The peaceful majority are irrelevant

By Andrew L. Urban.

Islam has exported its primitive, age-old and endless Sunni v Shiite war of religious violence around the world, expanding it with jihad, the violent conquest of non believers. The uninformed rubbish many Western politicians and commentators spout – that the cause of terrorism is anti-Muslim Western actions – is happily harnessed by Muslims who overtly or covertly wish to see the dawn of the caliphate. To the radicals, the peaceful majority of Muslims are irrelevant.

Yes, of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, the majority are peaceful, as we all recognise and repeat ad nauseam. But that has little relevance to or impact on the day to day reality of Muslim terrorism.

As American journalist, author and anti-Islam activist Brigitte Gabriel so powerfully put it (at a forum on June 18, 2014, see YouTube), the peaceful majority are irrelevant in this context. When a determined few set out to execute a deadly agenda, the majority have not stood in their way.

Look at history, she says. “Most Germans were peaceful; the Nazis drew up an agenda and as a result 60 million people died, 14 million in concentration camps, 6 million of them Jews.

“The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

“Look at Russia – most Russians were peaceful as well. Yet the Russians were able to kill 20 million people.

“The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

“Look at China; most Chinese were peaceful as well. Yet the Chinese were able to kill 70 million people.

“The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

“Look at Japan prior to World War II; most Japanese were peaceful too. Yet the Japanese were able to butcher their way across Asia, killing 12 million people – most were killed with bayonets and shovels.

“The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

“On September 11, 2001, we had 2.3 million Arabs living in the US; it took 19 radicals to bring America down to its knees: destroy the World Trade Centre, attack the Pentagon and kill almost 3,000 Americans that day.

“The peaceful majority were irrelevant.”

It’s a sobering observation that has immediate relevance. Her concerns are shared by some notable Muslims, too. In an open letter to the Muslim world (in the same year, 2014), French Muslim philosopher Abdennour Bidar wrote that Islam “has given birth to monsters” and needs reform – from within. That sentiment has been echoed by Egyptian President Sisi and, most recently, Aayan Hirsi Ali, Islam’s most eloquent apostate, whose book The Challenge of Dawa, spells out the threat posed by the ceaseless, world-wide ideological campaign waged by Islamists as a complement to jihad – and how to counter it: by fighting political Islam, the ideology, not only terrorism.

She is urging the West to look at Islam with open eyes. She says “It is assimilation versus dawa. There is a notion of ‘cocooning,’ by which Islamists tell Muslim families to cocoon their children from Western society. This can’t be allowed to happen.” She also suggests subjecting immigrants and refugees to ideological scrutiny.

You’d think this message would have got through to our leaders by now. Even those who should know better label Pauline Hanson a xenophobe when she calls for a halt to Muslim migration; they are practicing their morally bankrupt, inept and blind political correctness. It isn’t a call to religious intolerance, it’s the right to not tolerate the intolerant, as argued (back in 1945) by Karl Popper, the great Austrian-British philosopher who wrote of “the paradox of tolerance” and said: “if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

Political leaders around the world have continued to urge tolerance, to blather and be concerned on camera, mourn the dead – and do nothing.

The peaceful majority have also had to endure the green / left which collectively sympathises with the Koran-quoting terrorists, painting them as victims of the West.

This leads us logically to a shocking conclusion: our destiny is in the hands of a virulent, threatening minority whose interests and ambitions are antithetical to those of the peaceful majority.

Ideological weeds are sprouting amongst us; the mislabelling and derisory name calling (racist, Islamophobe, mysoginist, bigot), started long ago, now it’s the shutting down of political opponents on public platforms with threats (eg Aayan Hirsi Ali), and often violent activism behind anonymous masks, all manifestations of this suicidal stupidity.

The peaceful majority have not stopped the abuse of democracy by elements harmful to it. Not in history, not now.

When the Australian Human Rights Commission hounded those innocent QUT students and the late cartoonist Bill Leak, the peaceful majority were irrelevant. Neither of those travesties of justice were shut down by the peaceful majority, even though many did raise their voice in protest. No, the peaceful majority need a leader or leaders who are not just Parliamentary place holders but active champions of our freedoms.

Islam will have to reform itself internally; that may take a long while, even if the West tackles dawa as Hirsi Ali urges us to. In the meantime, Australians must be protected from the violence of Islamic terrorists.

If our politicians and security agencies don’t have the gumption, an informed public can certainly propose a menu of actions, to be undertaken simultaneously, with laws specifically designed to address terrorism, perhaps along the following lines:

A) mandatory life sentences for any and all terrorism related offences, including returning ISIS or Al Qaida fighters and those previously convicted, even if no longer in jail – and no parole, no bail;

B) random (covert, frequent) anti-radicalisation checks on all Muslim schools, Mosques, Imams and communities;

C) detention and interrogation of all those (currently 420) under ASIO investigation;

D) immediate cancel funding of Muslim organisations which do not have 100% transparent distribution processes;

E) curtail and control Muslim immigration

And most importantly, invite the Muslim community to participate in a comprehensive anti-jihad campaign involving advertising, social media and live events, led by speakers from the Muslim community – including reformed jihadists.

What sort of leader will it take ?