An Important Political Figure Flirted With Honesty About the Real Problem

Saturday

When most politicians speak about Islamic violence, what they say is so far from the truth, it is closer to the opposite of what's true. But what about this comment by a major world figure in politics:

"Some argue it's because of historic injustices and recent wars, or because of poverty and hardship. This argument, what I call the grievance justification, must be challenged.

"So when people say 'it's because of the involvement in the Iraq War that people are attacking the West,' we should remind them: 9/11 — the biggest loss of life of British citizens in a terrorist attack — happened before the Iraq War.

"What I call the grievance justification, must be challenged.... When they say that these are wronged Muslims getting revenge on their Western wrongdoers, let's remind them: from Kosovo to Somalia, countries like Britain have stepped in to save Muslim people from massacres — it's groups like ISIL, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram that are the ones murdering Muslims.

"Now others might say: it's because terrorists are driven to their actions by poverty. But that ignores the fact that many of these terrorists have had the full advantages of prosperous families or a Western university education.

"Now let me be clear, I am not saying these issues aren't important. But let's not delude ourselves. We could deal with all these issues — and some people in our country and elsewhere would still be drawn to Islamist extremism.

"No — we must be clear. The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself."

Now apart from that last phrase, "extremist ideology," that's pretty good, don't you think? Can you guess who said it? The UK's Prime Minister, David Cameron. Read more about his remarks here: David Cameron Declares War on Islamic Extremism.

P.S. Here's why I have a problem with the word "extremist:" Are All Extremists Dangerous?

1 comments:

Ah Clem 5:32 AM  

This was a very good speech I think. Barack Obama and other world leaders should follow his lead. What may not be so well known about the speech is that Maajid Nawaz helped him prepare it. Maajid is a liberal Muslim and a former radical Islamist who once was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. He spent about four years in an Egyptian prison for that involvement and co-founded the Quilliam Foundation, a UK-based counter-extremism think tank, some time after his release.

There's a very thought-provoking article on this speech by an ex-Muslim atheist who goes by "Eiynah" (@NiceMangos on Twitter). The article also has a video of the entire speech. Eiynah is originally from Pakistan and now lives in Canada. An extended quote of Eiynah's appears in Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, on pages 214 and 215. The quote is from her takedown of Ben Affleck in Pakistan Today.

Article Spotlight

One of the most unusual articles on CitizenWarrior.com is Pleasantville and Islamic Supremacism.

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).

Click here to read the article.


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