Addressing Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy
by N.M. Guariglia, PAJAMAS MEDIA
[..] In 2004, Elbarasse was arrested. Documents seized in his basement revealed the Muslim Brotherhood’s archives for the United States. CAIR is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Students Association (MSA) is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Muslim Brotherhood spawned Egyptian Islamic Jihad and subsequently al-Qaeda.
These are just a few of the men running the Islamic mosques, schools, campus organizations, and charities in the United States. They are all avowed jihadists and see no distinction between Palestinian “resistance” and al-Qaeda terrorism. The entire apparatus of U.S.-Muslim dialogue is controlled by our enemies. And we have accepted this — so much so that to acknowledge this reality is political suicide.
It’s time to address this. Embassies have been burned, diplomats and newspaper editors have cowered, cartoonists have been hunted down, film directors have been hacked, operas have been canceled, and books have been taken off the shelf. We are losing the Enlightenment out of fear of offending others. Canada is flirting with Islamic law. Europe is allowing “group rights” in unassimilated Muslim ghettos. That is to say, their democratic constitutions do not apply for those who wish to abide by Islamic law. Therefore, the legality of murdering one’s daughter differs depending on what country you originally come from, or your personal convictions about the truths of the universe. [..]
There is the prevalent argument that this is not representative of real Islam. Fine. Then let’s at least have a discussion as to what “real Islam” actually is. Surely it makes little sense to define all the good things as real Islam and all the bad things as a perversion of real Islam, no? Can we no longer think objectively? Have we become that terrified into silence?
The truth is this: Islam is not merely a religion. Islam is a complete way of life: theological, political, social, and legal. Islamic law is the literal word of the Koran, which is supposed to be the direct word of God. It claims to be unalterable. There are no metaphors. It claims to be timeless. What was true in the seventh century is true today and cannot be reinterpreted to conform to contemporary mores. Should the Koran omit something of concern, it states to follow the Hadith (59:7) — or the life, traditions, and actions of Muhammad, the perfect man, God’s final messenger.
Should the Hadith omit something, Muslims are to follow the Ijma, or the unanimous consensus of Islamic scholars. This is why, even amongst the disparate schools of Islam, there are no distinctions of Islamic law. All of these interpretative matters have been addressed long ago. It is what it is and it cannot be anything else.
The Koran is said to be progressive revelation. Should one verse instruct friendliness to non-Muslims and another instruct the murder of non-Muslims, the doctrine of abrogation is to be applied. In other words, since there can be no contradictions within the Koran — that is the book’s foundation — the most recent revelation is the one that is applicable. Unfortunately, the most recent Koranic revelations are the unfriendly ones; the homicidal ones. “Jihad” is not a yoga-like exercise for internal spiritual discovery. It is the killing of non-Muslims and the enforcement of Islamic rule throughout the world. “Peace” is not coexistence. It is Islamic dominion over the planet. “Freedom” is not individual liberty. It is submission to the supernatural.
Where is the United States to go from here? We ought to shut down the internal jihadist infrastructure controlling the American-Muslim community. We ought to challenge the ten-year plan of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference to stifle freedom of speech, thought, and expression in the West. We ought to more passionately defend the superiority of democratic and liberal values — in ethics, in philosophy, and in practice. We ought to call for explanations on behalf of the Islamic world. What is it they actually believe? What actions are they willing to take on behalf of these beliefs? Rather than tell them what they want to hear, we ought to begin insisting they tell us what we want to hear.
And finally, we ought to devise a foreign policy whereby we officially oppose the inclusion of fascist theocratic movements in new democratic governments — whether Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — and proclaim our support for true freedom. As with Hitler’s Germany, democracies can easily be destroyed in their infancy through the tactic of “one man, one vote, one time.”
There’s no need to be bigoted or mean-spirited. We can do this, as Reagan did with Soviet communism, with the confidence of a happy heart. Good humor, in fact, might go a long way. We should distinguish a doctrine from its adherents and respect the world’s Muslims enough to be honest with them. But first, we must be honest with ourselves. They’ll respect that more.
N. M. Guariglia writes on foreign policy. He can be contacted at nmguar@gmail.com.
To clarify, “one man, one vote, one time” defines a “plebiscite,” not a democracy. Will Rogers made that distinction in his own words better that I can: “Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.” To substitute a plebiscite for democracy is like baking a cake with one ingredient. The definition of a democracy has so much more.
It includes representation (direct or indirect) of the people of a society, equal rights for every individual, especially for minorities, by the majority vote. Ayn Rand’s explanation highlights the negative aspects of a government that lacks democracy: ” Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” However, it doesn’t say anything about rule by a minority to the detriment of the majority. The government that doesn’t represent the interests of a nation is playing with fire. The destructive forces let loose by such a non-representative government will always result in the destruction of that nation. The choice is clear. Either we all live under Islamic Sharia law, or we all live under American constitutional law. PERIOD!!
In the name of religion, where is a pattern of armed conflict or terrorism targeting civilians being committed between any combination of Christians and/or Hindus and/or Jews and/or Buddhists? Nowhere! Yet conflict between Muslims and Christians or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists is endemic across many cultures with cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) accompanying murderous violent attacks and terrorism with great frequency. While one would need to consult history books for patterns of murderous destructive riots, violence, wars, insurrections and death edicts in the name of Christianity or Judaism, researchers of violence committed in the name of Islam need only read a typical mainstream daily newspaper.
An extremist politically correct perspective would seek to ban discussion whether mainstream Islam should be regarded as merely a religion like Christianity and Judaism or more a socio-political ideology with elements of spirituality. Impeding efforts to understand the motivation of violent Islamic movements derails attempts to develop peaceful resolution of conflicts worldwide. This conflicts include life and death issues such as war and peace, terrorism, and whether the Arab-Israeli conflict is a land dispute or a religious dispute. The very subject of the nature of Islam is taboo and is often characterized as bigoted, racist or Islamophobic. As a phobia is an unreasonable fear of something and Islamophobia is an unreasonable fear of Islam, it can’t be objectively determined if the fear is reasonable if investigation is forbidden.