Robert Spencer Proposed a Realistic Solution
Friday
ONCE YOU come to grips with the fact that Islam has not been hijacked, and that it teaches the necessity to strive to establish Sharia law everywhere in the world by any means necessary, one question fixates your mind: "Good grief! What are we going to do about this?"
I've heard everything from "Nuke em all" to "get used to the idea of an Islamic world because it is inevitable." This is an extremely difficult challenge. What kind of solution can we possibly come up with? We have a lot of Muslims in the world. Not all of them are orthodox, but there are enough of them to pose a serious problem for free societies.
Should the religion be banned altogether? That doesn't fit with our fundamental values. And it probably wouldn't work anyway.
This question is important. One of the reasons people don't want to even consider the possibility that mainstream Islam might be fundamentally supremacist, political, and aggressive, is that having a big problem without any solution in sight is hard to take in. The mind naturally wants to reject the premise. It can't be. It must be untrue. Rejection of the idea is reflexive, automatic, and robust.
But what if you had a possible solution? What if you had an idea that wouldn't involve any of the horrible possibilities people are afraid of? It would make your listener more willing to consider the possibility that your original premise (that Islam is supremacist, political, and aggressive) might really be true.
In an excellent talk available on YouTube entitled, Islam or Islamism?: Robert Spencer at the Vienna Forum, May 8, 2010, I thought Spencer's closing remarks offered one of the most sensible solutions I've ever heard, so I transcribed his closing remarks below.
The only thing that could prevent the application of Robert Spencer's proposed solution is if we fail at getting the word out. If enough people understood Islam the way you and I do, this solution could be put into practice, and it would manage the problem. As Spencer has said, not all problems can be solved, but every problem can be managed. Here are Robert Spencer's closing remarks:
The implications of what I'm saying are very bad. There's no way to sugarcoat them. But there are precedents. And there are useful ways forward — if we have the courage to face this problem as it truly is.
This is a problem within Islamic teaching, within core Islamic teaching, founded on the Quran. As such, wherever there are Islamic communities, there will be terrorism and efforts to impose elements of Islamic law through peaceful means, to assert the precedence of Islamic law over the laws of the state in which the Muslims happen to be residing. That will always happen.
Now, in 1945, the McArthur government — the occupational government in Japan — issued an edict saying that Shinto (the religion of the Japanese that had fueled Japanese imperial militarism in World War II) would have no interference from the United States' occupying forces as an expression of individual piety, as the religion of any Japanese citizen. No interference whatsoever from the government. However, Shinto would have no role in the government or in the schools.
The distinction was made — it was imposed from without — that Shinto would have no way to express the political militarism that had led to World War II in the first place.
Now, the United States, Great Britain, Europe, are all facing a very similar problem, with growing Muslim communities asserting political and societal notions that are at variance with our ideas of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of women with men, the equality of rights of all people before the law.
If our governments had the courage to stand up and say that any assertion of these political aspects of Islam that are at variance with our existing laws will be considered to be seditious under existing sedition laws, there would be a tremendous amount of progress made on this problem.
But of course we're nowhere near that, because we can't even admit that there are such initiatives going on from the Islamic communities as such.
And so as long as this unrealism persists, then the cognitive dissonance will continue to grow. And as long as the cognitive dissonance continues to grow, so also will the assertiveness and beligerence of the Islamic communities in the West, because they will see that we are not able and not willing to take the decisive steps necessary to do anything serious to stop them.
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The Shintō Directive
A directive issued to the Japanese government by GHQ on 15 December 1945, the full title of which was "Regarding the abolition of government protection, support, supervision and proliferation of State Shintō or shrine Shintō." It was guided by the Potsdam Declaration and the statement of 20 September 1945 setting out the US policy towards post-surrender Japan; its purport was to abolish State Shintō (Kokka Shintō), and so secure freedom of religion and eliminate militarism and ultra-nationalism. The Directive went beyond systematically severing links between the state and shrine Shintō. It ordered the removal of all rites, practices, myths, legends, and philosophy, as well as material symbols, that it deemed tainted with Shintō. As a result, the thoroughgoing separation of shrine Shintō from the state impinged upon all religions, and the Directive made explicit its intent to separate all religions from the state. This was in effect a policy conspicuously different from, and altogether more rigorous than, the separation of religion and state (separation of church and state) that was generally adhered to in the nations of the Western world.
- http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/modules/xwords/entry.php?entryID=1109
The Bunce directive (Shinto Directive) skirted dangerously close to violating religious liberty. But it had long been agreed among most students of Japan that Shinto in its modern form was a tool and a disguise for militarism.
Under the directive, State Shinto — part religion, part patriotic ritual — was to be stripped of public support and of its "ultra-nationalistic and militaristic" trappings. Henceforth the bare remnants could exist as part of sectarian Shinto, an un-privileged equal among other faiths, sup ported only by voluntary offerings.
No public funds could be used to sup port Shinto shrines or priests. The Emperor could no longer report on public matters to his ancestors in official visits to the shrines. But he and other officials could worship as private individuals. Shinto doctrine would "be deleted from text books.
"Militaristic and ultranationalistic ideology" must not be promoted or encouraged in connection with Shinto or any other creed. These doctrines are specifically banned: that the Emperor is superior to other rulers because he descends from the sun; that the Japanese people are superior to other peoples, or the Japanese islands superior to other lands, because Amaterasu so willed.
This was more than formal separation of Church and State. It was the first official U.S. attempt to draw the fine line between genuinely religious doctrine and social propaganda. Advocates of the Bunce directive pointed out that modern Shintoism has shallow roots, and that many—perhaps most—Japanese would welcome its modification. There remained, however, the danger that at some future date revived Japanese nationalism would rally round the "persecuted" Shinto faith.
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,778519,00.html
Shinto, a 1,500-year-old polytheistic religion, had become a militaristic and ultra-nationalistic dogma under the direction of the government, which wrote the church rituals. Students were required to study Shinto in school, the state supported its 50,000 shrines, and the emperor would periodically travel to shrines to discuss public affairs with his long-dead ancestors.
Dr. Bunce's directive, prepared under the orders of the Allied commander in chief, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, banned the doctrine that the emperor was descended from the sun and that he, the Japanese people and the Japanese islands were superior to all others. The Shinto religion, stripped of its nationalism, was allowed to continue, and believers could worship privately.
"The Bunce directive skirted dangerously close to violating religious liberty," Time magazine said in its Dec. 24, 1945, issue. "But it had long been agreed among most students of Japan that Shinto in its modern form was a tool and a disguise for militarism. . . . It was the first official U.S. attempt to draw the fine line between genuinely religious doctrine and social propaganda."
The New York Times agreed. With "the elimination of state Shinto, General MacArthur has laid the axe to the root of the last great pillars which held up the imperial system by force, custom and persuasion," reporter Lindesay Parrott wrote Dec. 23, 1945.
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303499_pf.html
Shinto was a "Japanese supremacist" doctrine. According to Shinto, the emperor was superior to all other leaders in the world and the Japanese people and the Japanese Islands were superior to all others.
This is very similar to the Islamic supremacist doctrine. According to the Quran, the holiest book of Islam, Muslims are the best people in the world, and non-Muslims are the worst.
It is a MESSY world.
Islam is far more deeply entrenched culturally than militaristic Shinto, yet, at least in the US, it has only minimal state accommodation.
I do not see how this strategy would be applied in the US, at least without putting Wahhabism in the same position as Communism had, and Saudi in the same position as as the CCCP, in order to prevent Saudi funding of subversive Wahhabi doctrines.
(personal opinion: Perhaps our masters would not want to offend their Saudi friends, and would pretend all backing came from Iran, but that would be smoke and mirrors.)
It can be argued that these states, and a few others, have political systems dressed as religious propaganda, but it would be dangerous to make Islam as a religion subversive apart from active efforts to institute Islam as a political system by extra-legal means.
May I point out that this argument could also be applied to Catholicism and the Vatican City, and to Zionism and Israel, perhaps with less justice. Farther down this slippery slope is making Jews per se, illegal, since according to my mother's mother's people I am a Jew.
Back to practicalities, if any expression of Islam were kept out of the public schools, the way to keep Creationism out would follow. At an extreme Texas schoolbooks would be against the law for their blatant pushing of Christian and American exceptionalism.
(Personal opinion: I think the whole Abrahamic project is flawed by tribalism, and needs to go the way of Jupiter and Mars, and I don't think any of it should be taught, except as part of history. But the number of parochial schools and the amount of home schooling shows many people disagree with me, and I am not fond of public schools myself.)
I can see denying Islamic parochial schools Saudi funding, but making them illegal? How about the White Supremacist schools, the Catholic schools, the Yeshivas?
Again, it is a messy world. I think the goal of a world free of blood thirsty Semitic ells is a worthy one. I just can't see any decent way to get there, considering the amount of opposition, which is often well warranted, because even the most cautious application of such a strategy as is advocated here sets such a dangerous precedent.
Still, I have wondered since 9/11 why we did not declare war on Saudi Wahhabism instead of Iraq and unrelated terrorists. But the answer is obvious. The Pentagon would have lost immediate access to their supplier. Cars do not declare war on gas stations.
Which bring us to the fundamental geopolitical fact of our age. The Pentagon supplies both sides in the conflict, as the Saudis are our most important ally in the Middle East after Israel.
Usama was correct, from the Islamic point of view, in considering the Saudis to be “ungodly Pharaohs” for among other things, providing fuel for the pentagon, and thus to the Israeli war machine.
Since the center of the Islamic ideology is in the hands of compradores of Globalism, what does that say about the “war on Terror”?
I hope to come up with some positive suggestions soon.
Shalom, and ahimsa, as well.
The sedition offense in the UK has been abolished, taking effect today. Read 'Sedition' in Wikipedia, and http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/section/73
Now what you said is right. BUT the problem is similiar in India. When in secular India the 12% muslim minority create problems, and all politicians say same thing, keep islam in your private life, dont get it in public life, the muslims scream bloody murder. Know what they say? They are taking away islam from us, everything except the mosque. Now you understand their mentality? They want complete political system, not just private worship
There are major differences for this approach to work in Islam. Lets assume that a way is found where every single imam and every madrasa world wide agrees to separate Islam from government, to only offer secular education, etc. But what is to be done about the Quran and the Hadiths?
A large number of passages within them will need to be removed or rewritten. Is there a way to go about such a task - confiscating and destroying every single known copy world wide and replacing it with a different 'interpretation'? Because as long as a single country refuses to follow along, such an approach will not work. At this time the world doesn't have the will to do this unfortunately.
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