Omar Mateen – Did someone need radicalize him or was he radical to begin with?
Almost two years ago, I wrote a column which dealt with the spurious notion that young Muslims in the West are not really responsible when they perpetrate terrorist atrocities. They are somehow the victims of unseen manipulators.
Tendentious opinion-molders and cynical agenda-pushers (like Barack Obama) maintain that these manipulators mustn’t be named. Others cautiously call them “radical Islamists.”
But both the Obama cheerleaders and the Obama detractors share the premise that young Muslims might be susceptible to radicalization – note the passive tone.
Something is done to these Muslim youths – they don’t freely choose their direction but are led down the dark garden path by nefarious others. The “devil” makes them do it…
A couple of years ago the notion that Muslims need to be “radicalized” in order to turn to terror became chiefly bon ton in Europe. It was handy to account for then-isolated terrorist outrages in that ultra politically correct continent. Meanwhile, in the ensuing 24 months, terror burgeoned (as some right-wing doom-mongers had the temerity to accurately predict) and the ISIS tentacles crossed the pond to the US and Canada.
But focusing on ISIS is in itself wrongheaded.
The assorted Islamic forces are all outgrowths of the same xenophobic beast regardless of whichever name they parade under – Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, etc. – ad infinitum. Muslim zealots latch on to the noxious flavor of the month, onto whichever grouping garners more glory at a given moment in history. They’ll meander to where the most inflammatory rhetoric is mouthed just then or they’ll hoist a new banner for the faithful to rally round. They seek out the extremists and not vice versa.
Distinctions between the various organizational frameworks are artificial. The synthetic hairsplitting is the specialty of western talking heads who need to show off with seemingly esoteric terminology. The differences they draw are every bit as inane as the jibber-jabber about the passive process of “radicalization.”
This is what I addressed in my column of two years ago where my operative question was whether “Syria radicalized Muslims from Europe or did they head for Syria precisely because they were radical to begin with?”
The same question needs to be repeated now but with America replacing Europe in the above sentence and with ISIS replacing Syria. European liberalism, needless to stress, is the equivalent of Obamaesque Newspeak.
But the essence is identical. Is someone snatching innocent impressionable Muslim souls and turning them into homicidal fanatics? Or was there a fanatic predilection to begin with that propelled these young Muslims to seek out radical Islamic mosques, mentors and websites? Do they follow their preexisting inclinations or are their inclinations malevolently tampered with?
Nothing much has changed since June 2014, except for scope, severity and emphases. The fundamental core is unaltered – radicalization shmedicalization is still a putrid load of…
Please read my column below, be reminded and judge for yourself:
Another Tack: The Chicken or the Egg?
Bucking the Trend ... 
Omar Mateen was a good boy…come on !
He was a member of the PEACEFUL religion of Islam, GWB, HuSSein Obama and Frau Merkel simply cannot be wrong !
Okay, 100% of all terrorists worldwide happen to be members of that peaceful religion, but this is pure coincidence.
The Prophet Mohammed himself acted like a terrorist, but this means NOTHING !!!!
The MOST unholy Koran is a script book for murder, but this means NOTHING !!!!
The Koran PROMOTES the cutting off of heads, but this means NOTHING !!!!
Islamic “culture” is saturated with VIOLENCE, but this means NOTHING !!!!
Dear Sarah, yesterday I felt nostalgic about you and your blog…SO GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK !!!!!!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PS “The Chicken or the Egg ?” was a perfect analysis and a prediction of what is happening now.
yes another angle on this i have seen is that the FBI itself is instigating many of the foiled attempts by falsely approaching potential terrorists. and that therefore homegrown terror is not as big a problem as we think.
I was also interested to see how many of those on the left reacted to such a clear, in-your-face, watershed moment between progressive values and their favourite pet project of Islamism. But we have already seen some of the distractions offered to them, namely evil gun owners and general homophobia.
But what is it, this “fanatic predilection to begin with”? Where does it derive from exactly? I believe that it comes from the prophet Muhammad when he took an interest in the Jews and their belief in the one God.
Muhammad thought that the Jews would convert to his new desert version of Judaism but when they did not, he turned against the Jews and their religion. This is the “fanatic predilection to begin with,” derived from Islam at its root. It is a religion built on hate. Islam is a bad-copy, is not authentic and is a religion that is now backfiring.
Exactly what I think. Muhammad’s pride was bruised when the Jews did not go along with him (“pride goes before destruction). His hatred then from his injured pride. It grew into a monstrous ideology that that is against the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Muhammad’s god is a false god (Bael).In my opinon, satan is the god of Islam and the war is between satan and God. It’s really a spiritual war but I don’t think a lot of people understand this.
Welcome back, Sarah! Although I receive your columns via email, will you still be published in the JPost, or, as with Martin Sherman, will you move to Arutz Sheva?
Sarah, you know full-well that Islam itself is the root cause. So why not just say it?
The solution is to educate people as to how and why Islam is the root cause, the article you wrote alludes to the question but deals with the after-the-fact manifestation of Islams teachings and the nature of its followers.
The followers of Islam have been indoctrinated since infancy that Islam and its faithful will eventually rule the earth. The commands canonized in their Qur’an very explicitly make that a point and dictate that it should be accomplished by slaying the Jew and the infidel until the task is accomplished. Again, this is what Muslims from childhood are taught, believe and expect. The orthodox Muslims that practice it are labeled “terrorists”, “radicals” or some other euphemistic label which when you call it out separately lets Islam itself off the hook, that when in fact they are carrying out to the letter explicit and very clear Islamic religious commands. An example would be to say that there is a problem with the radical SS, thus implying that Nazism itself would otherwise be okay if it were not for those pesky SS.
No decent person can remain a follower of Islam. Islam commands that its followers must not take infidels as friends. And indeed what decent person can claim to be your friend yet remain a willing follower of a religion which has indoctrinated them since earliest childhood that they are commanded to either murder you or at very least subjugate you to the status of a dhimmi, to expect that their religion will become superior over all other religions, to practice taqqiya, tawriya, kitman and muruna in claiming to be your friend all the while knowing it is the opposite that is true. Disgusting.
THIS. IS. ISLAM.
Islam itself must be outlawed and eradicated.
And just because there are 1.8 billion Muslims, that does not make the problem insurmountable but rather simply a larger problem. And thus it needs to be dealt with initially in a different fashion. The solution for the moment is not a war of aggression against Islam but rather the education of our people and of western civilization regarding Islam. From that all answers will follow.
Search for the following. jihad watch islam 101
Search for the following. matthias kuntzel ahmadinejad’s world
Search for the following. The Brussels Journal, The Truth About Islam in Europe. You may also find the article by searching for as follows. Western Civilization and Culture, The Truth About Islam in Europe. Skip to the twenty first paragraph which starts out with “Robert Davis’ methodical enumeration in Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters indicates that perhaps one and one-quarter million white European Christians were enslaved by Barbary Muslims from 1530 through 1780.”
Search for the following. frontpagemag MUSLIM BAN AND CONSTITUTIONAL LEGALITY
Search for the following. Can We Ban Islam? – Legal Guidelines for the Criminalization of Islam in the United States
Search for the following. How Islam breathed new life into slavery and the slave trade in Europe
Search for the following. Bat Ye’or: Andalusian Myth, Eurabian Reality
Search for the followng. Devshirme: A Muslim Scourge on Christians
In the words of Turkish PM Erdogan regarding the term “moderate Islam” to describe the AKP party – “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”
“The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”- Bukhari (52:177); Hadith (Website: The Religion of Peace)
Search for the following: “Learn about Islam. That is the most important thing for people to do. Learn who it is that you are not.” – Samuel Lurie
And btw Sarah, welcome back – Phil
Sarah…it’s cruel of you to leave us for so long. Have mercy…come back and give words to our thoughts that we are unable to do for our selves.
I burst into laughter every time I hear a Muslim got “radicalised”. The term implies an initial state of peace, which somehow gets altered. But it’s not the Muslim person who is changing through the process. It is the West gradually getting exposed to the reality of Islam. The change happens in the perception of the western observer.
No wonder no one is talking about “radicalisation” in places like South-Eastern Europe, where people have ancestral memories of the Turkish menace.
Andrew, this makes so much sense and therefore doesn’t bode well for the future of the USA and Western civilization if Muslim populations increase. I guess there’s always Antarctica for awhile.
Great to have you back GRANDMA Sarah!…..Looking forward to your ‘brilliance’ once again, and from ‘all of the above’ posts I see we now have been ‘re-admitted back to the classroom’ of the erudite Sarah Honig…Best Wishes
NEVER GIVE UP! Your words give me hope!
Unfortunately western leaders are acting out the politics of punky fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows! The world will pay for their stupidity!
Sarah where are you?I very much miss your acute perspective.
The author makes an important point about western interpretation of contemporary islam. We have a case where detail is being used to obscure the essence. The various “experts” in Al-Qaeda and such, are showing us the trees, assuming we can’t see the forest.
Well, you don’t see “radical” Christians or “radical” Jews hardly at all. Thus Islam, by dint of the thousands of terror attacks that have been carried out in its name, owns the word “radical.” Nationalism, with its attached Western vaues, has in no way served to dissuade fanatical followers of Islam from carrying out Jihad, despite the wishes of George W. Bush. But if you substitute “United States” for the policies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton(pre-mature evacuation of Iraq, overthrow of Khaddafi, supporting the Syrian rebels with guns and munitions), one can, however falsely, blame the United States for the rise of ISIS. Truth be told, however, Obama and the Hildebeast have enabled ISIS. So if you stop the enablers, you greatly retard the growth of “radical” Islam, that is, Jihad, or Islam as practiced by those who carry out Jihad. Thus the current wisdom among many Republicans, and others inclined to place the blame where it belongs, is to shut down the Mosques, and deport their Imams. Which I agree with. True, Omar Mateen was born in America, a homegrown Jihadi. But his father had brought the Jihadist mind-set from Afghanistan. Welcome back, Sarah.
Thanks, Sarah, for your illuminating article, which should bring much light to so many people who are still in the dark – whether because of preference or stupidity, or both.
Hello Ms Honig,
As always, it is a wonderful education to read your works.
“The militant Moslem is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Moslem holds the feet of the victim.” – Marco Polo
The first part is simple; the second part speaks volumes.
It doesn’t just address mainstream Islam’s (at-the-very-least) tacit support (directly & indirectly) of its more visible militantism, but more insightfully, to its providing a ‘fig leaf’ for the World’s most successful engine of colonization, hobbling a host nation’s resistance to Islam’s inexorable march of (nearly imperceptible) steps to total conquest.
By holding up a “moderate” mask, the outside world sees only a “religion of peace,” and fails to see that Islam – unlike other religions – is much more. It is a complete ‘closed’ culture: a judicial system, a political system, a civil system, a social system, and, most importantly, a colonizing system – that is always ready to employ violence.
Militant, Radical, Extremist…
“These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” – Turkey’s President Erdogan