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The War Islamism is Waging on Independence
of Thought
22.9.2012
By Dr Sabah Salih - Special to Ekurd.net |
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September 22, 2012
Islamism, by its own self-definitions, is an effort
to put the human mind in chains. Its simplistic and
totalitarian slogan, “Islam is the answer,” makes
prohibition on thinking mandatory for all; whatever
it doesn’t go with this severely limited mindset, it
attacks in the name of Allah, turning silencing
dissent by whatever means into a religious duty. The
West only recently has been experiencing the rage of
Islamism, but Islamism has been in this game for a
long, long time in Muslim-majority countries.
One day it’s liquor stores the Islamists attack.
Another day they go after women who refuse to allow
their bodies to be imprisoned in clothes alien to
them. But most of the time their targets include
products of human creativity and thought: a
newspaper article, a book, a lecture, a poem, a
painting, a play, a movie, a photograph, to name
just a few.
The Islamist goal is to crush all opposition through
fear, intimidation, blackmail, violence, and legal
action, but its ultimate goal is much more drastic:
a complete overhaul of society and the fashioning of
a new national mindset. That’s why Islamists are so
eager to put the educational and legal systems,
along with the media and public spaces, under their
sole control. Such mindset would be anchored in a
series of simplistic and rigid absolutes that would
have no room for things that help society move
forward: debate, argument, and freedom of inquiry.
Already, in countries like Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia
so many things that people used to take for granted
a year or so ago are now unsayable, unprintable,
unpresentable.
Muslims who do not approve of the politicization of
their faith are already under threat; all across the
Middle East their holy sites are being attacked or
demolished.
To put non-Islamist Muslims further on the defensive
and to portray themselves as the only legitimate
voice of Islam, the Islamists never miss an
opportunity to be seen attacking Western targets;
their message is, If you’re not with us, then you’re
with our enemies. And when Western governments offer
unconditional apologizes, wittingly or unwitting,
these governments leave non-Islamist Muslims with no
option but to sheepishly follow the Islamist line;
they don’t even have the option to be silent. One
day Obama’s and Clinton’s words will come back to
haunt them.
To be seen attacking Western targets also helps the
Islamists tap into the attractive narrative of the
revolt of the oppressed against the oppressor. The
intellectual climate in the West in the last 20
years or so, which tends to be very critical of
Western culture, gives Islamists reason to believe
that theirs is the laudable struggle of a once
colonized people against their former oppressors; in
this climate Western culture (movies, styles of
living, the internet, McDonalds, matters relating to
the body and human sexuality) is routinely seen as a
new form of imperialism whose overriding goal is the
destruction of so-called Muslim societies within.
Recent comments by many in the media and the academy
in response to the situation in Egypt and elsewhere
make it glaring clear how much this deeply flawed
and unexamined accusation has become the norm in the
West. This situation has resulted in the liberal
West turning its back on non-Islamist Muslims in
Muslim-majority countries; now it is the Islamists
that the liberal West is championing—the very people
who want to criminalize criticism of religion. These
people seem to have forgotten that article 19 of the
United Nations declaration of human rights
explicitly states, “Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression . . . . This right
includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.”
There is also another benefit for the Islamists to
be seen challenging the West. In countries like
Egypt, for example, there is a population explosion;
millions of youth will never be able to get a
university education,www.ekurd.net
let alone jobs; millions cannot read and write.
Demonstrations against the West can help deflect
attention from these miserable conditions; for
millions and millions of people accustomed to
thinking in simplistic absolutes, pinning their
hopes on the promises of Islam can be seductive.
These people will do what they are told and think
what they are told to think.
When addressing Western audiences, Islamists pepper
their language with borrowings from the language of
democracy; they know westerners can easily fall for
that. But when addressing local audiences, Islamists
are indistinguishable from those who want to control
not only what you do and wear but also what you
think and read. If Islamists want to slavishly
submit themselves to the dictates of their faith,
that’s their business; but they have no right to
expect others to abdicate thinking.
Dr. Sabah Salih is Professor of
English at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania, USA.
Dr. Salih is a longtime contributing writer
for Ekurd.net
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net. All rights reserved
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