By Barry Rubin in Pajamas Media:
Thinking About the Terrorist Murders in Norway
I don’t think this terrorist attack in Norway was a jihadist conspiracy nor is this guy a secret Islamist terrorist. He is clearly right-wing and anti-Muslim, lashing out against forces (the government and Labor Party) that he holds responsible for the growing “Islamization” or multiculturalism in Norway. The evidence also indicates, by the way, that he was not motivated by Christian religious sentiment. He looks at Christianity as an outsider.
Should we argue that such people don’t exist? Should we argue that hatred of Muslims cannot provoke terrorism? Should we claim that you cannot be a “right-wing terrorist” just as one can be a “left-wing terrorist”? Of course not.
1. All terrorism is bad and should be denounced. People should constantly be urged not to turn to terrorist violence or to hatred of whole groups or peoples.[…]
2. Islam as a religion is not the problem. Radical interpretations of Islam — and people have been quite creative historically in reinterpreting seemingly bloodthirsty “authoritative” verses into something else — that now dominate in many places are the problem. A political interpretation of Islam, which we call Islamism, is the problem.[…]
3. There is no parallel movement or powerful doctrine among other contemporary religions that preaches hatred, terrorism, or the seizure of state power, although there have been in some of them at certain times in the past. […]
4. There have been over 10,000 Islamist terrorist attacks, many of them against Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and others. The number of such attacks against Muslims in the West or indeed in the world is perhaps one percent of that number.
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5. Any terrorist who attacks Muslims or tries to kill other people because they work for governments or belong to a left-of-center political party, as in this case in Norway, will be denounced by his entire society, apprehended, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. All of the media, all of the intellectuals, all of the government officials will denounce this person in the sharpest terms. This is hardly ever true in Muslim-majority countries.6. Terrorists like the one in Norway are isolated individuals who have no institutional or organizational support. Islamist terrorists are usually members or supporters of large organized groups that enjoy backing from a considerable portion of public opinion. […]
7. Terrorist attacks against Muslims (or Western governments, or left-of-center political parties) decrease support for the cause of the terrorists. Terrorist attacks by Islamist groups increase support for the perpetrators.
8. It is senseless and counterproductive for Western media, academics, etc., to loudly argue that any terrorist action by a non-Muslim or a person on the political right (or a mentally deranged person wrongly associated with such movements, as in the Tucson case) characterizes all people who have a critique of Islamism or present-day Islamic religious interpretations or the dominant policies and views in the West today. To try to hush up terrorism by one group while manipulating terrorism by another for political gain is not intellectually respectable or morally proper.
9. The coverage and analysis of “Christianophobia” and antisemitism and revolutionary Islamism and aspects of contemporary prevalent interpretations of Islam by large groups of Muslims should be as honest and intensive as that devoted to “Islamophobia.” And that isn’t happening by a — if you’ll excuse the expression — long shot.
10. And so when the media and the U.S. military cannot even admit that the Fort Hood terrorist attack was an Islamist terrorist attack, or when other clearly terrorist attacks weren’t terrorist attacks at all, that is a disgrace. In the same terms, conservatives and “anti-jihad” activists should freely admit that this was a terrorist attack motivated by anti-Muslim and anti-leftist motives.
11. Are people who have written responsibly about Islam, Islamism, and left-wing actions responsible for this attack? No. But if anyone wants to make that argument blaming such writers, then who among them are responsible for terrorist attacks by Islamists?
12. Indeed, that is a significant reason why more left-wing revolutionary groups in the West and Islamists in both the West and Middle East launch far more terrorist attacks. They can rationally expect that this violence will bring them political success. [..]
Be sure to read it all. where you see the ellipses is where there is more. I have just listed the most important parts of those numbers.
