October 15, 2001

Struggle for Islam: simple-minded 'rubbish' from CNN Islamism is heir to legacy of European totalitarianisms

Alexander Rose National Post

Within 30 seconds last night, it was evident that the much-touted CNN documentary, Struggle for Islam, was going to be a washout.

The presenter, "war correspondent" Christiane Amanpour, in reality an anodyne reporter and not much more, immediately told us that Osama bin Laden wants to rid the Middle East of Americans. In other words, bin Laden has a political agenda. Thus, if Washington evacuates the Middle East, stops propping up the "unIslamic regimes" in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, ends support of Israel and lifts Iraqi sanctions, "Muslim rage" against the United States will dissipate.

By rationalizing "Muslim rage" into a phenomenon capable of being "solved" by a change in U.S. policy, Ms. Amanpour and her CNN colleagues unwittingly misconceive what bin Laden and the Islamism he exemplifies are all about.

Islam's struggle, we learn after a Dummies' Guide to the religion's tenets, is that of "mainstream versus militant." Osama bin Laden is guilty of "distorting true Islam," opine a series of [mainstream] talking heads: Islam is a religion of peace. We must combat our stereotypes of Islam, says Ms. Amanpour, and perceive that it embraces people of all backgrounds and nationalities.

As far as these clichés go, they are sensible enough. Bin Laden does, for instance, twist the Koran way out of shape in parts, and the doctrine of jihad has several meanings of varying complexity.

But Ms. Amanpour and company refused to go beyond the pedestrian observation that bin Laden misinterprets Koranic verses, which in their book makes him a "militant." They could not come to grips with the essential point that, even if the United States ditched Israel tomorrow, the real struggle would not end. Bin Laden and the Islamists -- by which I mean those, perhaps up to 15% of those living in the Muslim world, who long to create a global political-religious totalitarianism through violent means -- regard a U.S. retreat, the annihilation of Israel and the downfall of the Arab monarchies as merely Stage One in the "war of civilizations" between Christianity [conflated with the "West"] and Islam. In their eyes, this struggle has been continuing since the Muslim armies triumphantly smashed their way into Spain and vanquished the Balkans in the Middle Ages.

From these crowning heights, it all went downhill. For the last few centuries, "Christian Europe" has reigned supreme in every facet of existence as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Muslim Middle East began its inexorable descent into leftist dictatorship, poverty, stupor and backwardness. In sum, the Islamists want to reinvigorate the war against the West. Though we have been told innumerable times by President Bush that this is a "war against terrorism," not between civilizations, it is clear the Islamists think otherwise.

In this sense, Islamism is ironically heir to the legacies of 20th-century European totalitarianisms, which also desired to reinvigorate their societies and inoculate them against corrupt, superficial, modern Euro-American values. Ruthlessly intolerant of dissent, implacably aggressive and tyrannous by design, Islamism is the true struggle within Islam, not the watered-down, simple-minded "mainstream versus militant" rubbish peddled by CNN.

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2001

Answers

Ms. Amanpour has long been known as a shill for Third World causes - particularly pro-Islamic ones. That anyone would pay attention to anything she says is beyond comprehension.

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2001