Just saw this screenshot from an article over at the Tony Blair Foundation has out and which was shared by Stephen Pollard the journalist and editor of the Jewish Chronicle. In the excerpt, Blair says something that is difficult to disagree with even though I despise Blair and the damage that his governments did to the UK.
Blair said that Islamism is a ‘long term challenge’ to the West and to liberal democratic societies because it is ‘utterly inconsistent’ with tolerant and broadly secular societies. He also drew a comparison between the fight against Communism and the fight against Islamism. He said that both are long term fights where we can’t just ‘give up’ when the going gets tough. He also criticised the manner of the exit fro Afghanistan.
Whether you agree with or like Tony Blair or as with millions of other Britons you despise him and his works, it’s hard to disagree with Blair’s assessment of Islamism or his comparison with Communism. The fight against Communism took decades and covered not just the period of the Cold War, but also those struggles against it that occurred in democratic countries prior to World War II. We should expect a fight against Islamism, which like Communism has extremely well motivated promoters and operatives, to take a similar length of time to conclude.
Very good of Mr Blair to speak up and with common sense.
The one thing I would stress is that there shouldn’t be any unnecessary bloodshed. Try to convince with words first and if that fails only then get heavy handed.
As I said earlier I have little time for Blair or the sort of policies that in my view did Britain great harm, such as uncontrolled migration, the politicisation of the police and civil service and allowing gambling to be pushed in people’s faces 24/7, but he’s right on this one issue. Fighting Islamism is a long term one and it is similar to the fight against Communism. Like a broken analogue clock which is right twice a day, Blair is right about the challenges posed by Islamism. Islamism afflicts all who come into contact with it. However its first and more numerous victims are all too often innocent Muslims who are not extremist and just want to get on with their lives.
Whilst in general I agree with both the article and the points made, I still find one problem with the thesis being set forth.
What is Islamism? How is this different to Islam? What is “radical” about so-called radical Islam, or “extreme” about so-called extremist Islam.
The sad fact is that Islam, Islamism and radical/extremist Islam are (at best) different facets of Islam and at worst one and the same thing.
This is not to say that all Muslims believe in “Islamism” etc. clearly they do not.
[But it is to say that those Muslim who do not at least support the goals of “Islamism and radical/extremist Islam”, if not the methods (Jihadi terror etc.) currently being employed, do not really believe in Islam either (I’m sure many, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, would disagree with me on that, but the balance of evidence within the Islamic canon favours this view, however unpalatable that may seem), see below].
The question that should be, but is not, asked is how do these versions of Islam that we perceive as “radical”, “extreme” or an “ism” relate to the teachings of Islam itself and, in particular, Sunni Islam since over 80% of Muslim are Sunnis?
Sadly the answer is they relate to the canon of Islam very well. There is nothing “extreme” in the sense of being “on the fringe” with extremist Islam. Such beliefs and attitudes are found in the Islamic canon.
It is “radical Islam” in the original sense that radical means “to the root” and thus terming this historical phenomenon (for it is NOT as some claim a modern development) “radical Islam” is correct – it does go to the root – the canon – of Islam; but I suspect few mean it in this way.
As for “Islamism”, this is a very slippery word in that it means many different things but often it means “a form of Islam we [whoever “we” are] do not like”. And the “we” in this context is often “westerners”. That we dislike what we call “Islamism” is entirely fair, it is (as Blair says) “an ideology utterly inconsistent with tolerant and broadly secular societies.”
But Islamism (whatever that is) is not the problem, Islam is. Wherever Islam truly holds sway it shows itself to be “an ideology utterly inconsistent with tolerant and broadly secular societies”, but we cannot, will not, say so.
Agree that the problem with Islamism is that it has its roots in Islam itself, it is a distilling of some of the worst parts of Islam. We are pretty lucky that only a small proportion of Muslims at least in the West follow Islamism but other countries are not so lucky.
This is why I believe that the long term aim should be to peel people away from Islam itself, something that seems to be happening already judging by what I’ve heard from various ex Muslim commentators as well as recognise where Islamism comes from.