The news items conflate at times so rapidly that we get caught and lost in them. What seems clear one day stops making sense the very next day. At times, it may be because too much s… stuff hits the proverbial fan in at once; sometimes it’s because our sources misled us but more often than not it’s because we misled ourselves. This Monday is rich enough to offer examples of each.
ISIS came out with a video of a mass beheading yesterday showing 21 orange jumpsuit-clad people being killed on a beach.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/middleeast/isis-libya-egypt/
Of the above sentence, only the garments, location and specific type of execution are designed by proper terms. ISIS is incorrect which is why I gave a link to a CNN piece as this news outlet uses it regularly.
It’s ISIL or alternatively Da’esh if you don’t like them but not ISIS.
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Using Syria instead of Levant ( as in ISIS ) only shows a lack of geographic and historical knowledge that tints our view of this group and our understanding of its actions and the resulting situation. It’s highly reductive and actually minimizes the threat and its goals.
Levant refers to the rising Sun in the East as applied to the Mediterranean sea. It is originally a French term for Orient but took a new meaning after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the splitting of the region between France and Great-Britain. This split came under an agreement known as Sykes-Picot, itself an inexact term the proper name being Asia Minor Agreement as it included Turkey and Armenia as territories to be given to Russia, the tsarist one, not the Soviet State or the present one. And I used Great-Britain here as the United Kingdom name became in vogue later after Ireland itself split ( 1922 to Sykes-Picot’s 1916 ).This may be confusing to many but to make it simple, France got control over Eastern Turkey, the mainly Kurdish populated part of the present state by that name, and as Sykes himself put it, all south and east of it down to a line from Acre ( now northern Israel ) to Kirkuk. Great-Britain got all below that from the Sinaï desert along and arc north of the modern Saudi Arabia but including its Eastern coast on the Persian Gulf down to al-Hasa, about at the level of modern Qatar. Russia got Armenia of then, also in Modern day Turkey, and the Black Sea entrance near Istanbul.
This is necessary to know because ISIL proudly proclaimed to have broken Sykes-Picot when it conquered most of Iraq Last year. Thus, if you go by CNN’s reductive term of ISIS, the terrorists “only” want Iraq and Syria but the truth is that their dream Caliphate includes Koweit, some of Saudi Arabia and maybe some of Turkey, Lebanon, most if not all of Jordan and Israel. That’s at minima, mind you, the bigger historic Caliphate including all of the aforementioned countries and the southern shores of the Mediterranean in which case Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco if not Spain should be added. Knowing this explains why the video was shot on a Libyan beach. Using ISIS does not.
Da’esh is a sort of acronym of the Arabic language original of their name used in pejorative intent by locals and rest assured that when I use it here, this is my intent too. So ISIL or Da’esh, not ISIL. And not Islamic State either for many countries are Islamic states but not related to the terrorists in any official manner.
The people killed in that video were Copts, by the way. That designates a Christian branch that appeared in Egypt in the first century AD. As a reminder, this community gave us part of Mark’s Gospel, the birth of theology and monasticism and spread all over that old land in the following years until the rise of Islam took it over. It would not be an exaggeration to split Egypt’s history into 4 parts : Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic. Copts are then the original Christians of Egypt even though others live there now in smaller numbers. This explains what some poor folks in the West will hardly understand otherwise : the reaction by Cairo that saw the bombing of the Libyan ISIL affiliate in retaliation. Copts are symbolic of the Nation to the highest point ( and were NOT attacked under the post-revolution Muslim Brotherhood government of Morsi by the way ).
All of which leads us to consider the use of Islamic, Islamists, Muslims, jihadists, terrorists and so on.
Islam is the name of the religion as Christianity is for the followers of Jesus. Muslims is the name of those that practice that faith and equals Christians. Thus, when we said Islamic states earlier, we meant a nation that has Islam as a tenant of its constitution and governance, the essential word being governance as in Fiqh and Shura which Prophet Muhammad PBUH himself abided by. Many muslim nations are not Islamic states. To qualify as an Islamic State, the State has to maintain a link to the believers as a body and government. Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan are Islamic States. Islamic monarchies abound without this distinction even though Islam is their state religion and democratic Muslim nations are numerous, inscribing the faith in their constitutions and using Islamic law as a juridic base with or without the link. For instance : Malaysia and Tunisia have Islam as their state religion but with less importance for it in the latter as regards law. In some, spreading another faith is forbidden by law while in others, the rights of non-Muslims are well protected. Palestine has Islam as its state religion too even though not a state per say. Together, all of these and a couple dozen more are Muslim nations
By comparison, there are very few real Christian states anymore save of course the Vatican and the UK ( since the Queen is also the head of the Church of England ) : Costa Rica, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Monaco, Malta have it in their constitutions. All of the above however protect the rights of other creeds and none use a religious based juridic system. And if the West has a hard time with these subtle differences, so do many Muslims as when they call America and France ( amongst others ) Christian nations. The former acknowledges God in its Constitution but forbids laws to be based on religion and protects freedom of it from the very First Amendment. The latter recognizes no place for God in its constitution but protects liberty of cult and belief!
This is where Islamism enters the fray. Islamism is the belief found in most examples above that Islam should be the basis of social and political life. As we just saw, once applied, it takes many faces. It always conflicts with secularism as inscribing any religion as central in a constitution does, be it Christianity as mentioned or Buddhism ( Cambodia ), that much is true. The practical difference here is whether or not this process is to be imposed. If say, highly syncretic Palau was to vote for animism to become the constitutional basis of social and political life in a referendum, it would be perfectly legal. It is only when islamists attempt to bring the change about through violence that it really becomes a problem. You may argue that this was the case for Mohammed and the caliphs that succeeded him but do remember that at the time, this was the case for Christianity too as evidenced by the Crusades that followed a couple of centuries later for the belief in Christ was then the official state religion of almost all European kingdoms and this happened despite Jesus having forbidden any such violence, even in self-defense.
And in turn that brings us to jihad. Jihad has 4 components. Major jihad is that of fighting one’s ego, oneself, by studying Islam with the soul, attempting to abide to its teachings in practice, intellectually spreading those teachings to those who ignore them and showing patience towards life’s hardships, all of which are present in Christianity too, as well as staving off Satan by fighting doubt and temptation, again also inscribed in the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer of Christians.*
Past these two, comes minor jihad against hypocrites and infidels, the first two terms of which are not problematic either : with the heart and with the tongue, referring to being good to others and proselytism. Mainstream Christianity does the exact same thing as evidenced by the last term of the definition the Church gives of itself : Apostolic, that spreads the word of God, the Good news, etc. It is only the last two components of these lesser jihads that pose problem : To do jihad with the hand and with the sword. The hand of course brings the sword up to being one and the same for the less subtle of believers. The problem at this point becomes that in the Quran, this is mostly a defensive posture. Fighting is approved and recommended to defend oneself and historically, having been the case at the time of the Mahomet, ceases to be an obligation once the war has ended. In other words and without entering a deeper theological examination ** , it does not justify in any way attacking others without reasons and as much is evidenced by both the Quran which forbids taking innocent lives outside of combat and Mahomet’s pacts with non-muslim minorities. In short, for a proper Muslim, it all relies on what is considered war.
To this end, armed jihad is considered an obligation only if called to arms by the Amir al mu minin, the prince of the faithfuls. This name came to be that of the first Rashidun Caliph, Abdullah ibn Abi Quhafah, Mahomet’s step-father that succeeded the Prophet PBUH. Today, that title is applicable only to the King of Morocco for Sunnis and to Ali son of the Prophet for Shias and no one else. Those fighting the unnecessary 2003 invasion of Iraq, although the country was not a true Muslim nation under Saddam Hussein by my count, could be seen as jihadists if intent on defending against an infidel invasion. Da’esh cannot. If you refer to ISIL , you’ll find its leader to be named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Abu Bakr was the nickname of Abdullah the first Caliph which is a devious way for those terrorist to link themselves to the tradition and usurp the title of Emir of Muslims in order to force the sincere faithful to follow them to war. Of course, as they disregard Muhammad’s rules of sparing children, women priests and other non-combatants, it is also hypocrisy at best which justify jihad against them and blasphemy at worst. It is on this basis that they can’t be called jihadists and should be called terrorists.
About which word … Terrorism is a single and precise concept that is often bandied and misrepresented nowadays. Terrorism is the attempt to terrorize through violent acts ( kidnapping, hijacking, murder, bombing, etc ) an adversary that you cannot hope to defeat by conventional fighting. The terrorist wave of the 1970s was quite evident in that respect : the Munich massacre of the 1972 Olympics was a terrorist act as was the 1976 Entebbe hijacking; the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978 or the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In all these cases, the perpetrators could not have faced, Israel for the 2 former cases, Italy or America for the latter. Terrorism is always an attempt to instill fear in order to achieve a political goal and always from the feeble to the strong. As proof, that decade saw roughly 2,000 people die from such acts where 5 to 6 times as many fall under bullets by criminals and gun nuts every year in the USA alone. This got muddled in the 21st century.
The 9-11 events were still terrorism but not the Talibans ensuing fight in Afghanistan. That, as say the Tamil Tigers ( LTTE ) in Sri Lanka, was guerrilla ***. In the present case, there is a mix of both in ISIL’s and AL-Qaeda’s exactions. When AQMI and friends tried to overrun Mali in 2012, it was guerrilla turned to war which is why they ended up facing and being defeated by the French Army. The same now goes for ISIL with even more of the characteristics of war. The confusion stems from a mix of tactics. The strategy of such groups is now dual. They use war when possible and terrorism when they can’t. This polymorphous approach is something that mixes guerrilla in Iraq and Syria and terrorism in Paris and Copenhagen. It will require a change of tactics from the Nations that want to fight them. Pakistan was likely the laboratory of this new type of warfare as both types have been used against the local government. Contrary to what I read yesterday on an asian forum, the murder of 3 young Americans last week was not the act of a terrorist even though they were Muslims. Craig Hicks, the murderer was an intolerant atheist, crazy and quite possibly racist known to have had multiple problems with the local 9 multi-cultural ) community. Since however the origin of the dispute was a parking spot and since Hicks had no political goal nor claims, you can blame it on the prevalent gun culture conundrum of the land and call it stupidity but not terrorism. When ISIL fights the Iraq armed forces with weapons of war, it’s religious nuts at war not jihad nor war against Islam and only the acts in Europe were terrorist ones.
Which brings us to our last subject, anti-semitism. Terrorism did begin in earnest in the 1970s on account of a hatred of Israel, the State, after it had been shown impossible to defeat in conventional warfare in 1967 and beyond which culminated in the Yom Kippur war of October 1973. This also brought about a mostly Arab hatred of it that spread to other Muslims worldwide. That is a specific part of anti-Jewish sentiment. Anti-semitism per say is something else entirely and has existed for over 2,000 years, at least since the expulsion of the Hebrews by Rome in 135 AD under Emperor Hadrian even though the Jewish diaspora had begun centuries earlier. The strong sense of self of that proud people then led to incredibly severe ostracism at them in most lands where they lived. Their on-going existence as Israel the people thus survived and motivated intolerance at their very existence. In Spain, they were both martyrized by the Muslim rulers and the Christian “reconquistadors” as well as the latter more official Inquisition. In what became Russia and other Eastern European countries, one bad year of harvest was blamed on nature, 2 consecutive ones on displeasure from the heavens and 3 in row would bring pogroms ( gathering and burning of the Jews ). In Germany and France, the distrust lasted until the 20th century and culminated in the single worst case of racial hatred as the institutionalized Nazi psychopathic attempt to eradicate them known as the Shoah.
Yesterday on this very blog, I was myself brought to severely stance Israel. I meant the state of course, not the people. This dual meaning of the term is likely part of the problem. When we listed “confessional lands” earlier, I sidestepped the “Jewish State”, as it now defines itself, for the very reason that it would be taken on down here. But in all logic, what we said of Muslim nations is the case of Israel too. It may very well be that this similarity in approach of trying to make a nation synonym with a faith is exactly what so opposes Judaism and Islam today. Jewish communities as Christians one have always existed in the Middle-East ( and other Muslim lands as Morocco or Algeria for instance ) starting before and even under Mahomet as we mentioned.
Still, calls of anti-semitism are not always correct. The acts of Coulibaly in January at Paris’ Porte de Vincennes kosher market and of Hamid El-Hussein at the Copenhagen synagog where motivated by the same Arab ( more than Muslim) hatred of Israel, the state, that inspired modern terrorism. Thus terrorism, these acts were indeed but anti-semitism at large, not so much. That incredible crowd in Paris on January 10th was as mixed as could be with French people of both Muslim and Jewish persuasions as well as Christians and atheists. and let’s remember that young Muslim that was an employee of the Kosher market too. In both capitals, terrorism was at work more than anti-semitism. The single most racists or exclusionary calls linked to these events remain those of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu asking foreign nationals, be them Jews, to emigrate to Israel. If you want to find anti-semitism,you might look instead to yesterday’s desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union in France. 5 teenagers knocked over about 250 of the 400 headstones there. And yet the kids had no specific hate or so they told the cops, just specific stupidity although I’d venture that they more or less unconsciously believed that since it was “only” a Jewish cemetery, an atavism of what we described above. And if you want disgracious comments on the affair, look no further than French PM Manuel Valls calling it “Islamo-Fascism” in near perfect echo to Netanyahu’s own. For a while, I thought no one would notice that what was primordial was the quintessential immorality of pursuing hatred beyond death that no God could condone and yet … two bright comments reassured me … both by Jews. A member of the local inter-religions committee visiting with a Muslim cult council high leader by his side pointed it out as craven and dastard intolerance to which the French representative of the National Jewish Council adde the final touch :
“It shows that our education system is catastrophic. If they’re leaving school with no dignity or respect for human rights, it’s a disaster.”
Roger Cukierman.**”
That’s the proper interpretation! As with all of the above, it is merely a matter of using the correct terms, of their meaning. France, Denmark, Jordan and Egypt are defending their citizens against religious nuts. The same holds of the US and its atheist murderer, a religious nut in its own right even if it sounds strange. And to keep that in mind, don’t call vandals fascists, don’t call idiots or Muslims, terrorists and don’t call Da’esh ISIS which is the name of an ancient Egyptian Goddess from thousands of years before Islam nor jihadists!
Call them nuts; that’s all they are!
Peace out, Tay.
* I am using this distinction more from having reading the immense Ibn Rushd known in the West as Averroes than from the Hadith recounting it and judged weak by many.
** Which the author partook in with Sunni imams and one Ulema and Sufi marabouts without any difficulty or tensions despite not being a Muslim himself.
*** For the Talibans, it can be termed jihad but that stops being true past the border with Pakistan where it becomes terrorism again.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 
Pingback: The old and wise true face of Islam. | Definitive Lapse of Reason