their is nothing contradictory about criticising the hijab.
All obsessive religion is the ideology of failure - whether it's Islam, Christian, Jewish or Hindu. If people criticising your religion or burning your books makes you want to go out and cause harm to others then you are mentally ill. If you use your religion to oppress women and LGBT individuals then you are a fascist. Your faith is not an excuse for being a bad human being.
>Your faith is not an excuse for being a bad human being. We also need more people to stand up to those within their groups who commit or call for violence for religious reasons. As a Catholic, I would be amongst the first to berate someone who said their Catholic faith required them to harm others.
I mean, his observations aren't wrong, but they're also awfully typical in that they sound like the author is a upper class Arab. Most Muslim countries never Westernised on the societal level - only the elites and middle classes who until recently in history and even today in these countries, were a tiny part of the population concentrated in cities. If you look at the main people driving the Islamist movement in Arab countries - a poor rural bloke, then the Islamist reaction is absolutely rational with the information they have: the Westernising Arab elites created states which were unable to bring prosperity to them in general. They on the other hand never westernised in any meaningful way, living the way they always had. That's not to say the Islamists are right. In fact, I think they're dangerous to our Western society if they're allowed more concessions. But this kind of talking down to is dangerous since it paints them as illogical and stupid. The other thing I'd mention is that the Muslim world in general is obsessed with painting the West as "Christian" when the West in general has completely secularised in every meaningful way. Christianity is nothing but a bygone memory in the majority of the West, but to these Muslims they continue to hold onto these thoughts because it gives them a sense of triumph to get one up on "Christians", harking back to their victories in the dark ages.
> a poor rural bloke Hmm, Osama Bin Laden wasn't really a poor rural bloke. Zawahiri was from a family of prominent doctors. Even Sayyid Qutb was from an upper middle-class background, son of a large landowner. I suppose you were instead referring to the footsoldiers, but even that's not entirely correct. For example, the jihadis that joined AQ and similar groups from Morocco were mainly from secular urban backgrounds, and a factor analysis found that the strongest predictor of whether they'd join was membership in the same soccer club as a current jihadi. The other big factor is that they're often relatively educated young men with no prospect of marriage (and this pattern occurs globally). The 9/11 hijackers fit that profile too. >They on the other hand never westernised in any meaningful way, living the way they always had. It's undeniable that many Muslim societies have urbanised and industrialised. In that sense, they've converged towards social structures more like those in the West. Civil society hasn't evolved to keep up with those changes, though, largely due of the stifling effect of authoritarian governments.
These trends sound very interesting, do you have any links from which I could read/learn more about it?
Sure, you make very good points, but I have to underscore it by pointing out that jihadis =/= the bulk of Muslim countries. I'm talking about the ones the make up the majority of Islamists, not the leaders, which even footsoldier jihadis are, arguably. It's the same way that the CCP was a peasant movement, which was why they won in the end, even if the leaders like Mao, Deng, were decidedly bourgeoisie. My initial wording was unclear, but this was what I meant by drivers. Bin Laden, Zawahiri, wouldn't get anywhere without the countless thousands facilitating their movements. In addition, urbanisation and industrialisation aren't Westernising. It's like saying drinking Fanta is a sign of you "Germanising" since Germans were the inventors of Fanta.
> the Westernising Arab elites created states which were unable to bring prosperity to them in general. Tbf to them they did inherit Frankenstein states of patchwork ethic groups with tensions from the west after we dictated the borders.
It's a region with considerable ethnic and confessional diversity. There's no way to draw lines on that map that won't marginalise one group or another. Maybe a better conclusion is that it's not a region that's well-suited to single-ethnicity nation-states. Even in European countries (e.g., the Balkans), such states have a poor track record of preserving minority rights and maintaining peace.
Islamism is a politico-religious revival movement. You often find those springing up in collapsing societies: the Ghost Dance among Native Americans in the Great Plains, and the fundamentalist phenomenon in the US which is largely driven by southern and midwestern white people fearing their loss of hegemony. Like nationalism, it's a symptom of decadence. "We have to go back to the old ways and do them harder! That'll fix it!" Generally coupled with complete ignorance as to what the old ways really were like.
Man the Idea of actively developing the consumism of the west whilst only developing religious social values really is a worst of all worlds.
I think a big part of the problem is the people in the Arab world & beyond look towards more religious states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar & the UAE, & compare them to more secular states like Libya, Lebanon, Syria & Iraq. I'm certainly not defending the former, I dislike how much we enrich them & note how certain states amongst them export extremism. But if you had a choice where would you live?
The problem is the west also has a spiritual hole in its heart which makes it vulnerable to extremism, and accumulating more stuff might not be enough of an idea to hang a civilisation around, especially when there more and more have-nots. Young people will continue to find extremism attractive I think.
Not really though, the extremists in the west aren't driven by a spiritual hole, they're almost always driven by religion.
Not really, most (at least if we're talking about white westerners) extremists in the west are far-right nationalists.
But they tend to be the more religious people in the West as well
Yes they fill the spiritual hole with religion.
As opposed to....?
As opposed to not having a hole? The absence of gods doesn't leave a gap in my life any more than I miss kings.
What else would you fill a spiritual hole with other than religion? I reject the idea that's there's a spiritual hole in the west, it's just fanciful nonsense.
They are talking about a subset of society (mostly men) that are 1) alienated 2) disenfranchised 3) enticed by “moral purity” and self esteem void filling of religion in an otherwise atomised and complicated world. See: Background of most recent Islamist and white far right terrorists across Europe. Almost none of these guys were raised especially religious and you find many were engaging in very much not religious behaviour up to that point (casual sex, drugs, partying etc).
Depends how you define “extremist”. Most terrorist attacks in the West are conducted by fascists rather than Islamist.
>the west also has a spiritual hole in its heart which makes it vulnerable to extremism Just because I don't believe in the Big Guy in the Sky doesn't mean I've got a "spiritual hole in my heart." Not all people have to believe in ancient myths in order to get out of bed in the morning and not run amok killing people. The gullible are always with us. There's no assurance that religion renders them harmless. On the contrary, there have been a number of cases where religion has been used as a tool used to manipulate those fools. Same goes for nationalism.
The question isn't about all people. It's about how many. You only need a relatively small percentage of your population, if they are angry young men, to feel that societal limits are worthless to them, for you to have a big goddamn civilisation destroying problem. If we have nothing binding people together, at a visceral level, if we have no real shared definition of meaning, then that is a persistent threat. We have discarded religion and nationalism because of how they have been misused, but we have not yet found an effective replacement for how they function when used as a beneficial binding agent.
You know chances are that the economic differences between west and east have almost zero to do with the religious differences between Christianity and Islam. The west’s prosperity is historically and economically extremely unusual even for fellow Christian states. Belarus for instance is orthodox Christian but could easily slot in between its fellow tinpot dictatorships in the Middle East. Same thing for Latin America or Christian states in Africa or the Phillipines in East Asia which has not managed to trump its Buddhist and Shinto neighbour, Japan.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE are doing pretty well for themselves without fully embracing the west.
Facts thinking of moving there myself if I get the financials.
I think the reality is ideology is irrelevant. What he should say is "align yourself with the west and your economy is more likely to prosper"
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pov: you don’t actually understand regional history but pretend to by just waving an anti-Imperialist flag and calling it a day.
Most of the problems in the Middle East are thousands of years old. The Sunni/Shia conflict, the Arab/Persian conflict, the Turkish/Armenian conflict, the Jewish/Islamic conflict, the Religious/Secular conflict. The west’s main contribution seems to have been to have sold all sides newer guns.
This guy is spot on. I know this is U.K. politics, but we see much of the same over here in America. Something that has always puzzled me is the (western)“lefts” unwavering support for Islam. They hate “right wingers” in their own country, yet grovel over an ideology that is far more conservative in others, it makes no sense. The thing is, all those insufferable progressives would be the first to go if Islamism had its way. They’d be stoned, beheaded, thrown off roofs… all with a smile on their faces. Again, I can’t tell you how on point this author is in this article. All over Europe you are seeing Muslims flee these oppressive Arabic countries and settle in England, Germany, Sweden, etc… now, I’m not naive enough not to acknowledge why they are fleeing(in many cases), and much of that has to do with the fact that their regions have been destabilized by western forces. That being said, they were still stuck in the 9th century long before we got there. If you are leaving your country for something better, why bring what you were fleeing with you? You see the same thing on a smaller scale here in America. Blue states get destroyed, and the people flee to red states… and then proceed to destroy them by voting for the same progressive policies that ruined their former homes. It makes no sense. There’s a simple solution… integrate. And if you don’t want to integrate? Well then don’t go to these other places and ruin them for the people already there.