It Is Dishonest To Fight ISIS Without Combating Radical Islamism

All the fury and angst after Paris attacks will be meaningless if the multipronged designs and assorted players in Global Jihad are not identified clearly and their apparatus dismantled thoroughly.

All those familiar with Greek mythology would know the Cretan Minotaur myth. The story has many variants but it broadly goes something like this: Minotaur, a monster, was born on the island of Crete to Queen Pasiphae when she mated a bull sent to her by Zeus. King Minos, who was embarrassed by the half bull and half human progeny, hid him in a specially constructed labyrinth. Enemies in Minos’ kingdom were sentenced and sent to labyrinth so that Minotaur could be fed. After a while, Minos, to avenge the killing of his son Androgeus in Athens, demanded Athenians to send seven boys and an equal number of virgin girls to be sent every year for Minotaur to devour them. Instead of fighting Minos, Athens decided to buy its peace and continued the supply of young boys and girls until Theseus killed the monster one day.

In the present, a similar peace has been bought by voluble Liberals who have convinced the world that there isn’t much which can be done except to keep sacrificing hundreds and thousands, day after day and year after year, to the monster of Islamism. They have forwarded apologies which justify the Global Jihad as an ‘understandable’ response to “Western imperialism”.  They come up with false equivalences to make Jihadi violence look unexceptional and commonplace. They mouth platitudes which are supposed to be shows of determination but, in essence, are no more than wailings of the helpless. They have aggressively advanced terms like “Islamophobia” to pre-empt all scrutiny and criticism of Jihad. In all, the shrill Liberal noise has lulled the responses and debilitated the will to adequately respond.

They have convinced the world opinion, like King Aegeus of Athens in his day, that there is no way other than to passively accept things as they are. Leaders, even of the affected nations and societies, refuse to see religious underpinnings of Global Jihad. They refuse to see that scores of Islamist groups from Abu Sayyaf in Phillipines to Boko Haram in Nigeria, indulging in Jihad, cannot be an “interpretation” issue.

The fact of the matter is anything less than calling out the bluff of Islamism is dishonesty at best and cowardice at worst. The failure to recognise Jihadi menace in its totality has made solutions to be sought in operational terms whereas the challenge mainly lies in confronting the behavioural aspects of radical Islam. No amount of security and vigil will be able to contain the evil of Jihad unless the ideological pinnings are clearly understood and comprehensively addressed.

For long, inaction against Global Jihad took shelter in the excuse that radical Islamism was a non-state actor and that responsible nations could not act brazenly in violation of sovereignty of respective nations.  This excuse remains no more with the emergence of ISIS. A tough blow and a swift and emphatic defeat of ISIS would have crushed the Jihadi spirit worldwide; more so when ISIS Jihadis see their territorial advances and unpunished acts of violence as Godly benefactions.

All the fury and angst after Paris attacks will be meaningless if the multipronged designs and assorted players in Global Jihad are not identified clearly and their apparatus dismantled thoroughly. Besides dealing strong military blows to Jihadi organisations all over the globe, it will require rogue nations like Pakistan – harbouring and aiding terror be not only isolated but put under global sanctions.

It will require that over-ground Jihadis like Anjem  Chaudhary and Al Qaradawi are treated as threats and not given respectability by inviting them to TV studios; it will require that Islamic expansionism and sectarianism is not given legitimacy by acquiescing into freedom struggle narratives; it will require fake victimhood mongering to stop; it will require discriminatory Shariah orders to be unequivocally shamed and denounced as human rights violations.

In short, if the Jihadi menace is to be seriously fought, no quarters are to be yielded.To tackle the threat of Islamism, we need a Ship of Theseus which completely replaces the existing physical and behavioural features before we set out to invade the Labyrinth.