Islamism or Islam?

Is the problem Islamism (a modern totalitarian ideology) or Islam (a 1,400 year old religion)? That’s been the ongoing debate. The psychologist I quoted in an earlier blog entry, followed by a response by Andrew Bostom—who of course is one of those who says the problem is Islam not Islamism—replies to Bostom and suggests that it’s both, that is, Islamism is an additional malignancy added onto the original malignancy of Islam. I think this clarifies the nature of the challenge we face. Andrew Bostom still insists, however, that it is dangerous to shift our focus, even in part, from Islam to Islamism, since, even though Islamism may be an exacerbated form of Islam, Islam represents the true underlying source of the threat.

Here, first, is the correspondent’s e-mail to Andrew Bostom:

I am the psychologist whose letter to Lawrence Auster you commented on, and I wished to reply. I am of course a psychologist and not a scholar or historian of Islam. Therefore I look primarily at what I see happening in the present which I think can be an important perspective although certainly not the only important perspective. If one could have completely understood the dynamic of Nazism in 1940 this would have been far more valuable than all the knowledge of prior German history. Likewise a psychological understanding of malignant authoritarianism would yield far more insight into Pol Pot’s Cambodian genocide than a scholarly knowledge of Cambodian history and culture. I realize that what we are dealing with in the case of Islam differs significantly from these examples, since it involves a religious belief system and practice with a continuous and ongoing tradition and history over many centuries, and where the beliefs today are essentially the same as centuries ago. This makes both a religious and historical understanding essential.

What I do see today is a highly malignant authoritarian dynamic that now seems to be preeminent and dominant in Islam. While this may seem to be a permanent characteristic of Islam I would like to raise a relevant question which is that what we are seeing today may represent something more than a continuation of an ongoing tradition of aggression, enslavement, and dhimmitude. I see the possibility that what we see today is an already preexisting malevolent tradition overlaid with an additional but more modern and even greater malignancy. The reason I say this is that what we see today in the Moslem world bears an uncanny similarity to Nazism. For example look at the Palestinian society today where is found a cult of death, child sacrifice, and hatred that goes beyond and seems different in kind from anything in prior Moslem history as does the whole cult of suicide terrorism and its glorification. All of this seems to me most similar in its depravity to the Nazis. Also the incredibly virulent and pervasive anti-Semitism also bears an uncanny resemblance to Nazi Germany as does the wild popularity of books from the Nazi era including Mein Kampf. Rather than allowing others to live as dhimmi inferiors I might expect that today murder might be their preferred alternative. But I do agree that this represents the reality of Islam today and that’s the reality we are faced with. The difference between the perspective I am taking and the one you take is that you focus on what is unique about the religion and culture in terms of its beliefs, practice, and history, whereas I am looking at the way in which today it may also be following a dynamic that transcends any particular religion or culture. Perhaps it might be accurate to say that today we have a more malevolent version of a centuries old malevolent tradition or perhaps a blending of this long-term malevolent tradition with the most malevolent of Western movements, Nazism.

Incidentally the most illuminating thing I have read in the last ten years (and the most chilling) was Bat Ye’or’s articles on Eurabia.

Andy Bostom replies:

There is no question that the most virulent elements of Muslim society will borrow modern motifs, when they can, but they mobilize the masses of Muslims by appealing to Islam’s “sacred” traditions—as has been done for centuries. Even when Hajj Amin el-Husseini was in the Balkans recruiting Balkan Muslims for his Nazi-Supported brigades (The Handschar), he used Islamic motifs for this purpose. The trouble I have with your focusing on modern totalitarian movements is that Muslim apologists and even unwitting conservatives use the VERY SAME arguments to deny the critical role Islam itself plays in all the horrors taking place around us. And that does nothing but create more obfuscation, and nothing to force the issue of a radical alteration of Islamic doctrine into the forefront where it belongs if a billion Muslims are going to learn how to share this planet peacefully with the rest of us.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 22, 2005 08:49 AM | Send