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• 1 Brian // Oct 25, 2007 at 11:53 am

  I listened to Daniel Pipes cogent analysis of the nature of the Islamic enemy, and agree with him that it can best be tagged as “militant Islam.” The term “Islamo-fascism” is a better attention-getter, however. I think of “Fascism” as connected to a nationalistic state-based movement, whereas militant Islam seems to eschew statism. Militant Islam appears to have as its ultimate goal the obliteration of national boundaries and the differentiation of people by nationhood so that all people of the world conduct their lives with loyalty only to Allah under the severest Sharia imaginable. Militant Islam is unique among totalitarian movements in that it consists of diffuse networks of transnational, autonomous Muslims groups and abettors who believe that the whole world must submit to Islamic (which echoes of the Nazi slogan, “Deutschland uber ales”). Pipes notes that this state of affairs did not develop over-night, but rather it rose over decades and generations. Militant Islamism is founded on what has now grown to be a large body of ostensibly erudite writings by Islamist thinkers an propagandists. Militant Islam has been expanded through the systematic indoctrination of isolated and impoverished youths in remote lands, as well as, ironically, the conversion of young, disaffected, Muslim adults in affluent lands. I also agree that ultimately, the defeat of Militant Islam must be accomplished with in the world-wide Muslim community, the Umma, by the truly moderate Muslims through a long, concerted refutation of the ideology of the extremists. Militant Islam will be defeated when a new, non-jihadist theology of Islam is formulated and spread throughout the Umma. This, too, will take generations. Thank you Daniel Pipes for kicking off the discussion of a complex, nebulous enemy, Militant Islam.

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