search
Saurav Dutt

The real fight against Radical Islam lies with Muslims themselves

Those who advocate peace cannot allow the murderers to hijack their religion simply because they choose to look the other way through instransigence.

Ordinary Muslims cannot continue to objectify themselves as victims in the fight against radical Islam, they have to empower themselves to become the rational voices in their communities rather than to continue to allow the irrational to hijack their religion and continue to wreak terror upon others. The responsibility lies with them and they cannot continue to run from it anymore.

This is because radical Islam by its nature, and the religion itself, is based upon conquest and imperialism and only by seriously investigating its history, holding it up to scrutiny and rethinking elements with a defined purpose (the proximate goal being peace), will we realistically be able to fight those who continue to fight against secularisation.

London likes to think it is united in the wake of the attack on Parliament earlier this week but the incident only highlights how it has no idea on how to really fight the “war on terror” and to understand how best to approach anti-terror strategies. Platitudes, euphemisms, endless politically correct phrasings and investigations anchored by think-thanks too scared to speak in the name of that same PC mind-set will have no chance against terrorists who lurk in the shadows and simply do not believe in playing fair. Then there’s the little matter of these individuals wanting to kill you just for disagreeing with their ideology.

This is not least due to the fact that radical Islamic terrorists, by their nature, are flexible in how they wish to destroy their opponents. They’re flexible in choosing to crash planes into buildings one week, blowing themselves up against military targets the next, driving trucks and cars into innocent people and stabbing unarmed police officers, it’s a veritable roulette table of options for these murdering barbarians.

These psychopaths are willing to die in their quest to murder others and they have nothing to hold them back in that regard. Why? These Muslims are arguably that much more motivated to do so, ensuring that they further gains in the afterlife are far more glamorous and worthwhile compared to the nutjob Christian fundamental who is driven by something far less laudable.

Saying we are united and will stand firm and release press releases to form such an intent is nice and cuddly but it won’t cripple this horror alone, it won’t be allowed to win against this seasoned, historic and precisely organised source of destruction.

This is not least because Europe is fair game for them, it’s a devil’s playground for jihadis. With Trump in charge, America has become that much harder to successfully strike (though they’re doing their best in their attempts) but Europe is not isolated from the courts of radical indoctrination and far less stringent on monitoring those who come into it, leave it, share material and knowledge with known ‘hot-zones’ and are free to criticise one minute, then seek to kill you the next. They pool knowledge to ensure their way of thinking is superior and that their way of spreading their message has been allowed to become inferior and that this must change.

The radical conception of Islam is that it was curtailed by Christendom just when it was at its apex. So after two world wars it is now time for the Islamists to put inferiority behind them and return to the superpower status they so covet. This is clear within India where many Muslims are befuddled and inherently angry that their community is now reduced to serfdom, hence why Pakistan seeks to usurp it at every time and call Narendra Modi a terrorist.

In London and Britain, we have to realise that radical Muslims are locked in an eternal conquest to fight, that their vision must be extended right around the world and that only a muscular approach will suffice. In London in particular there are far too many Muslims who may not explicitly support terror but at the same time they won’t bring themselves to clearly deny that they do not believe in the global destiny Islam covets for itself; that of superpower status, a particular kind that eclipses that of any kind of Christian power.

Europe is a perfect incubator for the institution of the Caliphate that all these radical Islamists so crave. After the crushing of the Ottoman Empire there was a power vacuum that continues to be a thorn in the side of those who want to return Muslims to these particular levers of power; it is not nationalism, it is power itself, a figurative strategy which involves patience, planning, amassing great influence and then overwhelming dissenters and opponents, come what may. In its most fundamental form, it is creating Caliphates across prisms of opportunity and authority and then moving full steam ahead to create a powerhouse of indoctrination.

And that is exactly what Pakistan is, a future power base, a ‘land of the pure’ that detested colonial rule and is instead taking the long game, playing nice with the US and China, placating superpowers when it needs to while building a nuclear arsenal-the only Islamic country to do so. It has the will and the population to set its sight on its ultimate objective whilst already harbouring terror activity, it has no intention in moving away from one of its preferred goals, to be the leader of the Islamic world. It’s work with Facebook to stamp out perceived blasphemy on social media is just one small indication of that.

So we can hold vigils and hold hands and talk about togetherness but the reality is we can’t beat terrorism, especially this kind of terrorism. We are afraid and we should be afraid. We can strike the cobra in its lair and attempt to contain it, put limits on its reach but until they stop thinking it’s a good idea to kill themselves in order to obliterate others, we are living in Disneyland.

We have to start by amping up our intelligence and surveillance game sevenfold, it failed us in Britain by believing Khalid Mahmood to only be a ‘peripheral figure’. We have to ensure people are empowered so that they can report terrorist acts and face them without being labelled as racists and Islamaphobes.

The heart of the battle ultimately lies with Muslims themselves, to ensure their overconfidence in the good of the people does not impinge upon the battle to de-radicalise the fringe elements in their own communities. Leftists are of course to blame too, believing their vision of secularism means that alienated Muslims will magically become terrorists after being arbiters of reason one moment and being arbiters of majority thought the day before. They fail to realise that radicalism like this does not come out of a clear blue sky without preparation, planning and root ideals.

We cannot allow ordinary Muslims to continue to describe themselves to be victims anymore. If they feel belittled and scrutinised, deal with it. Society isn’t fair and hasn’t really ever been, there isn’t plurality (no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise) and we have to empower the rational voices in Muslim communities to speak out, not to muzzle them. We must do this because Islam needs to rethink its history, to fashion a new outlook with regards to its tendency to colonise independent thought and territory. Only Muslims can ensure their communities will be safely secular.

And so why is it that some Muslims continue to hate those within their ranks who have taken this precise challenge up? Why is it that some in these communities spit on the moderate voices and the reformists such as Majid Nawaz ,for example, who now unbelievably is supposed to be an Islamaphobe.

Islam cannot and should not be shielded from criticism and by fighting its radical elements and encouraging all Muslims to do so, the liberal left must too take responsibility that it is also part of the poison and not the antidote.

About the Author
Saurav Dutt is a published author, lawyer and political columnist who has written for IB Times and been featured in The Independent, Sky News, BBC and more.