Here are the facts: Islam has problems. Countless terrorists the world over have claimed that Islam was their motivation, and every day a new generation of remorseless mass murderers is manufactured by the hate-preachers and other radicals that continue to thrive within the mainstream Muslim community.
Efforts by reformist Muslims, genuine anti-fascist campaigners, protest groups (such as the EDL), and national governments have so far failed to turn the tide. In Britain it’s particularly bad, with Islamic extremists openly preaching their hatred, Islamists worming their way into Muslim associations, and political parties and ‘homegrown’ terrorists plotting violence at home and abroad.
But mention these problems and be prepared to be ignored, patronised or insulted. “Islam is a religion of peace”, we’re told. “The extremists don’t understand the real Islam, it’s a beautiful religion”. And so on.
What would the religion of peace do?
Let’s imagine all that were true (there are plenty of decent enough Muslims of course) – why tellus? Shouldn’t the focus be on preventing the extremists from ‘misunderstanding’ the religion of peace, rather than getting irate when after another year of violence, terrorism, hatred and intolerance someone might so naively conclude that Islam’s claim to be a religion of peace might actually be a whole load of bollocks.
So what are we saying? That Islam is actually the religion of war? Well, looking at the history, that would probably be more appropriate. We’ll look at this in more detail later on, but first we must make clear what referring to Islam as the religion of war would actually mean: it would mean to claim that Islam is inclined towards violent conflict and not to peace. A controversial claim no doubt, but not one unsupported by evidence, nor, crucially, one which in any way necessitates treating any individual Muslims with any less respect than we would show to any other person. Read the rest on:
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