By the term "Counter-Jihad Mainstream" I mean that this still minuscule, albeit growing, sociopolitical movement often called "the Counter-Jihad" has a "mainstream" which in many ways resembles the "mainstream" of the MSM -- soft on Islam and hostile to internal quality control & self-criticism. Sure, the CJM is much tougher on, and much more literate about, Islam than is the MSM; but that doesn't mean the CJM doesn't have deficiencies in this department.
One of the bastions of the CJM is Jihad Watch and, as it's quite an industriously active venue, it's a good laboratory to study these deficiencies.
One deficiency I've written about and analyzed at length in previous essays on this blog and at my former blog (The Hesperado) is the failure to shift paradigms from "Islam is the problem" to "Islam is the problem and all Muslims enable that problem". An incomplete list of my essays in this regard, but one which should get the reader started, may be found here.
Recently, a leading member of the Jihad Watch team, Hugh Fitzgerald, wrote an essay which, for the first time as far as I can tell, dipped a cautious toe into the dangerous waters of this paradigm shift. Of course, Hugh, in his arrogance, writes as though what he's saying is perfectly sensible and hasn't been a controversial direction to take the Counter-Jihad, as evidenced by countless instances of various leaders of the CJM -- including his own esteemed colleague, Robert Spencer -- timidly shrinking back from drawing the logical conclusion Hugh in his essay articulates so matter-of-factly:
[Richard] Dawkins frequently claims that Islam is the sole object of his criticism, not Muslims, and those who label Islam’s critics, such as himself, as “bigots,” are failing to recognize the distinction he makes between Islam and Muslims. Some may think Dawkins is too soft on the adherents of Islam, as he depicts them as victims of brainwashing; he claims endlessly that Muslims are the “greatest sufferers” from Islam as a way of justifying, quite unnecessarily, his criticism of the faith; over the past 1,400 years, on the receiving end of Muslim aggression and murder, many Infidels would disagree. Does one find fault only with the ideology of Nazism and give members of the Nazi Party a pass, as victims of brainwashing who do not deserve criticism?
Hugh goes on to explain why one should expand one's fault-finding from the ideology to its members, but for some strange reason fails to mention two of the most glaring reasons why it applies searingly to Islam:
Members of Islam -- i.e., Muslims -- are not merely, as Hugh says, choosing freely to belong to the faith that Dawkins calls the “greatest force for evil in the world today”; they are more importantly regularly defending it, either through sophistry in order to fend off criticism of Islam, or by actively promoting it. The tiny number of Muslim "reformers" out there who affect to be criticizing Islam (but really, when one examines their rhetoric closely are only criticizing an artificial "Islamism" ingeniously in order to protect Islam) should be condemned no less than the garden-variety taqiyya more Muslims purvey, when they try to sell the idea that "Islam is peace" and "Islam does not condone terrorism" etc. But I've noted many times how many in the CJM have soft spots for one or more of these "Better Cop" Muslims.
Secondly -- and closely related to my first point above -- the CJM should know by now that Muslims are not merely a problem because of the terrorism-slash-(pun intended)-jihad which a relatively small minority of them pursue in our present time, but also because of the impetus & goal of that terrorism/jihad, firmly ensconced in the mainstream Islam of all Muslims: the conquest of the world. This goal of mainstream Islam will not be realized by Muslims solely through terrorism now, but through a coordinated strategy of terrorism plus deceit, where the deceit is a diverse combination platter of tactics, primarily consisting of Muslims lying and pretending that they and their Islam have nothing to do with the terrorism and the expansionist, supremacist jihad that is its guiding framework & context.
The CJM should know by now that the only reason Muslims aren't simply waging frank warfare against the West (as they did for the first millennium after they stormed out of the Arabian desert, from the 7th century clear through to the 17th century) is because Muslims (correctly) perceive themselves as far too weak relative to their enemy (the West). What this means is that innumerable, and largely indistinguishable millions of Muslims among their total population in its complex and alarmingly kinetic diaspora post-911, expanding into the West in unprecedented numbers, are pursuing various forms of stealth jihad to lay the ground over many decades for the day (I estimate 100 years or so) when they feel they will be able to take off the mask and pursue jihad more honestly against us.
This is why the Counter-Jihad -- whose primary programme should be to try to wake up the West about the problem of Islam -- needs to undergo the paradigm shift I mentioned at the beginning. Hugh's essay -- so far an anomaly in the Counter-Jihad Mainstream -- is probably more like too little, too late, than a sign of hope.
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