THE TELEGRAPH: Those who came here to escape tyranny are now cheering the tyrants they left behind
Growing up in Iraq and Lebanon, we looked at the West with awe. The West was ahead of the Arabs world on many levels, including government, urban planning, social welfare, science, literature, technology and military strength. In Lebanon, almost every child at school was taught three languages, learning English and French, in addition to our native Arabic. Parents talked to their children in these languages.
We generally associated success and wealth with speaking Western languages. Those who spoke fluent English or French, the upper and middle classes, tried to mimic native American, British, or French accents. The better your Western language and accent, the higher social status you signalled.
During my years in the old homeland, the Arabs were in consensus over the need to emulate the West, but there was an obstacle: The West was Christian and we were Muslim. The Arabs therefore reasoned that they would copy everything from the West except for social norms. We Muslims did not eat pork or drink alcohol. Inter-gender relations were strictly limited and monitored. The collective tribal opinion always trumped independent personal thinking. » | Hussain Abdul-Hussain | Tuesday, October 31, 2023
There is no such thing as Islamism. In the eyes of a good Muslim, there is Islam or there is nothing. Islamism is a Western concept. It was thought up by Westerners to try and draw a clear line between an acceptable Muslim and a Muslim that is unacceptable.
No Muslim I have ever met — and I have met and worked with very many — ever called himself an Islamist. Essentially, an Islamist is a devout, practising Muslam/Muslimah.
Islam poses huge problems for the West because it recognises no separation of mosque and state, no separation of the temporal from the spiritual, no separation of politics and religion. In fact, the separation of mosque and state is forbidden in Islam. Arabic has no word for secular. Further, Islam is an organic whole, a total way of life. Muslims don’t even consider Islam to be a religion (in the Western sense of the word); rather, they call Islam the Dīn (Deen). The Dīn is a complete way of life, with all its prescriptions and proscriptions.
What Westerners want here in the West are dilute, non-practising, non-strictly observant Muslims. Problem is, once such a Muslim turns back to his faith, he becomes ever more observant; and when that happens, you get them wanting God’s law, or Shariah law, instead of the man-made, democratic type of laws we are used to. These people start being devout, pious and even sanctimonious. Now we are in the realms of the so-called Islamist – the type of Muslim unwelcome here in the West. – © Mark Alexander
