The Islamic Community Needs to Wake Up

I was looking over the BBC News website and came across this article, which shows a continuing trend of willed ignorance on the part of Muslims towards American attitudes towards Islam, which has been brought back into the spotlight due to Bush's recent comments in the wake of Islamic Fascist extremists' failed attack on the United Kingdom and the United States. Let us now look at this BBC article point-by-point:

Bush's language angers US Muslims
By Richard Allen Greene
BBC News, Washington

In the days after the horror of the 11 September attacks, President George W Bush made a point of saying Muslims per se were not America's enemy.

But in the five years since then, he has taken less care to emphasise that message, US Muslim leaders are saying.

They are upset about his use of terms like "Islamic fascists", which he used this week both for Hezbollah and the suspected bomb plotters held in the UK.

"It offends the vast majority of moderate Muslims," Ahmed Younis said.

"The use of the term casts a shadow upon Islam and bolsters the argument that there is a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West," Mr Younis, the national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (Mpac), told the BBC.

He said it was wrong to link the actions of violent Muslims to their religion.

"There is nothing Islamic about their fascism. The Prophet [Muhammad] and the Koran clearly articulate that this type of activity is outside of bounds for Muslims."

First, the term "Islamic Fascism" is a perfect term to describe these violent theocrats. For example, Dictionary.com's definition of Fascism is "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism." So far, I don't see any difference between this word and the ideals and methods of the Islamic Fascists. And, of course, Islam in the Dictionary.com definition is "A monotheistic religion characterized by the acceptance of the doctrine of submission to God and to Muhammad as the chief and last prophet of God." So far, I have yet to see any difference between these definitions and the people that follow that murderous belief system. There are Christian Fascists, Left and Right-wing Fascists. Does that mean that Christians and people who are Left or Right-wing are all Fascists? And what about the claim that the Koran is against violence and terrorism? A few quotes from the source should alleviate any curiousities -

Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.)
-Quran 2:191-2

Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.
-Quran 4:89

Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to those who disbelieve.
-Quran 9:3

Any questions?

Regular refrain

Mr Bush used the term on at least two separate occasions this week.

On Monday, during a press conference from his ranch in Texas, he said terrorists "try to spread their jihadist message - a message I call ... Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism".

A moment later, he said "Islamo-fascism" was an "ideology that is real and profound".

Then, on Thursday after the arrest in Britain of two dozen people suspected of plotting of bomb planes travelling to the US, he said "Islamic fascists... will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom".

That day, the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote to him to complain.

Its chairman Parvez Ahmed condemned his "use of ill-defined hot-button terms", which, he said, "feeds the perception that the war on terror is actually a war on Islam".

The council had not had a reply from the White House as of Friday afternoon, its legal director Arsalan Iftikhar told the BBC.

Neither the White House nor the State Department responded to BBC requests for clarification of the term.

Mr Younis of Mpac said he believed the president's use of the term was "a mistake" and that Mr Bush's speechwriters would drop it in the future.

He added that the idea that "there is a school of thought called Islamic fascism is a misnomer".

'Different breed'

Security expert Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies agreed that the term was meaningless.

"There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term," he said.

"This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one's opponent, but it doesn't tell us anything about the content of their beliefs.

"The people who are trying to kill us, Sunni jihadist terrorists, are a very, very different breed."

Most thinking people will know that this is not what Bush meant by the term. But the Saudi-backed Council on American-Islamic Relations obviously has no faith in the intelligence of Muslims. What I believe the real fear from CAIR is, is the possibility of the moderate Muslims whom they claim to speak for while being funded by the extremists will differentiate between the Islamic Fascists who blindly accept the extreme literal interpretation of the Quran and those who follow a more moderate Islam, that respects plurality and a diversity of religions and other belief systems living in peace, such as the Free Muslims Coalition. As for the term "Islamic Fascism" being a misnomer, that is untrue. While the Islamic Fascists don't call themselves by that term, their beliefs and practices certainly apply.

Zanab Chami, a Muslim community activist in Dearborn, Michigan - home to one of the largest Arab communities in the US - said the administration had seized upon a new term to frighten people.

"I think the word terrorism has lost its edge. They are looking for something with a little more oomph."

And she is afraid that such language does have an effect on how Americans view Muslims.

"In the post-9/11 era, people are apt to fear Islam. These terms get thrown around so easily and it builds upon a foundation of fear that has already been instilled."

In fact, a Gallup poll released the day of the arrests in Britain showed that two out of five Americans admit to feeling prejudice against Muslims.

While the concept of the word "terrorism" losing it's "oomph" as Zanab Chami so eloquently put it is correct, there is also another cause for the redefinition. The term "terrorism" is ill-defined in light of who the Western World is fighting. This war isn't against terrorism in general, but in fact a war on Islamic terrorism, which after 9/11 has been deemed the most pressing terrorist threat to the United States and the West.

As for prejudice, it is a sad thing, but this prejudice was most likely due to the actions of Islamic radicals in the past coupled with a lack of contact with more moderate Muslims on the part of these people who partook in the polls, not Bush's rhetoric.

In Washington, Mr Younis said the president's linking of Islam with fascism would alienate "moderate Muslims who are needed at the front line of any effort to counter terrorism or extremism by Muslims".

But in Michigan, Ms Chami said it was already too late to worry about indelicate phrases.

"Members of the Muslim community here do not believe in the administration. They rightfully discount much of what President Bush says. People have closed their ears to him."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
americas/4785065.stm

And the Muslim community will continue this PR slump at their own peril for not listening to the President's statements. Instead of decrying his words, they should show some actual proof, not rhetoric, that the majority of Muslims support putting an end to the Islamic extremism. It's pathetic that the poor definition of these terms mixed with the willed ignorance of Muslim leaders has led to this debacle.