Islamic militants and fascism
Reader comment on item: Israel's War on Hamas: A Dozen Thoughts
in response to reader comment: "Evolutionary process" in the Arab world, or eternal recipient of "enabling appeasement"?

Submitted by Jonathan Pfeffer (Canada), Jan 8, 2009 at 11:53

I agree with much of what you say but;

"Throughout history, evil ideologies did not "evolve" .... They were completely defeated"

Well, not exactly, when the Allied commanders went into the towns of the defeated Germany and identified the local mayors and other leaders to assist with the stabilization and rebuilding process, these locals as well as the ordinary citizens, instinctively knew what was happening and what they had to do. These instincts were the result of a sophisticated and modern social system that had already evolved prior to the Nazi disaster.

The reason why there was no insurgent type resistance in Germany was precisely because the society recognized and accepted the modernity that the occupiers where bringing in. Also the shame of Nazism and their recent crimes was not lost on most Germans.

In Arabia on the other hand, as we have clearly seen in Iraq, defeating evil and turning over the country to local leaders is far more problematic. It would appear that the instincts of the local leaders and of the general population are much more primal in nature.

However, my point was that Arabia is going through the painful process of modernization. These Militant Islamic instincts are really a reaction to modernization, just as Nazism was. The similarities are obvious; the longing for an earlier simple time when the civilization had no foreign influences and was autonomous, people were controlled by strong leaders, their national efforts optimized and individual needs were subordinate to the nation. Then the great civilization, as a whole was victimized and denied their greatness by another civilization etc....

Believe it or not, this fascist ignorance that spreads through many modernizing countries is transitive in nature and seems to naturally rise up to resist the encroachment of the modern world. The Islamic Militant demagogues have a lot more death poetry to scream out to their masses and unfortunately more killing and self immolation before they fade away and die, but fade away they will. What is not clear is how long it will take.

"Add to that a religion that scripturally commands the execution of apostates"

True, however it is not the wording of the scriptures that causes militancy. In fact I would go as far as to say that religion is more a means than a motivation for these militant groups. Hamas doesn't kill people because they just happen to read the "Jews hiding behind the rocks on judgement day" nonsense in the Koran. They dug up these passages to justify their own fascist beliefs.

These Islamic fascist demagogues know that moral relativism in interpreting the Koran will lead to a faster acceptance of Western values and the mixing of their civilization with the rest of the World. They know that it is an all or nothing struggle as far as Sharia Law is concerned; either they follow the letter of the Koran and benefit from the leverage that the resulting intimidation gives the zealots over the people or slide slowly into secularism where leadership is diffuse and unmanageable and much power and control is melted away into the hands of free citizens as it is in the West.

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