Militant Islam Reaches America [Paperback]

Pipe's key contribution in Militant Islam Reaches America is the distinction he makes between Islam the religion and Militant Islam or Islamism the ideology. Militant Islam is comparable to Nazism or Marxism in that it is a radical political ideology that has the stated goal of taking over the world. In light of 9-11, Fukiyama's "end of history" theory - that the West has won and the rest is faits accomplis - is seen as a little pre-mature.
And this threat is very real. Unlike the President and others who use confusing and inaccurate labels like "evil doers" and "war on Terrorism", Pipes clearly defines the enemy: Militant Islam. As Pipe so eloquently states: "And if it is true that most Muslims are not Islamist, it is no less true that all Islamists are Muslims.".
Pipes does a good job of describing the peaceful - yet insidious groups that use our court system and our ultra-tolerant media to get special treatment and promote their cause - as well as the more visible violent strain of Islamism. Tolerance toward Islam in America allows a double standard - e.g. a sanitized view of Islam is pushed in public schools and the main stream media and negative Islamic views are not tolerated. Contrast that with negative reviews of Christian or Jewish groups that are all too prevalent in schools and our media.
Pipes holds out hope that Turkey, as secular moderate Islamic state, can co-exist with the west and be a model for other Islamic states. What is not so hopeful is the fact that virtually all the other Islamic states in the Middle East are moving closer toward Muslim fundamentalism - not closer to Western secularism. Pipes shows us an interesting fact that the core of the Islamist movement is in fact highly educated over-achieving Westernized men (most of the WTC highjackers) - not the underclass in abject poverty that we have been told is behind this radical movement. On the contrary, this is very convincing evidence that indeed ideology - not poverty is the driving force behind Militant Islam. The issue is not that poverty causes radicals. The issue is that intelligent radical ideologues use poverty, intimidation, and brainwashing (Madrasas) to help promote their cause.
Pipes devotes a couple of chapters to Jamil Al-Amin - a.k.a Rap Brown and Elijah Mohammed - a.k.a. Elija Pool - and the Nation of Islam and the Black Muslim movement. It is clear that radical Islamists have used these demagogues and their ilk to their advantage. It is important for Black and White and all Americans to understand this phenomenon and realize that NOL and the Black Muslim movement is not just a reaction to racism. As Al-Amin commented in his book Revolution by the Book "..the Constitution of the United States..its main essence it is diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded". This is a statement of sedition. These people want to take away your constitution and replace it with the Qur'an.
For moderate Muslims and the West to win this war, the West must not appease these neo-fascists hiding behind a head-dress. We must realize that so-called moderate Muslim organization like Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslim Council (AMC), Muslim American Society, et. al. all defended Al-Amin a convicted murderer as a good Muslim. This is perhaps the least of their sins. These groups could prove to us that they are not supporters of Militant Islam by denouncing the likes of Al-Amin, Ahmad Adna Chaundry (another convicted murderer), Mohammad Salah (accused of financing aid to Hamas). In all cases their silence is deafening.
So what can we do? The first step is to wake up and call the enemy what it is: Militant Islam and understand that it is as insidious and dangerous as any strain of fascism we have witnessed in our lifetime. We should set about not to just defeat the nebulous notion of "global terrorism", it is time to put a face on who the enemy is. Perhaps the Bush administration is using the vague "terrorist" label for diplomatic reasons. I hope that is their reason. But I agree with Pipes and von Clausewitz that "contradictory goals in war is a mistake". And we are at war.
So who exactly is the enemy? The inner core is the likes of Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, the Taliban and their ilk. Our strike in Afghanistan was a good first pass, but the job is far from over. The second ring is larger population of militant sympathizers in most of the Arab world and other Islamic countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bosnia. Pipes estimates that as many as 150 million or 15% of the Muslim world fall into this group. And the third ring is non-Militant Muslims, but those infected with Anti-American hate - Saddam and Qadhadhafi fall into this group. So the final toll is about half the Muslim population.
So we must realize that what we have is not what Huntington called the "Clash of Civilizations". I think it makes more sense to call it a class of ideologies. A good example is that fact that militant Muslims do a great job of killing other Muslims that do not go along with the program - as exemplified in 100,000 plus dead Muslims in Algeria, and many times that number in the Iran-Iraq war.
So the answer appears to be an updated version of George Kennan's cold war doctrine that Pipes paraphrases: "a long term patient but firm and vigilant containment of (its) expansive tendencies." And by our fortitude and will we will convince the moderate Muslim world that it is worth fighting for Western tolerance and freedom rather than a world of fascism and chains.

In this volume Middle East expert Daniel Pipes looks at the changing world since September 11. While some of the essays here were penned before that tragedy, all deal with the rise of Muslim militancy, and how the West should respond.

Pipes begins by arguing that militant Muslims, or Islamists, do not represent all followers of Islam. The good news is they only comprise, at tops, fifteen per cent of the total. The bad news is, with one billion Muslims, 150 million are extremists. It is the Islamists that are the real threat, says Pipes, not traditional Muslims.

Pipes provides the historical backdrop for this new militancy. For their first six centuries, Muslims enjoyed huge success. By the 13th century however decline set in, and for the next six centuries they found themselves heading to the bottom of world affairs, as power and wealth slowly ebbed away. The loss of their golden age, and their sense of alienation and frustration resulted in three recent responses.

Secularism, the first response, is seen in countries such as Turkey. The second option, reformism, meant trying to live with the West. The third option, Islamism, is the focus of this book. Militant Islam seeks to reclaim its golden age, wants the total imposition of Shari'a law, and rejects completely Western influences.

Pipes shows that Islamism is in fact a radical, utopian ideology, of the same mould as Marxism-Leninism or fascism. It is totalitarian in nature, and seeks salvation in political power, not individual religion. Whenever Islamists take power, as in Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan, a bloody tyranny results.

Pipes argues that most traditional Muslims disagree with the premises of the Islamists. This is reflected in part by the fact that often traditional Muslims are the main victims of militant Islam. Algeria is a good case in point, with tens of thousands of Algerians killed (compared to some 80 foreigners).

Since its ascendancy almost three decades ago, Islamism has become they main threat to freedom and democracy. It seeks global hegemony, just as past ideologies did. Fueled by fanaticism and hatred, militant Islam has become the new focus of evil in the world.

There are two main ways in which Islamists can achieve their goal of world dominion: revolution or integration. The latter comes in the form of immigration to the West, high birth rates, and conversion. All three means are resulting in rising Muslim populations in most Western nations.

The other option, bloody struggle, is something the West is becoming all too familiar with. Suicide bombers and terrorist cells are active around the world, and this threat is one all Western governments must come to terms with. Indeed, Pipes shows how militant Islam has been targeting Americans well before September 11.

Pipes sees some hope, however. Muslim unity has often been seen as an oxymoron, with the Iraq-Iran conflict being but one example. Another issue is how moderate Islam deals with the threat. If modernism is embraced and Western values are seen as compatible with Islam, then the fanatical arm may be contained. But it is by no means clear in which direction the majority of Muslims will move in the future. It is Muslims themselves, argues Pipes, not the West, who will determine the outcome of this post-Cold War ideological battle.

Pipes also writes about Muslims living in the US. There may be 2 or 3 million of them there. Pipes argues that on every front, the US is doing all it can to be hospitable to Muslims. There is a de facto affirmative action mentality in place, with schools, governments, the media, even the military, all fearful of showing any disrespect for Muslims.

Tolerance and respect of course are in order, argues Pipes, but in many ways Muslims are being given preferential treatment, so much so that the US government has become "a discreet missionary for the faith. Without anyone quite realizing it, the resources of the federal government have been deployed to help Muslims spread their message." Pipes documents numerous examples of just how this is in fact happening.

Pipes argues that if Islamists get their way in Western nations, freedom of speech concerning Islam and militant Islam would all but cease. It is becoming increasingly difficult to say anything which might be regarded as critical of Islam.

Pipes briefly examines the question of whether Islamism and jihad are an integral part of Islam, or a distortion of it. He recognises that Islam, like all great religions, is made up of different schools and is subject to varieties of interpretation, "from the mystical to the militant, from the quietist to the revolutionary. Its most basic ideas have been susceptible of highly contrasting explications."

Thus Pipes sees a battle for the soul of Islam being waged, with moderates and militants competing for dominance. But he sees terroristic jihad against the West as but "one reading of Islam ... not the eternal essence of Islam".

He argues that if half the population of the Muslim world hates America, the other half does not. It is to these more moderate Muslims that the West must work with, along with its own Muslim populations, to see that the radical Islamists do not prevail. The struggle will be long and difficult, says Pipes, but an Islamist victory is by no means certain.

Our nation, founded on the right to open and unfettered exchange of ideas from which we derive much of our greatness, still has one taboo about which it is difficult to speak openly. Not Christianity: Mapplethorpe's defamatory photography is not only tolerated but subsidized. Nor anti-Semitism: so rampant on our campuses, it is constitutionally protected. There is only one religion benefiting from so much deference and hypersensitivity that it can trigger the recall of books, cause the dismissal of teachers, and bring politicians trembling to their knees.

This repression of free speech has been long ongoing outside of our borders. An insufficiently respectful British author was rewarded with a contract on his life, and translators of his book were assassinated. Open religious discourse has quite ceased to exist in the Arab world, with intense discrimination against Christians, Jews, and Hindus.

Daniel Pipes' work reiterates things we knew but somehow got repressed from our public consciousness, and reveals much else which never made it there in the first place. Fabulously detailed and with a wealth of references, this guide clarifies the ongoing war that culminated on September 11.

Pipes makes a wonderfully clear distinction between the religion of Islam and the political ideology called Islamism. Like communism and fascism, Islamism seeks the overthrow of democratic society by individuals who feel excluded from an elite they should be part of. Islamists are typically educated middle-class young men masquerading in religion while indulging in perversely un-Islamic behavior. By Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, terrorism is caused by "money, education, and privilege."

Recalling early successes in science, technology, and world domination, Islamists suffer from traumatic frustration ingrained over a thousand years of severe social, political, and ecomonic failure and the inability to improve. Western education only fuels the envy and heightens the sense of impotence. Little else binding them than hatred towards the West, wars between Muslim nations are in fact three times more common than those against infidel nations.

Ironically, ignorance obscures the fact that modern Islam actually borrows from Christianity. The Islamist repudiation of the importance of "who you are" for "where you are" copies the Western notions of nation-state and jurisdiction. A rather flimsy and self-contradictory Islamic theory of economics is based on Marxism and fascism. It is no surprise that Islamisation is inevitably followed by severe economic failure and political repression.

Far from suffering discrimination, Muslims have a privileged position in the United States and are thriving, ready to complain about any perceived slight, winning fantastic monetary settlements, and inducing employers to provide religious sensiti-i-i-vity training. Even 'Married With Children' is not safe from the Muslim protests after September 11.

Middle Eastern academic studies are suffering an all-time low credibility, having been tainted with a wash of Saudi oil money that sponsors intellectually vacuous teaching and writing, farcical distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' Islamism (as if the overthrow of civilzation could be good by any means), or dangerously denying there is any threat at all. Quoting one militant, "a moderate Islamist is someone who does not have the means of acting ruthlessly to seize power immediately."

While our Government repeats the mistake of Napoleon and Mussolini of sweet-talking to curry favor with the Muslim world, American Muslim leaders are openly calling for the conversion of the United States into a caliphate. Many clerics agree that the tenets of Islam are fundamentally incompatible with our Constitution. Says one, "Muslims cannot accept the legitimacy of the secular system in the United States." The strategy for imposing Shari'a in America includes demoralization by terror, immigration, reproduction, and conversion; the latter feeding off the culture of liberal 'blame America first' self-hatred that causes many to accept Islam mostly as a protest against their heritage.

Daniel Pipes has managed to write a fair and courageous book that is deeply troubling but greatly inspiring. Packing so much information and private and public policy recommendations, this could have been a much longer book, and one will want to reread it often. If Hamas believes we are in a "battle of civilizations", we are in it for the long haul.