IF NOT ISLAMOFASCISM, WHAT NAME TO GIVE?
Dr. Alamgir Hussain
American Chronicle, CA
Nov 2 2007
The media have been abuzz in recent weeks condemning the Islamofascism
Awareness Week, held last week in College and University campuses
across America. The event was organized by former communist turned
conservative activist, David Horowitz, and his Freedom Centre.
This event was marked to create awareness about the danger of
Islamic extremism and terrorism, the oppression of women (polygamy,
honour-killings, & genital mutilations) and persecution of minorities
in Islamic countries, and the fanatical Jew-hatred among Muslims etc.
Horowitz’s Freedom Centre also takes aim at the American left, who
have made the educational institutions as exclusive forts of their
propaganda, impregnable to contrary views. He also accuses the left
of forming an unassailable alliance with the dangerous Islamists,
who will make every effort to destroy the very ideals ¯ secularism,
democracy, liberalism, human rights, and rights of homosexuals etc. ¯
which they holds dear.
Looking at what is happening in Islamic countries; Horowitz is not at
all wrong about his apprehensions of what would transpire when Muslims
become dominant in western countries, which they will at least in
Europe by 2050. Horowitz rightly regrets that the left is staunchly
against his campaign, when they should be on his site. I think it is
the left who should take the lead in this awareness campaign.
The major focus of criticism of Horowitz’s Islamofascism Week is that
the term, Islamofascism, tends to lump all Muslims together as fascists
or terrorists. Fox News Channel anchor Alan Colmes, told Horowitz that
"The words, the phrase ‘Islamo-fascism’ is hate speech.
It equates an entire religion with fascism." Although became popular
after President Bush once uttered it, the term "Islamo-fascism"
was coined by secular Muslims to describe the murderous ideology and
activities of the Islamic radicals in the bloody civil war-stricken
Algeria.
Horowitz, however, has been at pains trying to explain that he does
not put all Muslims in the same balance. In stead, his message is
targeted at a segment of Muslims, who use a fascistic and violent
strain within Islam. He went on to explain in an interview that
although not all Italians were fascists in the 1930-40s, yet Italian
fascism was a widely accepted phrase. Italian fascism did not mean that
all Italians were fascists. So, it is groundless that Islamofascism
lumps all Muslims together as fascists. But neither of his detractors,
the Muslims and the leftists, would ever listen.
The result turned out just as expected. The left on campuses ganged
up with the Muslim Students Association ¯ founded, according to
Journalist Joe Kaufman, by the militant Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood
¯ to disrupt the Islamofascism Week talks. They created disruption
and chaos in most campuses making it impossible for Horowitz and his
co-speakers express their views.
Quite correctly, Horowitz calls American university and colleges to be
the impregnable forts of leftist propaganda. Amidst deafening shouting
and jeers at his Emory lecture, a frustrated Horowitz said with good
deal of justification that "This is exactly what the fascists did
in Germany in the 1930s." And ironically, organizations like the
National Project to Defend Dissent & Critical Thinking in Academia
joined hands in creating these fascist-style disruptions.
Can Horowitz be faulted for condemning the left for forming an unholy
alliance with the dangerous Islamists?
Let us now have a brief look at what Muslims have brought to the
West. In November 2005, Muslim youths in France rioted and vandalized
cars, homes and properties for weeks, leading to even death of
an elderly man. Some 100,000 cars were vandalized or set on fire by
French Muslim rioters and vandals in one year. Taking cues from their
French brethren in action, Muslims in Belgium took it up on them to
spread the Intifada in Brussels at the time.
Muslims in Netherlands engaged in similar Intifada by rioting and
setting cars on fire for more than a week since October 14, protesting
the death of a young Muslim, who was shot dead as he started stabbing
two policewomen entering a police station in Amsterdam. The two
policemen, critically wounded, narrowly escaped death.
At the same time, Turkish immigrants engaged in vandalism of Armenian
properties and attacking Armenians in Brussels, protesting the
U.S. initiative for recognizing the Turkish genocide of the Armenians.
This was followed by another round of riots, attacking buses and trams
and destroying cars and shops, in Brussels’s Turkish quarters over the
rising tensions between Turkey and Kurdish rebels along Iraqi borders.
Such riots and vandalism are becoming increasingly common across
Europe in areas with high density of Muslims. Muslims have been
creating more and more ghettos ridden with violence and crimes,
which have become no-go zones for non-Muslim Europeans, even for
the police. If a non-Muslim girl happens to stray in those ghettos,
there is a high possibility that she will come out raped.
The term, Islamofascism, is not acceptable. Fair enough! But how
about a Stop Islamization of Europe rally, which one transnational
European group, wanted to bring about in Brussels to commemorate
9/11 this year? The secular-liberal fabric of western societies
¯ from New Zealand to Australia to Canada to Europe ¯ are being
aggressively Islamized by Muslim immigrants. To give a few examples:
airports must have a mosque; canteens in jails must have separate
quarters, cutlery and menu for Muslim inmates; school and university
canteens must remove pork and even alcohol from their premises;
and they must have separate public swimming pools or specific days
of the week exclusively for them. A A poll in 2006 found some 40%
British Muslims would prefer an Islamic Sharia law based governance
to replace the secular-democracy, while another poll in 2004 found 61%
Muslims want the Sharia court system in the U.K..
It was then very reasonable for those Europeans, seeking to protect
the secular and liberal fabric of their society from invasion by
often repressive and cruel Islamic values and cultures, to hold a
Stop Islamization of Europe rally. But this is not acceptable to
Muslims either. For them, this rally also lumps all Muslims together
and stigmatize them. They were determined to prevent the rally with
violence if needed. The leftist mayor of Brussels, heavily dependent
on Muslim votes, took firm steps to prevent the rally, for the duel
reasons of not upsetting his Muslim vote-bank and of the fear of
violence by Muslims. Yet, he had no qualms about a militant Islamist
group, who say the 9/11 was done by the Bush administration, to bring
out a rally on 11th September to condemn the war on terrorism.
The mayor rightly feared the likely unleashing of violence by Muslims
if the rally went ahead. The Danish chapter of the Stop Islamization
of Europe brought out a small rally on 21st November in Copenhagen,
a city having much fewer Muslims than Brussels with 25-30% Muslims.
Anders Gravers, the organizer of the event, and his three associates,
including two women, as they arrived for the rally, came under attack
by Muslim thugs, armed with knifes and iron-rods, which left three
associates hospitalized with bloodied head and face. Anders Gravers
was probably saved by a bullet-proof vest he was wearing.
To these should be added the murder of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh,
for making a film on the mistreatment of Muslim women in Islam, the
death-warrants and widespread violent demonstrations over publishing
Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons in a Danish paper in 2005, and the
death-threats and large-scale vandalism over Salman Rushdie’s novel,
The Satanic Verses (1989). There are numerous terrorist cells, directly
or ideologically allied with the Al-Qaeda in western countries. Apart
from the Madrid (March 2004) and London (July 2005) bombings, numerous
terrorist plots often against civilian targets have been aborted in
Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. The law enforcement agencies
are watching 5000 Muslims for terrorist activities in Britain and 2000
in Australia ¯ a phenomenon which extends across all western countries.
The Little Mermaid statue at the entrance of Copenhagen harbour was
found found draped in Islamic veil in May, while naked statues across
Germany were found found veiled with Islamic garbs in September.
These veiling incidents, which are becoming increasingly common
across Europe, highlight how Muslims would change the western liberal
societies to fit Islamic life-style and culture. When Muslims cannot
tolerate lifeless statues in their natural state, how long will they
tolerate the liberally (scantily) dressed real women walk on the
streets of Europe?
What should one call these activities brought to the West exclusively
by Muslim immigrants? Whatever name you give, these are all acts and
signs of fascism with no doubt. Other immigrants, such as the Chinese
or the Hindus, have not brought the same troubles. Muslims differ from
them only in their religion. If any logical or sensible name is to be
given to this brand of fascism, it got to be Islamofascism or Muslim
fascism. Islamofascism associates it with a strain of radical thoughts
within the ideology of Islam, while Muslim fascism obviously lumps all
Muslims together. When Islamofascism is unacceptable, Muslim fascism is
going to be even less acceptable to Muslims and their leftist allies.
You give it a name or not, there is no doubt that a brand of fascism,
brought by Muslim immigrants, has been spreading across western
nations with increasing intensity. While chatting about these issues
with Mr. Jamal Hasan, a coeditor of Beyond Jihad – Critical Voices
from Inside Islam, he told me: "Have you considered what would have
transpired if Salman Rushdie’s novel or Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons
were published after a few decades, when Muslims are projected to
become the dominant population in Europe?" One agrees or not, this
is one single issue, all westerners, the liberal-left in particular,
should be most concerned about.
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