Is It Possible To Challenge The Hold Of The Religious Clergy On The Muslim Mind?
Reader comment on item: Winning the Propaganda War [versus Radical Islam]

Submitted by Rakshas 10 Anan (India), Dec 29, 2005 at 11:54

They aspire for Western values, ideas, living standards, goods and services if it serves their interests to subjugate the lower classes and keep themselves atop the power pyramid. A single coup can change the equation radically, and there is no end to coups in the Muslim world.

The Muslim followers of the votaries of modernisation -- seen to be synonymous with westernisation -- are always in the minority. If there is a growing middle class among them, open to the forces of globalisation, then the possibility of winning them over through changing lifestyles, values and beliefs does exist. Without the backing of the ruling class or the state machinery, this middle ground can be lost in an instant when faced with the brainwashed, illiterate and fanatic mobs led by the bearded mullahs, who have considerable vested interest in keeping the Ummah backward.

More often than not, the indoctrinating force of Saudi Wahhabism holds sway over these obscurantists. And now, Al Qaeda or the mutating terrorist outfits in their midst. Nothing in those realms can penetrate the machinery of Koranic propaganda and the Hajj. How to cut into or diminish this hold is the critical issue.

Like the earthquake in Pakistan, a single event can bring to nought the previous gains made in cutting off the resource line of the fundamentalists and the terrorists. This serves to undermine and isolate the moderates, multiplying the risks taken by them to propagate the voice of sanity in a sea of unreasoning extremism.

First the minorities are put at severe risk, as repeatedly highlighted by Dr. Pipes; next come the moderates; and the pro-western ruling class itself can be purged in a groundswell of violent rioting or revolution.

In most Muslim countries, like in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the modernism of the current ruling elite is entirely self-serving and superficial in any case. They are permitted to rule only in alliance with the forces of obscurantism represented by the mullahs and the parties backed by them.

It is like the military leader in civvies, professing love for his dogs in interviews for foreign consumption (in defiance of Islamic proscription, but also out of view of the home audiences), who can at the same time assert that women get raped so they can make millions! Or like the seemingly modern suicide bombers going on a casino and nightclub binge in decadent Western style, before carrying out a deadly Islamist misson motivated with pure hatred.

In the case of Musharraf, we often see a media savvy personality scoring propaganda points to turn the tables on gullible foreign media operatives who have put their faith in the image-building without understanding the extreme restrictions upon the President's accomodative behaviour.

Dr. Pipes is right in that sophisticated efforts to appeal to good sense and sanity must continue, but this should not lead to fool ourselves about the ground realities of Islamofascism. The bottom line is that individual choice is seriously restricted under Islam, and those who would buck the religious line as defined by the mullah would certainly be put to death. This restricts options all around!

The major issue is not propaganda alone, but rather, a dual strategy that also involves decimating the influence of the rigid, obscurantist clergy that is thirsty for the blood of the infidels.

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