Glick: Why Islamic countries keep choosing Islamists
Caroline Glick is definitely not politically correct in this piece, but it's definitely spot on. No, Islam is not a religion of peace. No, if you give Islamic countries democratic elections, they're not going to vote for a liberal democracy. And no, apologizing to them over and over again isn't going to win them over either. It's time to face reality. Islamic countries keep voting for Islamists because those are the people who best represent them. This explanation is really nothing more than an observation. It observes that the populations of Islamic countries and societies support Islamist parties like the AKP and Hizbullah and Hamas because they support what they stand for. This explanation notes that tens and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Turks, Egyptians and others voluntarily congregate in public venues and swoon when Islamist leaders tell them that Islam will defeat the West and promise the death of America and the death of Israel.Read it all.
The jihadist message resonates with them. Their hearts and minds have already been won over. Contrary to what Western leaders as distinct as Bush and Obama believe, the hearts and minds of the Islamic world are not presently in play. From Beirut to the Taliban-controlled Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan, jihadists enjoy public support because the public supports their aim of defeating the West with bullets, with bombs, and with ballots.
It is too early to know how Obama will react when he like Bush is no longer able to deny that his strategy for winning over the hearts and minds of the Islamic world has failed. We don't know if like Bush before him, he will simply ignore reality and pretend that nothing has happened; if he will blame his political opponents or Israel for not joining him in his contrition; or if he will cast about for another central organizing principle that will explain hostile Islamic behavior.
What is clear is that in the absence of Western - and specifically American - willingness to consider the possibility that what is happening in the Islamic world has next to nothing to do with either what the West embodies or what it has done, and everything to do with the resonance of the Islamist message within the Islamic world, events like the expected loss of Lebanon in June will continue to be met with incoherent prattling and confusion.
Like it or not, it appears that the rising forces in the Islamic world perceive themselves as at war with Western civilization. They cannot be convinced to believe otherwise by either elections or apologies. And the current situation, in which only one side is willing to recognize that there is a war going on between two mutually exclusive ways of organizing human societies, will only lead us to more violent and devastating clashes in the future.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:03 PM
2 Comments:
Islamism is the greatest threat the West has faced since Communism. And unlike Communism it has enormous appeal in the Muslim World. Its not going to go away any time soon.
It isn't like they've disguised it. I keep hoping that one day our leaders are going to have one of those butt of the hand to the forehead moments when they say, "Wow, it was right there in front of me all along!" Problem is, they probably will - right after a very bad 'man caused disaster'.
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