Nigeria, Iraq, Gaza—The Threat is the Same

September 2014

And who today does these semantics with fascism? For sure there are fascinating fall-outs, disagreements and nuances in the attitudes of Mussolini, Franco and Hitler. But who at the time, let alone looking back at fascism's grotesque heyday, would spend too long focusing on the differences between this or that fascist? Certainly it is a subject of interesting academic study, but even the differences are only interesting if you know what unites them to begin with.

This uniting — this ideological dot-joining — has today become the thing almost nobody wishes to do. Academics, when they do dare to tread into this area, can become expert in one particular manifestation of the Islamist ideology. But if they add another to it, let alone treat the ideology as a whole, they become pariahs in the academy and rejected by their peers. Journalists and commentators seem to be allowed to cover one eruption of this horror — they might become an expert on the outrages of Boko Haram, for instance, but they almost fear this same expertise being transplanted and used to understand another manifestation of the same ideology.

And there is a problem here, because increasingly I get the sense that the public can join up the dots and see the similarities. As the British public were reading about the kidnapping of schoolgirls in northern Nigeria they were also reading the revelations of the Trojan Horse plot in Birmingham — an attempt to teach a culturally isolating and theologically fundamentalist version of Islam in schools in one of Britain's largest cities and further afield. "Non-Muslim teaching is forbidden" turned out not just to be the name of a group in Nigeria. It was the ideological base of some authorities in state-funded secondary schools in Birmingham. Nobody in Parliament wanted to say this. Almost nobody in the media wanted to say it. But when over the breakfast table the great British public could read what Boko Haram thought of education in Nigeria and what certain Muslim leaders in Birmingham thought of non-Muslims, women, Christians and the like, the similarities seemed far more striking than the differences.

And therein lies the challenge that will face us all in the years ahead. The years of avoiding joining the dots may yet lead to a period of joining them up too glibly or too fast, drawing a picture which is too wide or too shallow. Fail to notice the similarities between the fundamentalists in Birmingham, Mosul and Gaza today and you may yet find a movement unwilling to notice any differences between any types of Muslims tomorrow. Increasingly this becomes a fear of the future. A willingness to over-think the differences between the Islamists in our day is the best possible catalyst for people to under-think the problems of the future.

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amcdonald

September 1st, 2014
6:09 PM

Zizek does a lot of ideological dot joining in his article in todays Guardian online about the Rotherham horror/islam/Christianity etc . Unfortunately he (and many more in academe and entertainment)turns into an empirically- wrong `Chomsky` regarding Israel`s "aggressive Zionism" in Gaza. In (essentially) lying about the situationists and the use of spectacle he poisons his own well. And continues drinking from it. Israeli Intelligence is more intelligent. I`m glad the young Douglas Murray`s articles are being published. Zizek advocates a positive universal project,an emancipatory Leitkulture shared by all participants. Then doesn`t even mention Uruguay either! He does get the Pussy Riot/Zona Prava artists empirically correct -which is more than can be said for the N Chomskies of `the spectacle of opposition` . The explicit propositions of Femen on the subject being too much/too true and concise/too visual/too feminine ?

amcdonald

August 30th, 2014
12:08 AM

Over at online Hyperallergic-sensitive to art and its discontents (27 aug) is a photopiece of 2 femen activists menstruating and defecating on the Islamic State black flag. Standpoint probably won`t publish it. No sign of Cameron`s (or Douglas Murray`s) proposed (all white male ?) `counter-narrative` to the "poisonous ideology" of the barbaric Islamic State starting in uk politics yet. Inna from Femen fully explains their intentions in the accompanying interview. Radical art for all.

Anthony Maranise, OblSB

August 29th, 2014
1:08 AM

Every major print news media outlet ought to run this as an editorial or opinion piece. You, Mr. Murray, have the guts to say what everyone in this world that so fears political correctness, seems to be too afraid to say. Thus, I applaud you for so doing and also appreciate your insights-- both wise and practical. While, as a Theological scholar, I generally acknowledge the corruption and pain wrought by the Crusades; I do wish to remind so many that the original intention of their having been called was to defend places of Christian devotion. Further, as Islamic extremists (note that I say, extremists-- as I do not attribute evil and atrocity to all faithful Islamic practitioners) became more militant, radical, and intent on the raising of their empire, they simultaneously sought to "snuff out" those considered, as a result of improper interpretation of their own Sacred text, namely Jews & Christians, to be 'infidels,' or non-believers rather than acknowledging that all "persons of the book," find Truth and faith in profession of the One, same God, who is living and true. As the old phrase goes, "History has a way of repeating itself." Regrettably, this seems to be happening in our world again today. While I do not advocate violence, I do believe efforts -- swift ones -- ought to be made to curb the rise of such extremism and religious persecution.

amcdonald

August 28th, 2014
6:08 PM

Douglas Murray is great.He`s got a real talent or the job. Great stuff by him over at the Spectator too with the vids and tv discussion. It`s perfectly true the great British public are joining up the dots.

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