The recent attacks in England and Scotland has connections in Australia through a network of doctors and medical workers. People seemed shocked that they could be doctors. Why? The chief ideologue behind al Qaeda, the Egyptian al Zawahiri, was a highly trained doctor. Recent studies have shown that many Islamists are highly educated. It puts an end to the idea that this all about oppressed and impoverished people fighting back. It isn’t. Islamism is an ideology like fascism or communism and both ideologies attracted highly intelligent professionals who imagined themselves as a vanguard acting on behalf of an imagined oppressed group. Islamism is a form of utopian idealism that is attractive to certain personality types.
I was irritated to read this silly statement in a major article on the attacks. The journalist Nick McKenzie writes in today’s ‘Age’: “The threat comes from a very small number of individuals who twist Islam to justify extrtemism.” This comment is simply incompetent. The threat has come from a significant group of militants who number in the tens of thousands (across several battle fields). This is hardly a ’small’ number of individuals. Furthermore, this number of active militants has significant support amongst Muslims, many still regard bin Laden as a hero.
Furthermore, Islam does not have to be twisted too far to justify violence. There seems to be a willing blind spot to what Mohammed preached and actually did. After he felt he had been betrayed he declared war on his enemies. This war included the massacre of 700 hundred Jews of the Bani Quarayzeh by beheading ‘after’ they had surrendered. Mohammed’s jihad then involved the destruction of the traditional religion of Arabia and the forced conversion of the ‘infidels’, followed by the expulsion of all Jews and Christians from the area he controlled. This history is not disputed, just glossed over and excused with rather lame arguments that he was justified.
Apologists will argue that Islam only fights in defence of Islam. The notion of defence hinges on the definition of attack. What constitutes an attack on Islam? As it turns out, not much. We must remember that Islam has not done much to change Arab notions of honour and revenge. The existance of tribal blood feuds tells us that violence is a recognized method with which to restore honour. If a female member of the family causes dishonour, you kill her. This is what an honour killing is.
The inconvenient truth is that violence is seen as a solution. Another inconvenient truth is that it is a central doctrine of Islam that the life of an infidel is not worth much and can be taken in the cause of protecting Islam.
The doctors behind the attacks in Great Britain did not twist Islam, rather they followed a long standing, mainstream interpretation of Islam as demonstrated by Mohammed himself.
So why did McKenzie basically lie about the situation? Because many find it difficult to comprehend such casual violence and are simply in denial.