Understanding Islam, page 16
The third transformation regards the disunion experienced by Muslims all around the world; it relates to a schizophrenic syndrome that bears no direct connection to the deadly struggle between Sunnis and Shiites. This highly complex phenomenon involves conflicts between Islamic fanatics, on the one hand, and resistance forces, Statal armies and civilian militias with varying motivations on the other, clashing against each other in numerous Muslim countries (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.).
In France and Europe, many Muslim men and women, who have certainly been ‘westernised’, are genuinely horrified by the global return to fundamentalist Islam, meaning to the real and murderous kind. They are not part of the hypocritical milieus that resort to a double discourse (the Islamic ruse) in order to lull those that are to be conquered and pacify their resistance. They strive to reconcile their commitment to their Muslim roots, which is of an ethnic nature, with their sincere attraction to European values of freedom.
Although they deserve the utmost respect, they are fighting a losing battle. Not only because of the fact that they are but a minority in their own camp, but because they wage a battle that contradicts Islam’s global evolution, an Islam whose course is set towards radicalisation and a return to its sources, meaning towards Islamism. What they attempt to oppose is thus the very Course of History.
Radical Islam in the Course of History
The Course of History entails major evolutionary or involutional currents which resemble a phylogenetic evolution process and may reverse and regress, but whose power is temporarily irrepressible, lasting a given amount of time. At times, these historical currents can also contradict and oppose each other. The Course of History is not of the Hegelian-Marxist kind at all, being neither flatly linear nor imbued with naive ‘progressivism’, but one that is marked, in a completely neutral manner, by huge background waves whose impact is felt in the short, medium or long term.27 Concerning Islam, the Course of History has experienced several periods of violent expansion and retreat lasting several centuries. Today, we are facing a new cycle of conquering aggression, one that follows a long period of humiliation and erasure. This new period is obviously not based on the actual ingeniousness of Islamised peoples, who have never excelled in their cultural, intellectual or scientific creativity (contrary to what the Islamophilic Left rehashes in L’Observateur and Le Monde, both of which have surrendered to the so-called ‘averroistic myth’), but relies on demographic growth (demographics being the mother of battles), as well as on oil and gas revenues.
This reawakening of genuine Islam came about with the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1920s and has been gaining momentum ever since the 1980s, particularly through mass migration towards Europe, which the latter, in its decadence and pusillanimity, has allowed to unfold. The conquest of Europe with neither war nor battle: such is the miracle of Allah. The ideological revival of real Islam, a religion simultaneously rooted in intolerance, obscurantism and conquest, is endowed with a historical power that mobilises Muslims worldwide, which is especially true of younger generations. As for the Muslims who attempt to oppose it, whether immigrants living in Europe or those that reside in the countries in question, they are no more than a minority. The masses, often amorphous, lying in wait and opportunistic, keep score of the events and anticipate the emergence of a victor.
The radicalisation of Islam goes hand in hand with its new expansionism. This radicalisation is not synonymous with extremism. Etymologically speaking, it is rather a return to Islam’s roots, namely those of imitating Muhammad. Of course, the totalitarian and murderous excesses committed by Daesh in Iraq, Syria and Libya outrage the Muslim populations, whose members fall as much victim to such practices as the Christians do. But Daesh is the tree that conceals the forest and its actions are a perfect imitation of Muhammad’s, and throughout the Muslim world its prestige continues to swell among the masses, and particularly among young people.
Having filled Mubarak’s shoes in the struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood and Daesh, both of which challenge his power, Egyptian President Al Sissi has failed to arouse mobilising enthusiasm among the young global Muslim umma. For its part, Kemalism, which was previously believed to be irresistible, has gradually been stifled by Erdogan, the clever ‘moderate Islamist’. Turkey is in the process of being re-Islamised, as ‘secular’ forces are subjected to repression and retreat. Moreover, the focus is no longer on granting Turkey access to the European Union. In the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, the same fundamentalist Islam continues to gain ground in people’s minds. The monarchies who fight it do so for reasons of interest, personal power and cronyism and are nothing more than sand castles, which may collapse at any given time.
Versatility is characteristic of the Muslim-Arab world and, generally speaking, of all Islamised populations. Just like the movement of water through a floodgate, the Course of History currently leads towards a return to fundamentalism. The fiercest opponents of ‘Islamism’ may end up changing their allegiance and moving from one camp to another, following the current’s direction.
The Victimisation and Exploitation of the Palestinians
The Islamic ideology takes full advantage of the unidirectional victimisation of the Palestinians and the demonisation of Israel in order to push its pawns further and make people oblivious to its own aggressions and use of terrorism. It relies on the leftist intelligentsia, particularly within the journalistic sphere, which has been accustomed to sanctifying the ‘Palestinian cause’ (the ‘martyr nation’) for decades on end, while demonising the State of Israel.
On July 31st, 2015, a Jewish extremist set a Palestinian house on fire near Nablus, causing the death of an 18-month-old baby. In France and elsewhere, the event triggered a journalistic outcry which blamed the crime on the Israeli government! This happened despite the fact that the latter immediately condemned this ‘terrorist act’, an act that repulsed the overwhelming majority of the Israeli population. Gilles-William Goldnadel, chairman of the France-Israel Association, writes (Le Figaro, 05/08/2015): ‘In 1982, following the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, which echoed that of Lebanese Christians in Damour (an event that was glossed over), it was Sharon that was considered to be the war criminal and not the Falangists’. He then proceeds to remind us that in 1995, Netanyahu was already being accused of ordering the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, just like he is being accused of arming the arsonist who set the house in which the baby died ablaze.
It must be said that Jewish extremists, who only embody a tiny minority, are the unpredictable agents and useful idiots that serve the interests of Islamism, whether Sunni or Shiite. As for Jewish terrorists (who practice ‘Jewish jihadism’ according to the Israeli press), they are few and far between, whereas Palestinian terrorists are easy to recruit, and when they do perpetrate a bloody terrorist attack, the international media is hardly moved.
In Israel, even the orthodox religious parties and the extreme Right condemned the attack and a huge indignant manifestation was organised in Tel — Aviv on 1st August 2015. But there are double standards: on 11th March 2011, in Itamar, two Palestinian terrorists entered the home of a Jewish family and slaughtered its five members, one of whom was an infant. The act gathered little attention in the international media and there were no Palestinians that protested in reaction to the crime. On the contrary, joyful manifestations erupted in Ramallah and a subsequent survey found that as much as a third of Palestinian Arabs approved of the murders. A parallel can be drawn here with the tacit approval of the deadly attacks that targeted Paris in January 2015 expressed by some young Muslim immigrants...
In Beirut, the ‘moderate’ President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was seen embracing Samir Kuntar, a man close to the Islamic terrorist movement known as Hezbollah (the ‘Party of Allah’) and who was given a prison sentence in Israel for having shattered the skull of a Jewish girl with a stone. Mahmoud Abbas labelled the murderer a ‘resistant’. Goldnadel notes (quoted art.): ‘There are few French commentators who would condemn the chronic complacency of Palestinian political representatives and that of the Palestinian society with regard to an irrational terrorism that is allowed to endure in absolute indifference.’ This is a sign of ‘hemiplegia’: Palestinian terrorism, which is as anti-Israeli as it is Islamic, gathers no attention whatsoever and is thus encouraged, while the rare acts of aggression committed by Jewish extremists result in a worldwide wave of indignation.
In actual fact, the ‘Palestinian cause’ is manipulated and exploited by the Islamic ideology, which could not care less about the ‘Palestinian people’, whose civilian population is being held hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah in a calculating attitude of sinister martyrology: the sole aim of firing rockets at Israeli towns from the urban areas has been to provoke a reaction on the part of the Israeli air force and its artillery in the hope that, despite all the precautions taken by the IDF, collateral strikes might result in the highest possible number of victims. And every single time, the Western media fall into the trap. The Palestinian authorities in Gaza and the West Bank are stricken with the gangrene of radical Islam. The ‘Palestinian cause’ has thus become a showcase of Islamic ideology in order to present itself as a victim, claiming to be acting in legitimate self-defence.
This strategy is a very skilful one: the pseudo-martyrology of the Palestinians serves as a screen, a wallpaper that is supposed to legitimise the Islamic ideology even in Europe itself. Basically, the purpose is to spread, throughout certain Arab and Muslim activist milieus, the idea that ‘we are all Palestinians’ and are therefore persecuted, which diverts French people’s attention further from the creeping Islamisation efforts and, psychologically speaking, helps mitigate the impact of Islam’s conquest endeavours. Additionally, of course, it is meant to justify the Muslims’ distasteful behaviour towards French Jews.
French Islam and Hypocrisy?
On September 8th, 2014, the ‘Appeal of Paris’ was signed at the initiative of Dalil Boubaker, rector of the Parisian Mosque and president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), in cooperation with the Coordination of Eastern Christians in Danger (Chredo) and the Rally of the Muslims of France (RMF). It is a document that solemnly and unambiguously condemns the persecutions, massacres and plunder that the Christians of Iraq and Syria are being subjected to at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, i.e. the ‘Caliphate of Daesh’, which is run by the sanguinary Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and whose ranks have been strengthened through the enlisting of nearly 5,000 ‘Europeans’ (more than 1,000 of whom are said to be ‘French’), all longing to participate in its jihadist struggle. The rate of young Muslim immigrants actually totals 90% of the overall figure. They will return to Europe, hardened, fanatical, and barbarised.
The first fact to emphasise is that not all Muslim organisations have unanimously signed this long overdue appeal. It was not until the abominable atrocities committed by Daesh jihadists that a reaction came about. Christians have been persecuted for a long time in Egypt and Iraq without the Muslim authorities uttering a single word of protest. The Appeal is careful to stress that the barbarians of Daesh have nothing to do with true Islam and that 98% of Muslims reject the existence of a society that would abide by a medieval Sharia. We have all heard this song before, and the above-mentioned argument lacks credibility: what the jihadists of the criminal ‘Caliphate’ apply are the very precepts of the Koran and the Hadiths. The Muslim authorities that have signed the Paris Appeal in support of Eastern Christians are perhaps genuinely moderate Muslims who reject the practise of bloody jihad and claim to be in favour of a tolerant and pluralistic society. What is untrue, however, is that 98% of all Muslims are of the same view, as they themselves assert. Instead, what we witness everywhere is a fundamentalistic radicalisation of Islam, and all the polls have shown that the majority of Muslims are indifferent to anti-Christian persecution.
Although they have fallen prey to hopeless idealism, Europeans should not be fooled by such honeyed discourse, a discourse that is designed to sedate them. The Paris Appeal is restricted to the domain of speech (where it is ever so easy to apply) and parody, making sure that actions are carefully avoided. It arouses the suspicion of a propaganda effort that strives to prevent the aggressions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from damaging the image of Islam in France, an Islam that is spreading silently. Why does the latter not mobilise and take specific steps to help Eastern Christians and other persecuted minorities? Why is it that neither the unimaginably wealthy Saudi Arabia nor several other Emirates with enormous oil and gas resources (all of whom have surreptitiously allowed the ISIL and other terrorist jihadist organisations to enjoy the necessary funding) have offered any assistance?
There are other questions that turn out to be very embarrassing for Islam in France, including the one asked by Jean-Marie Guénois in Le Figaro (09/10/2014): ‘Why are Muslim mosque networks and their various associations unable to detect and prevent the comings and goings of 800 young jihadists, despite the fact that our Interior Ministry keeps a close account of them? After all, they do come from specific families whose identities are known throughout their neighbourhoods. For the first time, silence ensues’. To grant their appeal a veneer of sincerity, the signatories have indicated that the persecuted Christians ‘were Arabs’. One can only be amazed at the clumsiness of such an argument. Were they not Arabs, would they not be given the same kind of support? Is it necessary to take the origin of persecuted populations into account?
On the other hand, they will not have us believe that Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate, one that is wealthy, over-armed and dependent, at least partly, on looting and the misappropriation of oil, does not enjoy covert aid and funding from the Muslim world. If its actions were secretly applauded by some ‘Paris Appeal’ signatories, such a revelation would be more logical than surprising. It is not an isolated gang that we are dealing with here, but a structure with international ramifications. Jihad is protean: it takes on the shape of a reassuring smile (‘kiss the hand which you cannot sever’) until the right moment, when it metamorphoses into a violence that is unleashed upon those who have been disarmed and have surrendered to its abuse.
We must not fall into the trap set by the cunning duplicity which has been inherent to the strategy of Islam for centuries. Deceitfulness is the primary precept of the Muslim-Arab strategy: on the one hand, one claims to be combating ‘Islamism’, while simultaneously assisting it on the other, in harmony with the circumstances. Bear in mind that numerous military officers in the ISIL (Daesh) are former ‘secular’ Baathist nationalists who have undergone a change of allegiance, and that the Gulf States practice a permanent double game. For the time being, the official (yet highly divided) Muslim authorities in France play the tolerance and pluralism card, in words rather than in deeds. And even if these authorities were sincere, could they be seen as representative of Muslims? In fact, the ‘Paris Appeal’ is as reliable as the pacifistic vows made by Hitler in 1938.
Education: As Islamism Advances in Stealth
Similarly to the majority of crucial events, the following one has almost passed unnoticed. In March 2014, the National Federation of Islamic Education (FNEM) was founded in partnership with the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF). The latter has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an international organisation that currently faces repression at the hands of the new government of Egypt and that all intelligence agencies around the world know to be the Trojan horse of radical Islamism, offering its discrete complicity in various terroristic endeavours. Anyhow...
The FNEM longs to mirror the General Secretariat for Catholic Education and the Unified Jewish Social Fund. Makhlouf Mamèche gets to wear three hats in this respect, not two: he acts as president of this new FNEM, vice president of the UOIF and deputy director of the elite high school of Averroes (Lille), which is the first Muslim secondary school established under contract with the State. As part of this hypocritical ruse, which is implicit to his tradition and shared by mediatic intellectual Tariq Ramadan (a man who also happens to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood), he has vowed to keep the teaching process consistent with the values of the Republic, namely ‘to provide education in a manner that would give birth to enlightened and responsible citizens within our public space.’ We will just have to take his word for it now, won’t we ...
However, Mr. Mamèche could not help but admit that the purpose behind the FNEM was to ‘rally together so as to make a difference, organise ourselves and help one another’, meaning to create an aggressive sort of lobby. Under their existing contract in France, the four institutions will aim to ‘teach the core values of Islam’. But how are we, for example, to reconcile Koranic prescriptions with secularism, gender equality, pluralism, the teaching of Western philosophy and natural sciences or even the condemnation of anti-Judaism? The promise to provide education according to our laws and public education programmes only concerns those naïve enough to believe it.28
The number of private Muslim establishments characterised by excellence, meant for their elites and, following a communitarian logic, strictly available to Muslim students continues to grow. They are currently in excess of twenty and aspire to join the FNEM. A 2010 report on the teaching of Islam29 already highlighted these interesting yet disturbing points: first of all, it pointed out the ‘ubiquitous militant activity of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members act as project leaders towards the potential establishment of a “Muslim citizenship”’. Next, it revealed that Muslim education in France was funded ‘by wealthy patrons from the Gulf and through grants offered by various NGOs that are controlled by Saudi Arabia’, meaning by highly skilled and not very ‘democratic’ or ‘Republican’ States that owe their gigantic wealth to their underground oil resources, without which they would be as impoverished as Job. Their goal is nothing short of hastening the conquest of Europe at the hands of Islam and its followers, who are mostly comprised of immigrants and only include a minority of converts. The report also shows that the funding and establishment of mosques are the corollaries of the aid given to private Muslim schools in this second stage of the Islamic invasion process.
