The Cancer of Islamist Extremism Spreads Around the World
The Cancer of Islamist Extremism Spreads Around the World by Fareed Zakaria – Washington Post
This week’s tragic terrorist attack in New York was the kind of isolated incident by one troubled man that should not lead to generalizations. In the 16 years since 9/11, the city has proved astonishingly safe from jihadist groups and individuals. And yet, speaking about it to officials in this major global hub 10,000 miles away, the conclusions they reach are worrying. “The New York attack might be a way to remind us all that while ISIS is being defeated militarily, the ideological threat from radical Islam is spreading,” says Singaporean Home Minister K. Shanmugam. “The trend line is moving in the wrong direction.”
The military battle against Islamist extremist groups in places such as Syria and Afghanistan is a tough struggle, but it has always been one that favored the United States and its allies. After all, the combined military forces of some of the world’s most powerful governments are up against a tiny band of guerrillas. On the other hand, the ideological challenge from the Islamic State has proved far more intractable. The terrorist group and ones like it have been able to spread their ideas, recruit disaffected young men and women, and infiltrate countries across the globe. Western countries remain susceptible to the occasional lone wolf, but the new breeding grounds of radicalism are once-moderate Muslim societies in Central, South and Southeast Asia…
Edited and added to a little bit from my initial offering:
Given the recent Brexit, and the recent election of President Trump, let’s open the aperture a little here and look — not just at the how the “cancer of Islamic extremism spreads around the world” but, rather, how, throughout the world, and even now in the prosperous U.S./the West it would seem, there is — more generally —
a. A deep and strong cultural backlash; this,
b. Against the changes in social values that, for example, modernization/globalization (and/or Western expansionism?) brings in its wake.
In this regard (and again emphasizing the West; so as to understand that this is not a matter isolated and/or limited to the Islamic World), to consider the following:
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Over recent decades, the World Values Survey shows that Western societies have been getting gradually more liberal on many social issues, especially among the younger generation and well-educated middle class. That includes egalitarian attitudes toward sex roles, tolerance of fluid gender identities and LGBT rights, support for same-sex marriage, tolerance of diversity, and more secular values, as well as what political scientists call emancipative values, engagement in directly assertive forms of democratic participation, and cosmopolitan support for agencies of global governance.
This long-term generational shift threatens many traditionalists’ cultural values. Less educated and older citizens fear becoming marginalized and left behind within their own countries.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/11/its-not-just-trump-authoritarian-populism-is-rising-across-the-west-heres-why/?utm_term=.2971404b31bc
Now, with this possibly true and accurate overall “problem” picture before us (throughout the world, what we are seeing now is a deep and strong cultural backlash; this, against the changes in social values brought on by modernization, globalization, etc.), let us ask ourselves:
How do we address this matter — both at home and abroad — this, without being accused of being hypocrites/without being accused of having double standards?
Example:
a. At home, and via the Brexit and the election of President Trump, we have now embraced the idea that we are going to put a halt to these changes in our own social values; this, for example, given the marginalization of certain individuals and groups that occurs thereby. Yet:
b. Overseas, we continue to work hard to cause/force other states and societies (think, for example, Iraq and Afghanistan of late) to embrace — both alien and profane — modern Western political, economic, social and value institutions and norms; this, so as to better provide for and better accommodate globalization and modernization [and/or the wants, needs and desires of the U.S./the West).
Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:
Thus, to understand both (a) the spread of Islamic extremism around the globe and (b) the rise of populist (extremism?) in the West; BOTH of these trends through the lens of a deep and strong cultural backlash; this, against the changes in social values — and the marginalization of certain individuals and groups thereby — that modernization/globalization (and/or Western expansionism) brings in its wake?
In this light to see that President Trump — re: his decision to drop from our foreign affairs agenda such things as “democracy promotion,” and his decision to alter the make-up of our State Department so as to hinder/eliminate its ability to do such things in the future — has shown himself NOT to be a hypocrite and/or one that has double standards?
This, given that BOTH his domestic AND his foreign policies recognize the “world destabilizing” effects of modernization/globalization (and/or Western expansionism)?
Is Islamist Extremism any different from previous “isms”?
In modern times, say from 1900 onwards we have seen nationalism, anarchism, communism, fascism and others. Nearly every one has had an extremist aspect – in our Western perception. You do not have to go far to find similar labels being applied to colonialism, capitalism and not to overlook democracy by those who see them as evil.
Is it that this is extremism has a religious label and that it is so easy to label all Muslims as suspects.
As I noted in my most recent comment below, so confident is our current President in his belief that U.S./Western expansionist efforts, post-the Old Cold War, were and indeed are the “root cause” of world instability today — specifically as relates to, for example, our relations with the Greater Middle East, with China and with Russia, etc. —
So confident and convinced is our current President of this fact that he has taken the unprecedented step of actually moving to eliminate from our Department of State, and from other agencies, the ability and/or capability to even do U.S./Western “expansionism” — now and/or in the future.
What I believe that we must come to understand — from this amazing development — is that:
a. By way of our current President’s such understanding, decision and related actions,
b. President Trump may have become America’s, and indeed the West’s, Gorbachev.
Explanation:
The commonality here being that:
a. When the Rest of the World employed a strategy of “containment” (first against the expansionist Soviets/communists and then against the expansionist U.S./the West),
b. Herein, making amazing — and/or just plain good old common sense/logical — use of one’s different culture, religion, etc., in this endeavor (to wit: those very attributes that were threatened most by the Soviets/the communists and/or by the U.S./the West),
c. First the Soviets/the communists (cir. 1989?) — and then the U.S./the West (cir. 2016?) — “folded,” to wit: (a) halted their such expansionist efforts and activities and (b) began to disintegrate/lose common purpose-cohesiveness.
(Lesson learned: “Containment” — and the intelligent use of one’s different way of life, one’s different way of government, one’s different values, etc., in this such endeavor — this “works;” even against the world’s most powerful states, societies and coalitions?)
Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:
Thus:
a. To view “the threat posed by Islamic extremism” (and, likewise, by Russia’s return to Orthodoxy, China’s appeal Confucianism, etc.?); this,
b. Through the — mind boggling — “fait accompli” lens suggested by me above?
(To wit: through the lens of the U.S./the West, with the election of President Trump and via his “isolationist” moves, now having lost its portion of the Old Cold War also?)
Whether we refer to them as extremists, terrorist groups, guerrilla fighters, insurgents, etc — one feature they all seem over time to have had in common, at the general level if not always at the individual group level, is their ability to learn and to devise new operating methods or tactics.
Earlier leaders such as Mao and his militarily speaking intellectual offspring such as Giap realized that their opponents were strong enough to defeat them in conventional battles; they thus devised the military strategy of so-called protracted war and declared the value of conventional battles meaningless — acknowledging they would loose them. Instead, for example, they made driving up the costs of war for their enemies their objective along with their long term survival and increasing their popularity with and political control over a native population. Obviously nothing holds true in 100% of situations, thus not all insurgents, guerrilla … leaders are successful, but many are and were in the past.
As part of their learning process, and we should recognize it does exist, those we refer to (often aptly) as extremists realized that for decades or more Western powers have carried out military operations in their lands, without their either being interested in or capable of carrying out repeated attacks in one form or the other in our homelands. That has changed as the extremists groups are clearly learning machines — which hopefully we can recognize.
Given today’s terrorist group’s understanding of modern technology such as the internet, the actual ease at which both people (individuals) and knowledge can spread around the world when one learns to work the various government systems, etc — they are sending their bombs abroad using delivery methods suited to their operational situations or limitations. Today we continue to use aircraft delivered bombs and applying modern technology we utilize drone delivered ordinance and still utilize Cruise type missiles. Our extremist competitors spread their casualty inflicting methods abroad by using the internet and foreign located supporters to recruit followers willing to carry out act of violence in our lands and use the internet and other methods to teach their tactical methods (from bomb making through use of trucks or planes) to recruits willing to learn.
From our perspective we have to recognize that methods of warfare (and terrorism is one of those methods) are changing / have changed. I’m not stating it from a moral viewpoint, but from a practical one. Simply put, in many situations we can no longer bomb foreign lands and people’s with the type of impunity as we once did. While the Vietnamese elected to fight us in their land, many of today’s groups against whom we are fighting are carrying their responding efforts into our homelands. They are a learning machine and changing their responses to suit the times.
As to whether the military situation has always favored the U.S. and its Allies, that is a rather debatable belief. The objective is strategic success, not battlefield victories. (See “Theory of Victory, Paramaters, Summer 2008, pages 25-36.) We are capable of achieveing the latter, but the former often has alluded us — such as in Vietnam, Laos, Somalia, to date in Afghanistan, etc.
DAVIDBFPO:
Every ideology, whether religious or secular, has unique properties.
Muslim supremacism is a serious problem for the West, as this particular ideology dominates a host of relatively powerful states and controls powerful non-state actors. In many respects Muslim supremacism is not dissimilar to the threat that Western democracies faced from Communism in the 1920s, albeit that threat became far more severe during the ensuing decades.
Using the conflict in Northern Ireland as a relevant example, the vast majority of the population were not terrorists: only 0.08% were. Yet this 0.08% were able to create a low-level war that caused thousands of deaths, led to the occupation of Northern Ireland by tens of thousands of British soldiers, and transformed the police (RUC) into a paramilitary force. Obviously the Northern Irish terrorists had a measure of popular support, and the Loyalist/Unionist groups even had state support.
According to the EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator, there are 20,000 to 35,000 Muslim radicals in the UK, or 0.65% to 1.12% of the British Muslim population; of these, 3,000 are “worrying”, or 0.10%.
Therefore, the UK is faced with a grim situation:
1. The British Muslim population is more radical than Northern Irish population was during the Troubles
2. This radical population is not turned on itself as in Northern Ireland, but against non-Muslims
3. The Troubles were resolved politically when sectarian equality was imposed
4. British Muslims already have equality in the UK, leaving Muslim supremacy as the only political solution
Placing the onus on the West to prove that it is non-discriminatory against Muslims only empowers Muslim supremacists. On the contrary, Muslims should be regarded as no different than National Socialists or white supremacists are in the West today, until they can render their religion as harmless as the many others that are practiced freely here.
Historically, the defeat of supremacist ideologies (specifically their structures) has involved the punishment of innocents, whether it was Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, the blockade and strategic bombing of Germany, or the atomic bombing of Japan.
If allowing Muslim immigrants to reside in the West means that Western societies must devote substantial resources to counter-terrorism, whereas allowing non-Muslims to immigrate instead alleviates this burden, the choice is clear.
BILL M:
I agree. Focusing exclusively on the acts of political violence is folly. From the perspective of capabilities, the U.S. Navy faces more of a threat from the JMSDF in the Western Pacific, than it does from the KPANF, and yet it would ignore crucial political dynamics.
RANTCORP:
Bill M. is correct with regard to manufacturing: automation has resulted in the loss of jobs. As with other developing economies, China competed against the automating economies of the West by providing cheap labor. The “solid blue-collar jobs” in the former Rustbelt were going to disappear regardless of whether it was due to automation or cheap labor abroad. Superior industrial relations in (West) Germany and Japan ultimately supported automation and retraining, whereas U.S. organized labor was hostile to both. Currently, China is automating and outsourcing, particularly to Southeast Asia and Africa, given that its unit labor costs are now ~75% of those in the U.S. and its products are of lower quality. Americans are cheering the “reshoring” or “onshoring” of manufacturing “back” to the U.S., but this process is not creating a large number of manufacturing jobs due to its automated nature, and manufacturing’s share of jobs remains well below pre-2007 levels.
I’ve mangled an analogy or two my own self, so no judgment in that regard, but I believe a clarification of roles is required here if we are to use “cancer” to help us understand current political extremism coming from the Sunni Muslim community around the world.
The real “cancer” is how members of this community feel about the governance affecting their lives and who they blame for the existence of those governing bodies and the character of their governance. This cancer is at stage 0 to stage 4 depending upon the community; equally different stage levels within individuals within those communities. It is more accurate to think of Islamist ideology as a form of cure. A harsh chemotherapy that is as likely to kill the patient as cure them, and even if it ultimately does cure the cancer, the patient suffers terribly during the treatment.
What we need to do is stop agonizing over this bad cure, and work to offer better cures in lieu.