Islamic State activists. A war on terror begins with consciousness
Photo: AP
Calling terror by its name
Op-ed: The indiscriminate and death-worshipping terror has been led for many years now by the fascist part of Islam, which takes on different forms. Its acts of terror are only weakly linked, if at all, to the situation in Syria or in any other Arab state.
A war on terror begins with consciousness: You don’t fight terror and don’t defeat it with fake consciousness. In order to win, you must call the murderer by his name, the enemy by his name, the terrorist by his name.
Michel Houellebecq's depressing novel, "Submission," which describes Islam's takeover of France, includes incidents which are quite similar to the ones that took place in Paris over the weekend. In one of the scenes in the book, a group of intellectuals is in the middle of a pseudo intellectual conversations when sounds of explosions and gunshots are heard in the background. The group hears and knows what it's about, but chooses to ignore it and not to see the terror on the verge of its home, pretending that this is part of the routine.
Just like no one should hesitate before calling murderers and terrorists from the radical right, "radical right," murderers from Islamic terror organizations should be called by their explicit name: "Muslim terror."
Paris Attacks
John-Michael Kibrick
Op-ed: Tragedy in Paris is the time for mourning, not extreme action that will lead the West into a global assault against an undefined enemy.
This is where the submission begins - way before the populist left (in the book) joins political Islam and serves a "moderate" Muslim leader with the French presidency on a silver platter.
ISIS blows up a Russian civilian plane because the Russians support Syrian President Bashar Assad, and murders French citizens because France opposes Assad (Photo: Getty Images)
Many in Israel dislike US President Barack Obama, but Obama is leading the global war on terror unwaveringly and fearlessly, including targeted executions of the leaders of terror. Obama also mentions the leaders' explicit names and points an accusing finger at radical Muslim terror. Quite a few of his fellow statesmen twitch uncomfortably at the sound of his words.
The Europeans' discomfort with talking about Islamic terror is understandable. In Europe there is a hatred of Islam wherever it is, alongside deep anti-Semitism - and not instead of it, as people here tend to believe. But the way to act against them is not through denial and a cover-up.
When the Brits hold ceremonies marking an Islamic terror offensive in London without saying who the perpetrators were, they are both distorting the truth and providing the radical hatred groups with further ammunition, as well as increasing the terrorists' frustration, which drives them to carry out more attacks.
A culture clash
Language can serve as a window into the reality or means of control. There is a reason why totalitarian regimes invent their own special languages, hypnotizing and enslaving versions of the national language. Their intention is to create a parallel universe to the normal one - a supervised and restricted universe. It usually succeeds for a short, but lethal period of time.
But democracies do it too by surrendering to demands of linguistic political correctness, which gradually turns into a muzzle on the public's eyes, like one you would put on a horse's face to prevent it from looking to the left or to the right, Heaven forbid.
From this perspective, it was fascinating and sad to read the reviews of "Submission" in Western liberal magazines: The critics went out of their way to prove that the author did not really intend to warn against Islam's takeover of France, but only against an intellectual submission to a certain anonymous political power.
When French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy began talking about "Islamofascism" and "new barbarism," he was denounced by his intellectual friends as suffering from racism. Now US Secretary of State John Kerry is adopting this label, although in softer wording.
Make no mistake: It's not the war in Syria which created Islamic fascism. The indiscriminate and death-worshipping terror has been led for many years now by the fascist part of Islam, which takes on different forms. Its acts of terror are only weakly linked, if at all, to the situation in Syria or in any other Arab state.
The Islamic State blows up a Russian civilian plane because the Russians support Syrian President Bashar Assad, and murders French citizens because France opposes Assad. Does anyone really understand what made al-Qaeda carry out the 9/11 attacks?
The war on terror is being waged on many channels, most of which are concealed. One open channel is the channel of language, the channel of culture. This is a culture clash, and democracy's submission on this critical channel could lead to its submission on other channels as well.
