A Well-Fitting Cap

It's Marx, Not Mahommad

We will be running several pieces over the next few days on Western ideological responses to ISIS.  The first, and most devastating, is the proposition that ISIS is a creature of Western creation.  This thesis has several  sub-theses which we will also explore.

The first explanation and ideological interpretation of ISIS is espoused by the current US President, Barack Obama.  But, Obama is just the mouthpiece--albeit the most dangerous.  The ideological root of the ideas comes from academics--the foremost of which is John Esposito.  An article in American Thinker by Andrew Harrod introduces us to Esposito's Western-centric ideology:

John Esposito Takes 'Islam' Out of ISIS

September 14, 2014
American Thinker

Andrew Harrod

“He’s the head apologist,” read a note passed to this reporter from a liberal friend during Georgetown University professor John Esposito’s August 28 address on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) at Washington, D.C.’s National Press Club.  The Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) founding director reiterated his hackneyed arguments, long dominant in academia and government, that Islamic radicals’ depredations stem from societal ills, not Islamic doctrine. . . .

The “primary drivers are to be found elsewhere” outside Islam for groups like ISIS, Esposito asserted – namely, in a “long list of grievances,” the “main reason” cited in videos of ISIS beheadings.  This execution method had no particular Islamic basis, he claimed, Quran 8:12 and 47:4 notwithstanding, being merely a terror means for autocratic regimes and criminal groups like Mexican cartels.  Unmentioned by Esposito, “grievances” in Islamic doctrine justify “defensive” jihad.

Esposito condemned “[m]assive violations of human rights,” including Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Egypt and the recent Israeli “massive slaughter of Gazans,” a common canard belied by careful analysis.  “Not speaking out and condemning” the “things that are devastating” of “traditional allies” like Israel or Arab regimes “alienates … Muslim democrats” and creates “disaffected youth” who feel that they “must act.”

Complementing “moral outrage” over matters like “anti-imperialism,” Western Muslims also join groups like ISIS to attain a “sense of meaning, purpose and belonging” while “living in a hostile society.”  Although “Islamophobic groups” correlate Islamic piety with violence, Esposito claimed, evidence suggested that such jihadists were “religious novices.”  He failed to explain, though, why other marginal groups in modern societies such as Mexican or non-Muslim Indian immigrants do not abandon welfare states for orgies of violence abroad. . . .

Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School.  He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project; follow him on twitter at @AEHarrod.  He wrote this essay for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Esposito's ideology--together with that of his disciple, Barack Obama--is that the West is the primary cause of the grievances nursed by disaffected Islamic youth.  Their disaffection drives them into extremist actions.  It is alleged that most of the civil rights violations and the oppression faced by Islamic believers throughout the world are perpetrated by Western allies (Egypt, Israel): therefore the West is complicit in the creation of ISIS and its extreme violence.  [This view deliberately turns a blind eye to the perpetual violence Muslims perpetrate upon other Muslims--by far the most deadly and destructive source of Islamic suffering int he world today.]

This is a remarkably Western-centric view of the world.  It bespeaks arrogance.  But this ideology does not just draw upon Western-centric prejudices.  It also draws upon Western materialist assumptions.  In this peculiar world-view, religion and religious beliefs are a fiction, not really to be considered as a genuine cause of anything--for all of life and existence is the product of matter, property, capital and wealth and the struggle between the have's and the have not's.  This is Western political and social ideology 101.  It represents secularism on the grandest scale.

Thirdly, it fits with the Marxist ideological narrative.  Those who do not have capital, wealth, and money remain oppressed and disenfranchised by those who do.  Therefore the "have-nots" are understandably angry and justifiably bitter.  ISIS is the coalition of the poor and the powerless.  That's why ISIS soldiers terrorise women and children.  That's why they enslave, rape, torture, and kill.  They are raging against the machinery of oppression for which the West is ultimately responsible. 

Note how Obama reflects this Western materialist/Marxist ideology when he pontificated recently:

At this moment the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL—which calls itself the Islamic State.

The Islamic State is exploiting grievances (which are not pre-texts but genuine and legitimate, and Western caused, since the Islamic State is finding plenty of support in its anti-Western crusade amongst these so-called aggrieved).

Now, contrast this with the actual ideology of Islamism, as espoused by Osama bin Laden in a letter to fellow Saudis:

Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?

Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)

Bin Laden cites orthodox Islamic doctrine; Obama and Western-centric academics cite grievances perpetrated by the West.  The West thinks Bin Laden did not really reflect Islamic orthodoxy, but a perversion of Islam. The West knows Islam better than Islamics. We, the West, will tell Islamic believers what Islam is really about.  Such arrogance.  Such risibility.  Ironically, every Islamic believer on the planet has a right to feel aggrieved by such Western-centric arrogance.  It would be akin to the Indian Prime Minister presuming to declare what Jesus Christ's doctrines truly were and how the Church has misrepresented and distorted the truth. The Hindu representation of what  Christian doctrine "really teaches" would be rightly regarded by Christians as irrelevant, if not ignorant arrogance.  In this matter, ignorant arrogance is a well-fitting cap on the respective heads of Bush, Blair, Obama and Cameron. 

The West has become cocooned in its own spurious ideologies--to the point where it cannot see or hear except via its own bankrupt ideological filters.  This is remarkably similar to the kind of blindness which afflicted communist and Nazi regimes--and their apologists--in the mid-twentieth century. 

It has been said, repeatedly, that the first step to success in war is to know your enemy.  Obama and academics like Esposito think they are smarter than the average bear.  They think they know Islamic militants better than they themselves do--for they have the benefit of gnostic insight--a knowledge that comes from the deep wells of truth, namely Western materialism and Western Marxism. 

The result is one policy blunder after another.  In our next piece, we will provide just one example of how the Obama administration has become so blinded by spurious Western-centric ideology, that it has lost touch with reality.