Their names may be different, their locations far apart, but the doctrine that binds them is the same — jihad.
Whether it is Boko Haraam in Nigeria, the Moro Liberation Front in the Philippines, al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaida in Iraq, Taliban in Pakistan or al-Nusra in Syria; all are driven by the goal of Islamic supremacy over the rest of the world.
All of this has been made clear in the 20th-century writings of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world and the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
In the face of this worldwide epidemic of malaria, all we are doing is swatting individual mosquitoes. No one dares drain the swamp.
For too long, the mantra “Islam is a religion of peace” has been trumpeted by the likes of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Just last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron had the gall to claim: ‘‘These appalling terrorist attacks that take place where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion — they don’t … They don’t represent Islam or Muslims.”
Really? Cameron’s gobbledygook didn’t go unchallenged.
British author Douglas Murray slammed the U.K. prime minister’s statement as “a noble lie,” writing in The Spectator “… the only way Islam is going to get through its current problems is if followers of the religion realize they have to actively confront the problem. Each provision of an opt-out and excuse delays the day when the religion properly confronts itself and makes the claims of the jihadis a wholly impermissible — instead of plausible and sometimes permissible — response to the religion in whose name they act.”
That is noble advice. Unless the leaders of British, American and Canadian mosques, as well as the Islamic organizations in these countries, denounce the doctrine of jihad as pronounced by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-e-Islami, the tolerance and acceptance we find towards us Muslim on the streets of Toronto, New York and London may not be that warm any more.
Twelve years ago people were willing to give Muslims the benefit of doubt when our leaders insisted, “Jihad means peaceful struggle.”
Not any more. The evidence to the contrary is starring in our faces.
The majority of peaceful Muslims in the world must confront the violent minority.
Now is the time for Islamic organizations to state flatly in their weekly sermons from the pulpit: Just as slavery and concubines are permitted under Islam, but have been abandoned in practice by most Muslims, so too must the doctrine of armed jihad be abandoned.
If they do not, their public utterances should be viewed with suspicion and politicians of all stripes must consider them persona non-grata.
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The Toronto Sun