CALL 'EM WHAT YOU WILL...
Y' gotta differentiate 'em in the public mind from all the OTHER MUSLIMS!
I realize that the term Islamo-Fascism has been co-opted by the neo-cons,
BUSHCO, and other apologists for the War for Empire , Oil and Corporate
Interests – and it is applied by SOME in a cavalier manner that unfairly characterizes
one of the three Abrahamic religions - but, damn it, I haven’t been able to
coin or discover a BETTER term than Islamo-Fascism that aptly describes the
violent Islamic forces arrayed against the West AND the world.
We all worried about the safety of the brilliant writer Salman Rushdie who
was forced underground by the official pronouncement of a death sentence by the
Ayatollah because of perceived “blasphemy” against the Prophet and Islam. In
The Netherlands, documentary filmmaker Theo Van Gogh lost his life for making a
film about Islam. There were calls for death for artists who dared to depict
the Prophet Muhammad in editorial cartoons in Denmark.
I find the wishy-washy approach to the issue of violent and intolerant Islam by
some critics on the left naïve, if not irresponsible. Extremist Islam is more
than a phantom created by the neo-cons and BUSHCO as an expedient bogeyman to frighten
the electorate and gain support for increased military spending and foreign
adventures.
This is not to say that Islamic peoples all over the world are not diverse and
even involved in various movements to REFORM Islam – such as feminist movements
and youth organizations in Western countries. My focus is not on Islam, but the
imminent threat to world peace and to our Western Civilization from Islamists
(the academic term for Islamic extremists). They are a few powerful and wealthy
groups that are using a perverted interpretation of the Qu’ran, the history of
exploitation of the Middle East by Western countries in the 20th
Century AND the unpopular 3-year occupation of Iraq to recruit larger numbers
of adherents. Their oft-reiterated goal is global jihad, not merely
proselytizing to win converts to Islam, but the subjugation of every nation to
the oppressive Laws of Sharia – which are believed by adherents to be divinely ordained,
concrete and timeless for all relevant situations.
Islam has a history as a violent, intolerant, oppressive religion that was spread at the tip of the sword, riding on the backs of horses that poured out of Arabia. The same may be said be of other religions, Christianity in particular, but Christianity and Judaism reformed. With few exceptions, Christians, Jews and others don’t follow ancient laws and customs as directed “by God” as most Muslims feel obliged to do. For example, Islam today is the only religion that has Apostasy as crime worthy of capital punishment!
Like Christianity, Islam is
aggressively proselytizing religion - intent on converting the whole world into
Islam and reconstituting the Caliphate. Extremist Islam is at war with EVERYONE
- not just the West. Everywhere non-Muslims and Muslims come into contact,
there’s strife. Why is that? The answer is - Islam needs REFORMATION or it’ll
continue to react violently to a world where the modernists accept
socio-cultural change, diversity and personal freedoms.
BLAME IT ON MONOTHEISM...
For purposes of this discussion – monotheism refers
to the three Abrahamic religions. Ahh, there's the rub! Belief in The One True God promotes
single-mindedness, obsession, totalitarianism, and conflict.
On top of that - Islam is rooted in
a part of the world that rejects modernism (while embracing Western tools and
technology). The governments and the religious dictators of the Islamic peoples
continue to resist political and economic changes that have propelled the
Western world to such an advanced sphere of global influence, as well as unprecedented levels
of individual autonomy and broad distribution of material wealth as a reward for work.
The one thing that the
fundamentalists fear and vehemently oppose is individual freedom, including the
constitutional cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution - separation of religion and
government. Islam needs to go through an Enlightenment! 
