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2006-05-29 Terror Networks
Islamism threat to democracy
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Posted by Fred 2006-05-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 It is not a matter of "modernizing Islam" but of "Islamizing modernity."

This is taken from a great recent essay. I wish I could remember who wrote it and where it is published. The point of the essay was that Zawahiri had realized that by staying on the defensive, modernity would slowly whittle away at traditional Islamic society and eventually overwhelm it. Declaring jihad, attacking and destroying jahili Arab regimes and promoting dawa in the West, was the only hope for Islam. Of course when Zawahiri formulated his strategy, he probably had no idea of the crises of will and demography that lay in Europe's near future. Nor did he understand that the jahili Arab regimes would be such tough nuts to crack. The author of the essay described Zawahiri's strategy as Islamizing modernity.
Posted by 11A5S 2006-05-29 00:21||   2006-05-29 00:21|| Front Page Top

#2 11A5S, the essay was written by Roberto A.M. Bertacchini and Piersandro Vanzan S.I. and titled
The Islamic Question. (Scroll down to the essay.)
Here's the part you were referencing:
.... For the zealots, everything that comes from the outside is like poison to their traditional ways of life, so they hold that there is only one way to avert cultural catastrophe: expel the invader and hermetically seal off the borders, so nothing can pollute or corrupt their miniature world. This is, in part, the position of Osama Bin Laden, who is opposed to the American presence, not only in Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia.

But this defensive program would never work against Western civilization. Unlike all previous civilizations, it is not localized or territorially circumscribed. The pervasiveness of the global village is such that there is only one way to escape its grasp: destroy it. And this is Al-Zawahiri’s ideological program, which he pursues with a complex strategy. For the formula of “modernizing Islam,” he substitutes another: “Islamizing modernity,” and therefore the West.

Within the Muslim world, Islamization means de-Westernizing everything: from political and cultural institutions to economic ones, even to the point of rethinking banking operations. On the outside, it means spreading Islam through vigorous missionary activity, in both Europe and the United States: this activity is supported above all by Saudia Arabia. But according to the most radical interpretations, Islamizing the West means violently attacking its political and economic power, without sparing the civilian population.....
Posted by GK 2006-05-29 01:48||   2006-05-29 01:48|| Front Page Top

#3 Modern islam = fascisim. It really is that simple. You can't have democracy and the islam the Saudi's and Ben Laden's want. We made this choice 60+ years ago and we are having to make it again. Are the going down Fascists going down or is it us that will go down?
Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-05-29 06:39||   2006-05-29 06:39|| Front Page Top

#4 It is not a matter of "modernizing Islam" but of "Islamizing modernity."

GK and 11A5S : not sure at all, but I rather think this formule has been first pronounced by a french islam sepcialist (and a bit of an an apologist, since his thesis was the end of the islamist "failed revolution" in the late 90's), Gilles Kepel.
A quite serious scholar, but very "islamically correct" if you ask me.
Posted by anonymous5089 2006-05-29 09:24||   2006-05-29 09:24|| Front Page Top

#5 Thanks, GK and a5089.
Posted by 11A5S 2006-05-29 10:00||   2006-05-29 10:00|| Front Page Top

#6 Muslim world = RUSSIA = most economy-dependent, competitive, innovation-centric males die by an average age of 40-50, leaving milyuhns and zigluhns of emotions/hormones-intensive tween youths to be guided by surviving adult females = elderly whom as class are usually NOT physically strong enough over time to stop them. THE WOMEN CAN'T SPEND IT IFF THE MEN DON'T BUILD IT, OR THERE ARE NO MEN OR NOT ENUFF MEN TO BUILD IT OR PROTECT IT, NOW CAN THEY!?
Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-05-29 23:55||   2006-05-29 23:55|| Front Page Top

14:35 DarthVader
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