Extremism, Populism and malignant Narcissism

What do the American "alt-right", white supremacists, hard "Brexiteers" and Jihadists have in common?

A common thread that runs through each of these "extremist" movements, regardless of their background and religion, is a sense of feeling "left behind" or "lost" in modern, globalist society. Identity politics is something that has been gradually gaining traction in the Anglo-Saxon sphere for some time, but the financial crisis seems to have given it a substantial leg-up.
The extent to which this has been quietly brewing under the surface had been ignored or played down, until it was no longer possible to deny its influence: the recent events in Charlottesville, USA, simply add to the danger of pretending this issue doesn't exist. When the ranks of the "left behind" suddenly emerge from the shadows, the effect is all the more frightening.

In some ways, the hand-wringing and moral equivalence by Donald Trump of these extremists is as bad as those in the UK (both in the Muslim community and left-leaning liberals) who are wary of calling-out the hateful racism and misogyny evident in the "sex gangs" that exist in the Pakistani community. In spite of the different motivations, what connects the  Muslim "sex gangs" and the home-grown Jihadist network is the common vein of malignant narcissism that runs through their psychology: the basic desire to control others (either through sexual domination or violence) regardless of the consequences.
In a different way, the same accusation could be leveled at the "alt-right", white supremacists/nationalists, and the devil-may-care attitude seen in some hard "Brexiteers": they are determined to do what they want, regardless of the consequences on others (or the national interest).

The author has stated before that Islamic extremism could well be seen as a form of malignant narcissism; it takes only a small leap of logic to identify all forms of extremism (both religious and ideological) as a form of malignant narcissism.

From a psychological point of view, narcissism has been identified as an increasingly-conspicuous problem in modern society. Over the last thirty years, changes to the structure of the economy have created greater inequality as well as greater work insecurity. At the same time, this has led to an explosion in under-educated men from run-down parts of the country finding it more and more difficult to identify their place in society. It can be no surprise that white men from under-educated, low-skilled backgrounds tend to be the ones that flock towards nationalist extremist movements, and that Muslim men from under-educated, low-skilled backgrounds tend to be the targets for Islamic extremist movements. While this might be a simplification (there are graduates that can also be drawn to the same movements), the overall trend is clear: violence and hate are now seen as legitimate means of expressing the frustration these men feel at modern society.
The issue of Islamic extremism is more complex than that of what (for the sake of simplicity) can be broadly called "White Nationalism" i.e. including the American alt-right and British far-right. "White Nationalism" has more palatable tones in the "take back control" style of rhetoric used in Brexit, in the same way how Donald Trump's populism found a more mainstream method of expression for this undercurrent of malignant narcissism. The alt-right and British far-right (such as the EDL) are merely violent expressions of the same form of frustration as that expressed by Jihadists; the only difference is cultural.

In the Anglo-sphere, a clear up-welling of political violence has occurred in the years since the financial crisis: shootings of politicians, attacks on ethnic minorities, violent protests by ethnic minorities etc. etc. Meanwhile, the superseding of Al-Qaeda by ISIS in the public consciousness has led to a similar exodus of home-grown Muslims to fight for "Jihad". If one were to be stereotypical of the trend, it would be to say that poor White men become neo-Nazis, poor Muslim men become Jihadists, and poor Black men become gang members. On the last point, the London riots of 2011 were sparked by the killing of a young black gang member, and recent riots in Hackney were sparked by similar violence by the police against a black man.
As said earlier, what links these types of men together, in spite of the difference in culture, is the under-privileged backgrounds and lack of education. This has been a growing issue for the last thirty years in the Anglo-sphere: a lack of opportunities simply can lead to frustration; the outlet many seek is to transfer the blame through violence and hatred.

This malignant narcissism is the psychological vein that runs deep in these segments of society. The vote for Brexit was also a vote from the "left-behind" for something different; anything that wasn't the status quo. The same psychology was evident in the kind of areas of the USA that voted for Donald Trump; the same "neo-Nazis" that claim his support do so because of the feeling he supports the "left behind" white men; the same "left behind" white men from places like Burnley and Darlington than voted for Brexit.
Voting for Brexit and voting for Trump psychologically amounted to the same thing: a vote against a system (neo-liberal globalisation) and a retreat to "cultural nativism"; Jihadism is simply a more violent expression of the same psychology from frustrated Muslim men (and women).

In this sense, it is the pendulum swinging back the other way: after thirty-odd years of dominance of the neo-liberal model, some of those "left behind" by these changes to the economic system are finding violence and extremism as the best way they can make their point. The sad truth is that a society that creates inequality (and considers inequality to be a good thing) is one that implicitly gives sanction to a psychology of violence; it is this culture of violence that breeds "angry white men". There is plenty of research evidence to support the view that more unequal societies are more violent, and it is well-understood that it is the underclass of those societies that descend into a career of casual violence. From a criminology point of view, therefore, could Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump be partly because of a malignant psychology that has been allowed to stew unchecked for the last three decades?

These may well be the dark forces that have been unleashed on the Anglo-Saxon world; coalescing into something identifiable since the financial crisis, while quietly stewing for the last thirty years, an under-current of violence and hate have now found their vehicle on both sides of the Atlantic. The question is what will be done next.

Is Islamic Extremism a mental illness?

What kind of person is an Islamic extremist?

Islamic extremism is an ideology, but is also a psychology of its own. One way to understand this psychology is to look at the psychology of Islamic extremists themselves: those who claim that their hatred and acts of violence are done in the name of Islam.

"If you insult my religion, I'll kill you"

The psychology of the Islamic extremist bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the psychopathic narcissist. One example that sticks in the memory is of a murder that took place in the UK. A middle-aged Muslim shopkeeper was murdered in his shop in Scotland, in an attack that shocked the neighbourhood, as he was a caring and sympathetic member of the community. It transpired that the perpetrator was a Muslim man from the north of England. It was discovered that the motive for the attack was that he had seen a seen a video the shopkeeper had posted online which had angered him as it had somehow "disrespected Islam"; so he decided to kill him.

In other words, the murderer had taken this man's comments as a personal insult. The murderer had associated anything which he saw as an "attack" on his religion as an attack on himself.

This theme is a common thread in Islamic extremism. The reaction in the Muslim world to the Danish cartoons is another example of this: Muslim reactionaries across the world react with fury and violence when they feel that their prophet has been insulted. Again, they react as though they were insulted personally. They are psychologically unable to disassociate themselves from their religion, as they see it as an essential part of themselves. Because they see their religion as their life, their own sense of self is therefore injured if their religion is "injured". No wonder they can't take a joke.

Without meaning to sound flippant, there is something of a "mafia" feel to this: the stereotype of the mafia boss who kills someone because "they disrespected them" sounds to sounds an awful lot like the reaction that Islamic extremists take to seeing their religion "disrespected". You dare not criticise Islam if you value your life. This is the thought that these Islamic extremists want everyone else to have.

Again, another example was the shocking attack on Charlie Hebdo. Journalists murdered because they made cartoons insulting Islam. The psychological reaction that can be seen in the examples mentioned is like that of a tantrum-throwing child; the insecure and weak-willed person whose ego is so fragile that any slight to their own self-constructed perfected image can result in a rage that is totally disproportionate to the situation: "You insulted my prophet! YOU INSULTED MY PROPHET! ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!", These people are in need of anger management classes, to say the least.

This touches on the wider issue of religion in the role it plays in "infantilising" society: because religion acts as a social code, there is a tendency for some to defer to it for all decision-making; in other words, their brains have been side-lined in the decision-making process. This is especially dangerous when the book you're reading from is open to many interpretations (or, in the case of Wahabbism and Salafism, reading words written about life in the middle of the desert in the 7th century as applicable cast-iron truths for the 21st). This child-like deference to a literal "God-head", and the internalisation of that God-head so that the "God-head" and the "self" become inseparable, is what makes this so potentially poisonous, as we have seen above.

"Infantilism" is also seen in narcissism. Elsewhere, we've looked at the differences and similarities between narcissism and psychopathy. Narcissists are at heart insecure and needy individuals with a fragile sense of worth always in need of affirmation (a source of narcissistic supply); this can make them tiresome company and difficult to deal with at the best of times; at their worst, they can be downright dangerous.
In social situations, this can be seen in more extreme groupings such as cults, as well as in the politics of populism and authoritarianism, where the leader attains an infallible status. There have been many historical examples of this. The psychology of the populist politician and their following becomes poisonous for all involved, especially if there is a religious underpinning to the movement, as can be seen in contemporary Turkey.

The rules don't apply

This "infantilism" prevalent in Islamic extremism is one aspect of the issue; another glaring part of the Islamic extremist's narcissism is their grandiose sense of self-worth and entitlement.

The "Trojan Horse" scandal in the UK with appeared in the news a couple of years ago is a prime example of this. This British news story uncovered how many Islamic schools in the UK were preaching intolerance, views antithetical to British law, and effectively bringing about self-imposed segregation of the Muslim community from the rest of British society.
Using the British state's own beliefs of "free speech" and cultural diversity back against them, they claim that their religious rights are being infringed if they are not allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. This would be a fair point, if it were not also the case that practising their faith as they see fit means that it also goes against various aspects of British law. These extremists see their faith as being being absolute and above that of national law i.e. because they are Muslims, the normal laws literally don't apply to them.
In this way, Muslim extremists seek to socially and legally separate themselves from the rest of society, using their faith as an excuse. They literally seek to create a "state with a state" in majority non-Muslim countries.

At the same time as claiming that their faith allows them special treatment (and can never be criticised), they still claim the same rights of "free speech" to incite hatred and violence against (for example) Jews (whom the Koran has called "pigs" and "monkeys") and non-believers in general. The use of "free speech" is therefore turned on its head, so that these extremists can have their cake and eat it: free to attack their "enemies" at whim, while free from attack themselves. In fact, it could be considered be a stunning piece of legal manipulation if its effect were not so dangerous.

Judge, jury and executioner

In a more general level, Islamic extremists suffer from a severe lack of empathy for others and society as a whole. We've mentioned earlier how this can exist in different social groupings (and also can be argued to exist in modern Capitalist society) creates divisions in society.
Islamic extremism very clearly divides between those who are "true" Muslims, and those who are not. This thus excluded not only non-Muslims, but  what they would call Muslim "apostates" who are fallen from the "right path". For the likes of ISIS and their fellow Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, this includes, primarily, Shias, as well as any other "lesser" branches of Islam that are deemed to have lost their way; and, of course Muslim "liberals", who would not be thought of as "Muslim" at all. This division, and the use of violent language, is what feeds their lack of empathy. For the extremist to feel "chosen" is what makes him a narcissist, and it is the need to therefore have an enemy (the more, the better) that helps to solidify his own sense of self, and reinforce the need for violence. The extremist scorns social rules, and is ultimately anti-social in character. This is the psychopathic aspect of the dangerous narcissism that lurks inside them.
We can see that, from a psychological point of view, the Islamic extremist is an insecure "rebel without a cause" who uses Islam as a way to seek validation from an unrealistic God-figure and a reliable source of narcissistic supply. It makes him feel powerful, and part of something "special"; he gains self-nourishment from the thought of having a divine cause, with this "divine cause" propelling him to impose his will on others, knowing he's doing "God's work". He feels he has the "divine right" to impose his will on others; this is an essential ingredient of narcissism
The source of narcissistic supply, therefore, is the ability to affect others around him in a way that no-one else can. Is this, then, the ultimate attraction of Islamic extremism? That it allows its "followers" to act like God; as judge, jury and executioner?

So this is the crux of the psychology of the extremist. Apart from the dangerous sense of entitlement already described, intertwined with this is the threat and use of violence to achieve his aims. And because those aims are ultimately unreachable ("A worldwide caliphate"?), this is what makes the Islamic extremist even more obviously a dangerously-psychopathic narcissist: he wants the world, literally. And nothing can stop him except death (which for him is an "honour" in any case). The obsession with death as a "martyr" (and the ultimate, self-destructive death-act) is the epitome of narcissism as a macabre exercise in histrionic attention-seeking. It is a sickness of the mind that kills all those that the narcissist extremist seeks to "take with him" in his orgy of death.

Islam, extremism and free thinking: whatever happened to science in Islam? A short history of Islam and the Middle East

The Charlie Hebdo attacks, and the reactions to them, have brought the spotlight on to the place that free speech and religion have in society, and how people arrive at different points of view.

An excellent article by a learned Muslim recently pointed out how science and Islam at one time went hand-in-hand; what has changed is that the faith has been hijacked by - in effect - a multitude of tyrants over the centuries, who decided to use "Islam" as a way to control society, by peddling the temptation of forty virgins, for instance. I mean what educated person, of any faith, could take such things seriously?

While it has always been argued by atheists that religion has been a weapon to control society with, it was also true that, in the early years of Islam, Islamic countries were much more progressive and innovative in their relation to science compared to Christian nations of the time. The Islamic world invented astronomy, for example, at a time when Christian Europe was engulfed in the Dark Ages. What changed was not about the nature of the religion in itself, but in the situation on the ground, and how respective societies were run.
The "renaissance" was a breakthrough for the Christian West, but this happened around the same time that large parts of the Islamic world were overrun by the Mongol Empire. In the case of Baghdad, one of Islam's and the Middle East's key cities of learning, the city was destroyed and its population massacred. While no one event can be blamed, in the same way that the ideas of the "renaissance" occurred gradually over many decades, the same can be said of Islam's turning away from science and free-thinking. The evolution of the West into a free-thinking, democratic society was due to a series of events and factors; the same can be said of how the Islamic world became engulfed in scientific and innovative lethargy, which, sadly, exists to the present day. The question is:why?

If all else fails, rule by fear

To reiterate the point, it was not inevitable that Islamic countries would become more socially and economically backwards: it was the result of historical factors, and the decisions of those in power.

The Middle East, Islam's core heartland, has been fought over for centuries; that said, so has Europe (most recently in the first half of the 20th century). In the excellent book, "Why Nations Fail" (more on that here), one of the key factors the authors explain is responsible for poverty and lack of innovation in a society is the elite's fear of creative destruction. In a traditional tyranny (or a modern-day dictatorship), the elite rules by fear, and uses a system of corruption and amoral use of force to maintain their hold on power.
In short, if a clever innovator has an idea that might improve society, the elite would rather discredit and destroy the inventor than have the risk that the innovation might make life better for others, which could make other people rich, and thus, more powerful. It is a simple, if purely malicious, rationale. There are many examples of this throughout history, as well as today, explained in the book mentioned - including the Middle East.
The reason why the West is rich is because decisions were taken at different points in the past that led to a "virtuous" circle of events, whereby more and more freedom was given to society, which led to more opportunities for innovation and technological and scientific progress.

In this way, what has happened in the Islamic world since those bright, innovative early years is a type of "vicious circle". After the Mongol Empire overrun parts of the Middle East, it appears that science and innovation declined to insignificance, along with the various tyrants that ran the region as their own personal fiefdoms. This led to them being overrun by the Ottomans in the sixteenth century. But science and innovation didn't improve under the Ottomans either; for instance, while the West began printing books on a large scale by the start of the sixteenth century; the Ottomans only allowed this to happen in the nineteenth century. This was not because printing was "against Islam" ; it was because it appeared to be against the ruling elite's interests. It was surely for this reason that while levels of literacy in England in 1800 were at around half the population, in the Ottoman Empire - the most powerful Islamic state in the world - levels of literacy were at most 3 per cent.

Likewise, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established after the First World War, was not pre-ordained or instinctive that the country should be a theocratic, ultra-conservative state: it became like this due to the king seeking the support of the local imams, in order to give the king and his elite a solid support base, and a moral code to control society with. The British also went along with this, for their own, self-interested, reasons. The Arabs of "Saudi Arabia", and the other Arab monarchs, such as the Hashemites of Jordan, relied on tribal support, and prior to the First World War hadn't known anything like a properly-organised Arab polity (let alone innovation and free thinking) for around six hundred years. So the fact that they used their religion as a basis for building support and maintaining power is unsurprising.

"Not In Our Name"?

The resurgence in Islamic extremism historically ties in with this. I wrote previously about how  Islamic extremism emerged on to the world stage thirty-five years ago, and how the Charlie Hebdo attacks are another indication of its mutation into a force against "Western decadence". While the number of moderate Muslims far outnumbers the extremists, it does appear that there are more extremists than there were previously, and certainly are far more "active" in displaying their views compared to any other contemporary world religion. It is not surprising that some in the West are content to play to the extremists' game by saying that there is a de facto "clash of civilsations".

The closer truth is that the moderates are losing the "war" against the extremists in their faith. While some say this is the fault of the religion itself, it might be better to say that, quite simply, the moderates are too scared to say anything publicly (though if this amounts to the same thing is another point).
You might think that in a normal situation, moderate Muslims would be so horrified and angered by the extremists' actions said in their name that they would be all on the street in their thousands angrily protesting against them (e.g. like the "Not In My Name" anti-war Iraq protests). There are a few, but they are few and far between. The moderates may well not do this because they are simply too scared of the possible consequences; in contrast, usually the only Muslims you see protesting are the very "extremists" calling for tyrannical actions against non-Muslims.
Likewise, there have been calls by the British government for the Muslim elders to get more involved in preventing the radicalisation of their youth. Unfortunately, for one, there may be a "generational gap" that is dividing younger from older Muslims in the West. Like the classic case of a teenager who complains that their parents "don't understand them", the same many be true of today's radicalised young Muslims. They are getting most of their information, and indoctrination, from the internet. This is how the "elders" are being cut out of the loop. So for all the British government's good intentions, it may well be aiming for the wrong target.

In other words, Islamic extremism is on the rise in the West because, for wont of a better word, it feels "cool" (read some of the lingo of the kids who go to Syria, and you'll get how close to the mark this really appears!) and thus appeals to insecure young people in need of a "cause"; extremism is strong in the Middle East because it is a useful weapon and diversionary tactic to control society (while blaming the West for Arab poverty).

But this use of power is as old as the hills.

The Charlie Hebdo attack: Islam, extremism, and the elephant in the room

I wrote a few days ago about some of the possible reactions and consequences of the Charlie Hebdo attack. In the mainstream liberal media, there have been a number of articles (see here and here) by Muslims attempting to put the actions of these terrorists into context. More exactly, the two examples highlighted attempt to put distance between the authors' faith and the perpetrators' interpretation of it.

This is all good and well, but misses the larger (and more glaring) point that many others (in the comments sections) were happy to remind them of: that there are many acts of terror committed in the world today, and a large number of them are by Muslims. In this sense, Islam appears unique in the 21st century in its adherents' motivation to plot and carry out many acts of terror across the world on an almost daily basis (aimed at Muslims and non-Muslims alike), compared to any other religion (or ideology, for that matter).

The lunatics running the asylum?

One of the writers compared to the Charlie Hebdo attacks to the Oklahoma bombing by Timothy McVeigh, saying that as Christians were not required to apologise for that individual's action, so therefore neither should all Muslims have to apologise for the actions of a few "lunatics". This thinking is wrong on two counts: first, McVeigh's hate was aimed at the government, and not fueled primarily by his religion; second, yes the Charlie Hebdo attackers may have been "lunatics", but there seem to be an awful lot of "lunatics" that are using Islam as an excuse to kill.

Those "lunatics" may be hijacking the religion, but that also begs the question: why is it so easy for so many "lunatics" to hijack Islam in the first place? Another article (although highly-satirical) talked about how Christians weren't all blamed for the actions of Anders Breivik, but again, this misses the point: the number of violent Christian extremists in society is very small indeed, while the number of Muslims who consider themselves to be "fundamentalists" is comparatively large. Besides, Christianity mostly dealt with these issues three hundred years ago. By comparison, it appears that Islamic extremism has been undergoing a "renaissance" in recent times. This tells us that there is a fundamental weakness somewhere in how the faith is interpreted, if it allows so many people to use it as an excuse to terrorise society. The extremists are winning the battle within Islam because the moderates seem to lack the intellectual or doctrinal weapons to neutralise (or successfully ostracise) the extremists in the faith.

More bluntly, when there are spectacular attacks like these, regardless of if they are aimed Muslims or non-Muslims. it is not enough to say "they're not true Muslims". The actions of ISIS, for example, are applauded by many in Saudi Arabia; likewise, the Taliban are supported by a significant number of Pakistanis. And in the West, from Bradford to Bordeaux, police uncover terror plots by home-grown extremists almost every week. While there was a great deal of terrorism in the seventies and eighties, by the likes of the IRA in Britain, such a level of continual terror activity by those professing to one faith alone, is unprecedented. This is what makes it unique. And if ordinary Muslims cannot (or refuse to) see that, they are deluding themselves.

The enemy of my enemy...

As said earlier, the number of people professing to be "fundamentalist" Muslims seems to have undergone a "renaissance" in recent decades. This also includes Western converts.
By a strange coincidence, it's worth considering the rise of modern-day Islamic fundamentalism in concert with the rise of economic neo-liberalism. Both of these "ideologies" emerged as a world force around thirty-five years ago: more exactly, the year 1979 was pivotal to both.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became premier of the UK, and initiated the neo-liberal project, to be followed shortly afterwards by fellow neo-liberal disciple, Ronald Reagan in the USA. Since that time, this doctrine, also known as the "Anglo-Saxon model" has been responsible for the rise in the corrupt financial system: after markets became deregulated, banking abandoned economic logic and any remaining moral scruples, which led to the financial crisis of 2008. This disastrous doctrine is still the economic orthodoxy in the West.

In 1979, the Islamic revolution overthrew the rule of the Shah in Iran. Later that year, Islamic militants seized the grand mosque in Mecca. In Saudi Arabia, the social effect of the seizure, after taking it back, was to make the country even more fundamentalist than before, which has existed ever since. In Iran, the theocratic regime encouraged the spread of Islamic fundamentalism through entities such as Hezbollah. Further afield, Islam took a stricter course in Pakistan with its new military ruler, Zia ul-Haq in the same year, instigating a process of cementing stricter Islamic values, for instance, by making blasphemy a capital offence.
The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, also in 1979, made ul-Haq a useful ally to the USA in its fight against Communism, and thus began the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism and the West, in the theatre of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda became one beneficiary of this. Thus the USA and the UK, the two arms of the "neo-liberal" model, became key financial and military allies of the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This has continued to the present day. It should also not be forgotten that Reagan did a deal with the Iranian leadership for the release of the US embassy hostages - after he became president in 1981. There was also the infamous "Iran-Contra" imbroglio.

At this point, conspiracy theorists may be having a field day. The relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens is well-established; others may well talk darkly of a convenient overlap between elites in the Middle East talking up their anti-Western rhetoric, and the "military-industrial complex" in the West talking up the threat of terrorism. That's for others to consider.

Many Muslims talk about extremists who carry out acts like the Charlie Hebdo being "bad apples"; coincidentally, this was the same excuse that was said of those at the banks who were responsible for the financial crisis. It doesn't wash. It was structural failures, and failures of the system itself, that brought about the financial crisis; likewise, it is problems with the structures and implementation of Islam that have brought about the "extremism" crisis in Islam today.

Swimming against the tide

The talk since the 1990s, and especially after 9/11, has been of a "clash of civilisations". More specifically, this is a dialectic played up by ideologues on the far-right in the West, as well as elements of the so-called "neo-cons"; similarly, it is the same rhetoric used by the radicalised edge of Islam, now fronted by the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. For both it is a convenient card to play for their own ends: since the first "intifada", the fall of Communism and the first Gulf War, events have been used by Muslim extremists to justify their actions against the "Great Satan"; likewise, since 9/11, "neo-cons" and other far-rightists (e.g. in Europe) have used terror events and "the enemy within" to play up the threat, playing into the hands of the extremists to play the "victim" card, and turn more recruits to their cause.

In a wider sense, the stance taken by extremist Muslims, such as those who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, was a symptom of the inter-connected nature of today's world. Globalisation and the mass accessibility of the internet means that the cartoons designed to appeal to CH's narrow consumer base (itself a segment of French society) could be easily seen by fundamentalist Muslims in the Middle East, the last people who would be expected to be readers of CH. The same point could be made of the infamous "Danish cartoons", which resulted in furious protests as far afield as Indonesia. Only in the 21st century could a cartoon drawn in Denmark result in violent protests on the other side of the world!
In this sense, what these extremists (European far-rightists, as well as Islamic fundamentalists) are doing is stubbornly and violently swimming against the tide: their anger and violence is a reaction to the powerlessness they feel against the opening-up of global society. They want to turn the clock back to a time when their religion and values were unchallenged, and are prepared to use violence to make it happen.

Ultimately, they will fail, as the Counter-Reformation failed. Terrorism is the counter-reaction to the opening-up of global society, and the way that technology and ideas are spreading to places where they didn't exist before. There is no easy answer to the threat of terrorism; it may be the price that society must pay until global society eventually turns the corner and wins the intellectual battle. This is the battle that Islam is also going through, an intellectual battle to find its place in the modern world.

We must all wait, patiently, until that ends.

The Charlie Hebdo attack: Al-Qaeda, terrorism and Islam

To paraphrase another author of an article about the Charlie Hebdo attack, the West doesn't have a Muslim problem; Islam has a terrorism problem.

The attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices was carried out by people claiming to work for Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Since the rise of ISIS in the news over the past year, Al-Qaeda has, comparatively-speaking, dropped off the media radar. The motivation for the attack (and the modus operandi; more on that later) was most obviously about making a simple, terrifying point: to punish those who has "offended" the Prophet, and to terrify others in the West into submission.

A "win-win" situation?

But it must also have been about far more than that as well: the more subtle point would have been to create a ideological fissure in Western society. By orchestrating such a high-profile, almost "surgical" attack at a Western media outlet, the terrorists seemed to have weighed-up the most probable social effects of the attack on Western society.

One, Western society can stand together against this kind of terror and continue life as normal (as powerfully-argued by Simon Jenkins here). Doing this (and by, for example re-publishing the "offensive" cartoons in response etc.) will result in further fuel being given to the extremists, by more clearly identifying the "dissolute" moral freedoms of the West ( i.e. a "win" for the extremists, in their eyes).

Two, Western society can be privately cowed into submission by the terror attacks, as many mainstream media outlets have been for the past ten years (they don't want to get killed, and value their life over their freedom of expression). After the initial anger, this subsides into a "self-censorship" setting that has been in place for some time already. This is precisely what the point of this act of terror was - to terrorise people into accepting the will of the terrorists.

Three, Western society could more carefully identify the issue of "home-grown" terrorism, and the fact that most of the extremists today develop due to flaws in the way that Muslim societies deal with the harsher and more intolerant aspects of their religion (more on why the extremists are winning here). As most of the attacks by Muslim extremists in the world are on fellow Muslims, this clearly a problem across the Muslim world in general, not just in the West.
By doing this in the West, it could cause a "culture war" with Muslim society in general (indeed, this may well already be true), pitting Muslims against each other, as is already happening in the Middle East. While this is an issue that Western governments really need to work in tandem with Muslim elders on, there seems to be little appetite for it at the moment. Again, the extremists may well easily spin this strategy back on the Muslim moderates, by calling them not "true Muslims", as they have been doing already for the last ten years. In short, things may well get bloodier before they better, if this strategy is to work long-term.
The problem here is a question of if Western society (and moderate Islam in general) is, frankly, prepared to pay the "blood price" for fighting against the tyranny of extremism. The people are Charlie Hebdo clearly were prepared to pay the price if need be, and, tragically, they did so.

Four: of course, there may well be an anti-Muslim backlash, as there was after the Lee Rigby killing in London. This is also exactly what the terrorists would wish for, too, for their own reasons.
France is one of Europe's most potentially-explosive social structures, due to the lack of integration between the Muslim community in France and "mainstream" French society. Issues of racism are not far under the surface, and with the recent rise of FN, France must appear an "easy" target for the likes of Al-Qaeda. While the UK can hardly afford to be complacent either about its relations to its large Muslim population (more on that problem here), the British police seem to be much more on the ball than there French counterparts, judging from the number of foiled terror plots compared to actual terror attacks.
With intolerance (i.e. anti Muslim sentiment) on the rise across Europe in general, the question is how to strike the right kind of balance between allowing freedom of religious expression, but preventing intolerance preached by extremists and worse. It looks like it may be a long time before we can square that particular circle.

Regardless of whatever the outcome is, if Western society is not prepared to die for their beliefs if need be, then the freedoms that people died for in Second World War were for nothing, and we have simply exchanged the extremism of the Nazis for the extremism of modern-day Islamofascism. In the modern world, the extremists don't need to invade the West to take over; they simply use the internet, and commit random acts of terror to achieve their aims.

Raising their game?

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, for all that it represented, also was a stark demonstration of the resilience and ingenuity of Al-Qaeda. As said earlier, the rise of ISIS has distracted much of the world's attention from Al-Qaeda. Doubtless, that must have hurt a little of their twisted sense of pride. But equally, the nature of this attack shows that they may well have been spending time to "raise the game".
As analysts and witnesses have stated, it bears the hallmarks of being a military-like operation: less a "terror act" than a "pinpoint strike" against a carefully-selected target. It was almost as though they had learned strategies from some of the anti-terror operations they have suffered in recent years from Western covert-ops. They knew exactly where, who and when to strike to achieve maximum effect. The fact that they timed their attack to coincide with a meeting when all the key staff would be there in one place shows a chillingly-efficient manner to their operation.

This attack is a game-changer in showing what the capabilities are of Al-Qaeda affiliates in 2015, and how they are an organisation that learns from its enemies. The question is: how to react? As explained in the scenarios above, none of the options provide an easy answer, and all possible strategies then may well provide some kind of succour to the extremists in one way or another, at least in the short-term.

The ball is in our court.

ISIS and Islamofascism: are they the modern-day Nazis of the Middle East?

The "caliphate" that de facto controls a huge swathe of territory across Eastern Syria and the West and North-west of Iraq is the "new normal" in the Middle East.

The rise of ISIS/ ISIL/ the "Islamic State" was due to a number of factors. I've talked about these factors before, when ISIS spectacularly came onto the radar nearly six months ago: the main one being the collapse of central power and authority/ legitimacy in both Iraq and Syria. As nature abhors a vacuum, so it is the case with humanity.

The "Nazis" on the Euphrates

In many ways, it could be said that ISIS are to the modern Middle East what the Nazis were to Europe in the 1930s and '40s. The rise of fascism that began in the '20s was a result of perceived "humiliation", economic deprivation, and loss of cultural identity: a violent counter-reaction to the modern Western values and socio-economic orthodoxy that was commonplace after the First World War.
In the search for simple answers, the Nazis in Germany took the ideas of Italian fascism, and applied them to their own circumstances. Adolf Hitler wanted to create a "thousand-year reich" that would extend from the Atlantic to the Urals. As he saw it, Germans were historically the "master race" of Europe, so they should take what was rightfully theirs: subdue the nations of the "lesser" Europeans, and cleanse Europe of Jews, who he saw as behind a worldwide conspiracy against Germany.

Change some of the names, and the ideology of ISIS is little different: Modern-day "Islamofascists" have created a brutal, despotic, anti-Western de facto state in the heart of the Middle East, and will use any means at its disposal to expand across the entire region; in the same way that fascism in Europe once brutally expanded across the entire continent, Islamofascism has the same aims today in the Middle East. Islamofascism is a reality, not a point of view: Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the forerunners of ISIS, and ISIS are simply a more updated, tech-savvy offshoot of the same ideology. The only difference is that ISIS are applying their selfsame ideology with greater efficiency on the ground, and have honed to brutal near-perfection their methods of recruitment, warfare, and the iron fist of how to govern conquered territory, with a combination of "charity" and the ruthless application of power. Also, having lots of money to pass around - through oil revenues and the product of mass larceny - doesn't do any harm, either.

The irony here is that Al-Qaeda - once the most-feared terror group in the world - are now looking somewhat irrelevant compared to ISIS (as brilliantly summarized by John Oliver here); in the same way that Hitler's brutal form of fascism made Mussolini's earlier ideas seem "quaint" by comparison?

Here to stay?

No-one in the West has a real plan of how to defeat ISIS. Part of the problem is that ISIS appeals to disaffected Sunnis in Iraq and Syria in the same way that the Nazis held an appeal to large segments of German society in the 1930s. This is not to say that masses of Sunnis have suddenly become Islamic extremists: like the Germans in the thirties, they simply have little alternative on the ground, and would rather hold their noses to the reality rather than choose the chaotic alternative. They are not going to rise up against ISIS, because there is no-one who can rise to fill the hole that ISIS have filled in the Middle East.

For foreseeable future, ISIS and their "Islamic State" look to be a semi-permanent feature of the new
Middle East. As the Nazis filled the hole left by the weak authority of Weimar Germany left by Versailles, modern-day ISIS claim their legitimacy comes from the injustice of the Sykes-Picot Treaty that divided up the Sunnis of the Levant and Mesopotamia between Iraq and Syria. This is the core of their claim to be the representatives of Sunni Islamic values (whatever they may be).

The campaign to defeat ISIS isn't helped by the politics and rivalries of the Middle East. Turkey, a key member of NATO, seems to be turning a blind eye to ISIS: Ankara's policy seems to be a case of live-and-let-live; allowing recruits from Europe pass almost without hindrance across Turkey's border with Syria, and meanwhile seeming to give ISIS a free rein for its adherents to operate in the south of Turkey, moving against Syrian exiles that oppose them. While it many be too much of a stretch to say that this is because of shared Sunni Islamic values, it is more likely the case that the Turkish authorities (rightly) fear the consequences of going against ISIS: the thought of terrorist outrages in Turkish resorts would fill the government with dread. In this very real sense, Turkey's hands are tied. It is partly for this reason why they did so little to help the beseiged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border.

The Arab Spring has spawned many conflicts: from Syria, to Libya, and now to Iraq once more, thanks to the summer blitzkrieg by ISIS. The road to Kobani, the looting of Mosul, the uprisings in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were all partly inspired by the renaissance of political Islam that first happened by the ballot box in Turkey twelve years ago.
Turkey is now the main player in much of what happens in the Middle East, and is as much a victim of its own success. As the progenitor of the ideology that led to the Arab Spring, having ISIS as Turkey's southern neighbours is partly a consequence of that: by stirring Sunni Arabs to do the same that devout Sunnis in Turkey did democratically in 2002. Except that there were no democracies in the Middle East, so how else to achieve it? The result in Syria was a civil war, that could only benefit the extremists.

ISIS is now the wolf at the door of many Middle Eastern governments, a monster that few know how to tame. People would do well to read the history books again.

The nature of power: from Feudalism to 21st century Capitalism

The word "feudalism" evokes images of slavery: medieval serfdom, peasants bound to serve a class of landed gentry. By definition, feudalism was a form of slavery. In the modern world, "feudalism" is considered as dead as the age of knights that is associated with it. But perceptions can be misleading.

Feudalism was mainly concerned with two things: property, and freedom of movement. As land was considered property, so were the people who tilled the land of the person who owned the land. These "serfs", or slaves in other words, were bound to the landowner, and any attempts by serfs to flee their fate could be punishable by death.

The first part of the world that began to change this system was Europe, with the growth of the professional merchant class, skilled professions that allowed individuals freedom of property, movement and so on. The Republic Of Venice was an early medieval example of this. Gradually, more and more European states moved in this direction: the last major European power to formally abolish serfdom was the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century; over in North America around the same time, the southern states of the USA fought for secession from the USA in order to continue their own form of serfdom on African slaves and their descendants. They lost.

A land of milk and honey?

Karl Marx famously wrote about the path of feudalism to Capitalism, in the end equating the "satanic mills" to a form of "industrialised serfdom".

Industrialisation brought a transformation of society to those it affected. The serfdom of the land was transformed into the subservience to the factory. Proponents of Capitalism would argue that this was an inevitable stage of the process of mankind's advancement, and unless people wish to live in tree-houses and tilling the fields in an agrarian commune, this logic is hard to refute.

In a more basic way, feudalism was about power, who controlled what, and how. And this is where the argument for feudalism's death becomes more complicated.

In the 21st century, in 2014, who holds power, and how? In a great many cases, the way that nation-states are ran is really not so very different from five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or more. Certainly, technology has changed life in many ways beyond recognition, but human nature is unchanged, and the nature of power is fundamentally unchanged also. This is a point that Jonathon Swift explained very well in the last part of his famous novel, "Gulliver's Travels", all the way back in the early 18th century. The TV series "Game Of Thrones" is famous across the world, but one of the main reasons is that human nature and the use of power is represented by the characters in a very accessible way for the viewer. In other words, medieval politics and power are fundamentally no different from the modern-day.

A handful of examples can easily express the point.

The UK is held up as an exemplar for the rest of the world to follow. As the mother of modern democracy (apologies, Greece...), the rule of law, and a sensible balance of power, an education system that is the envy of the world, and so on. And yet, this "exemplar" is one of the most feudalistic modern states in the developed world.
While the UK has no "serfs", its "citizens" are still legally subjects to the crown. The UK has no constitution. The British crown is one of the biggest landowners in the world. While the British royal family may well seem harmless enough, one half of the electoral system (The House Of Lords) still consists of individuals who are either from centuries-old landed gentry (i.e. landowners), or are there by the favour of a bygone government. The House Of Lords has few contemporaries in the developed world as a temple for feudal values. The British establishment also propagates itself through the UK's education system, which is one of the best methods in the developed world for maintaining the untouchable position of Britain's peculiarly-modern form of feudalism. This system has done wonders for preserving the elite, while the lot of the average Briton has suffered, especially since the financial crisis. Needless to say, like any feudalistic institutions, this system isn't even very efficient; it is simply is very good at doing the best for those in positions of power.

Aside from the UK, many of the most developed countries in Europe are still monarchies: in Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway; the Low Countries are all monarchies; as is Spain. Yes, they are "constitutional monarchies", but while the power they wield is only theoretical, it tells us more about the psychology of the people themselves: they like having a monarch. The interesting question is "why?", and this tells us that while many people in the modern world are far more educated (and the world they live in technologically-advanced) they still want to believe in fairy tales.

Modern-day feudalism?

Crossing the pond, many political commentators like comparing the modern-day USA to the Roman Empire of the past. The "Land Of The Free". Few objective economists would argue that the USA is the most unequal nation-state in the developed world, and that is a result of the way it is managed. While health care is considered a human right in the rest of the developed world, in the USA it is considered something you can only have if you can afford it. While Obama's controversial health care reform has claimed to have helped (a little), any objective observer would look at the private health care system as a grossly-inefficient and amoral answer to the world superpower's health problems.

But the American model of running the country was never meant to be "fair": it was meant to be "laissez-faire". Ayn Rand was the most famous proponent of modern-day neoliberalism, which idolised the gains of the rich as a way to motivate the poor. The rich in the USA, in the last thirty years have reached a level of wealth so far from that of the average person that they may as well be considered aristocracy in their own right. No-one in the know seriously doubts that the elite of America are the ones who decide how the game of power is played every four years for the White House. The Koch brothers, who funded the "Tea Party", are simply the newest (and most polarising) set of characters on the scene.
While the USA rid itself of legal slavery, it advocated an economic model that created a new riddle: a slave may be fed and housed, but has no freedom; a freed slave has freedom, but no house nor food to eat. Since the the USA became an imperial power at the turn of the 20th century, it has been exporting this riddle across the world, spreading its own "riddle of freedom".

The USA's "riddle of freedom" was taken in by the UK under the tutelage of Margeret Thatcher, which is these days known as the "Anglo-Saxon Model" by some, and has been implemented ruthlessly by the Conservative government since 2010 under the excuse that "there is no alternative"(!). Since 1979, the UK has been ran like a multinational company, if symbolically headed by a feudalistic establishment: the asset-stripping mentality has turned the UK into a vulture market even for foreign governments.

Since 2008, in the Euro-zone, it's "Club Med" that are being treated to a similar kind of treatment. As Germany holds the purse-strings, it has the right to dictate the economic affairs of Southern Europe. It has already toppled governments in Greece and Italy to do so. While in the latter case, the sitting premier (Silvio Berlusconi) was hardly going to be missed by most Italians, it is hard to deny that the European Union itself is an unaccountable bureaucratic behemoth (not unlike empires of old) that seems to grow with ambition year-on-year. The EU's ambition has been laid bare with its efforts to bring Ukraine into the fold.

At the end of the Cold War, the "Anglo-Saxon Model" was exported to Russia and the former Communist bloc.
Some commentators have described Putin's Russia as a "modern feudal state", or worse. But in reality it was always likely that once the Soviet Union was gone, Russians would revert back to their old way of thinking. Modern Russia and the battle for who controlled the Kremlin in the 1990s became another version of the "Game Of Thrones" seen on TV. Putin was simply in the right place at the right time, and was the most effective player of that oldest of games: power. "Capitalism" in Russia simply became a battle for who controlled the most property, and who controlled the most had the most leverage (or so he hoped). The Kremlin is run as the supreme "court" that it has been for centuries, ruling the largest realm in the globe. Technology is just a detail; all freedom is relative.

A number of other post-Soviet states are also ran as "modern feudal states" in the same manner, with ruling families or oligarchies; come to think of it, almost all the the Middle East is run in such a manner. Given the blessing of oil, and what does an emir need to keep power over his modern-day feudal state than sprinkling a little of his wealth around? Give enough of the population enough money to afford an "iPad" or an off-road vehicle for the desert, and what would any person care about "democracy"? China is living proof of that logic, and both it and Russia are the two biggest countries in the world, by population and area respectively. The USA's dominance looks transient compared to the many centuries that these two states have thrived.

The third world (e.g. most of Africa) is hopelessly corrupt, inefficient and sunk deep in poverty. Investment by aid charities will not change that. Some say you get the government you deserve. But you cannot change human nature, and for all the technological advances made since the time of "real" feudalism, some people still want to live in a "real" feudal society (with "wifi", of course!). The establishment of a trans-national "caliphate" in the heart of the Middle East by the Islamic extremists of ISIS (regardless of how long it lasts) is a very definitive endorsement of that view. Feudalism and power struggles will be around in one form or another as long as people have a feudal mentality.

And that doesn't look like it will disappear very soon.

Islam, Christianity and Paganism: the pagan origins of world's two biggest religions

The three major monotheistic faiths of the world (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have clear, historical ties to each other; particular, Christianity sees itself as a "superior" successor to Judaism, while Islam sees itself as "superior" to both Christianity and Judaism.

Judaism is the oldest of the three, with its roots in the stories of Moses, the exile from Egypt, the visions and revelation at Mount Sinai, and so on. The God of the Jews is therefore a product of the circumstances of its adherents; a God of the desert that wreaks righteous destruction on the polytheistic Egyptians, for example.

But what of Judaism's successors?

Zeus, or the Sun-God?

Christianity's religious symbolism is a natural by-product of the culture and circumstances of the day. It has been well-documented (and easy to find on the internet) that much of Christian symbolism stems from a combination of Egyptian, Roman and Greek influences.

For example, the importance of Christ's birthday coinciding with the winter solstice, and the coming of the "three kings". This fits in with an ancient Egyptian fable of the importance of Orion during the winter solstice: Orion's belt at its lowest point is level with the horizon at this time of year in that time of year. The "three kings" thus arrived from heaven, after spending the rest of the year in the stellar plane. The belief in Christ as the "son of God" also has parallels in Egyptian religious symbolism, as well as in other pagan Middle Eastern religions.

Early Christianity was an underground religion in the Roman Empire for its first few centuries. There were no "churches" as we know them today; adherents either used caves or catacombs as impromptu places to worship their faith, with only richer people of faith building converted chapels in rooms of their villas. Interestingly, when Christ was portrayed in artistic form in these early years, he was usually shown to have an uncanny likeness to Alexander The Great; with curly hair, head tipped to one side, with a smooth-skinned (almost child-like) face and carrying a staff. These were his "hallmarks". An alternative version is that he was seen as an alternative to Apollo, the Sun-God, and that the symbolism of worshiping the "Sun-God" as the primary source of religious power on earth. In those early centuries, many Christian converts were still hedging their bets, and it comes as no surprise that Christians saw the need to drape their faith in familiar pagan symbolism that wooed the waverers (more on that tactic later).

Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine on his death bed in the middle 4th century. However, prior to that he made public his advocacy of Christianity throughout the empire, if not publicly declaring his faith. His moment of "revelation" came in battle, when he was fighting in a civil war to secure his position, at the battle of Milvian Bridge. Here he saw the "light of God" in the sky, seeing it as a sign that God was on his side. Still, he hedged his bets, using the battle to declare "Sol Invictus" (the undefeated Sun) as his official motto. The worship of the Sun as God-figure is found in a multitude of pagan belief systems (such as "the Logos" of the Greek philosophers), historically borrowed by Christianity.

During his reign as emperor, one of his most important decisions was to make churches public buildings, no longer hidden from view. Here, Constantine borrowed from existing Roman structural design. Roman magistrates' courts were known as "basilicas"; Constantine simply copied the design, but moved the entrance from the middle of the longer wall, to the middle of one of the end walls, thus changing the perspective for the building's purpose to emphasize its length.
Finally, Constantine presided over the changing of the understood face of Christ; from that resemblance to Alexander/Apollo, to the bearded face of Zeus/Jupiter. It is this image that has stood (barring cultural modifications) ever since.

There are plenty more pagan links with Christianity, but for the sake of brevity, this will suffice. Now, we can look at Christianity's "successor"...

The cube in the desert

Islam's holiest site, which every Muslim prays in the direction of, is the "Kaaba" ("Cube" in Arabic). What is it, and what does it represent?

According to Islam, the Kaaba was a cube-shaped stone structure built by Abraham as a temple to God (Allah). But by Mohammed's time, it had become a temple for the many gods that the local tribes worshiped (as many as there were days in the year). Mohammed's role was then to restore the Kaaba to its original purpose; so the temple was cleared of the many idols, and had a mosque built around it. Centuries later, after many modifications and extensions of the mosque (and rebuilding of the Kaaba after floods), this is the structure that Muslims pray towards. According to Islam, the Kaaba is older the the temple in Jerusalem, and thus the oldest temple devoted to God (Allah).

That is the official version; the evidence shows something very different.

For Mohammed's version of events to be true (i.e. that the Kaaba is older the the Temple Of Solomon in Jerusalem), the Kaaba would have had to have been built around two thousand years before Christ. However, (as we see here), Mohammed himself seems to contradict this point. Besides, respected authorities on the topic (see the previous link) seem clear the the Kaaba was a relatively contemporary building in Mecca at the time of Mohammed's birth.
The fact that it is still standing at all (and wasn't destroyed completely as a pagan temple) was probably due to an act of compromise to cultural sensitivities by Mohammed. There is also evidence that there were other "Kaabas" in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Mohammed, albeit not made of stone, but wood, for example.

Another important feature of the Kaaba is the "black stone", embedded in one of the outside corners of the wall. This is recognised as a fragment of a meteorite that descended to earth in ancient times, close to Mecca. Of all the idols existing in the Kaaba before Islam, this one alone was retained by Mohammed. Pre-Islamic Arabs had a tradition of kissing the Black Stone; this "pagan" tradition has continued in Islam, and is an important feature of the "Hajj".

The pagan history of the Kaaba, and the meteorite fragment revered in its wall, seem to jar badly with Islam as a religion so seemingly hostile to the concept of idolatry. And yet Muslims today emphasize that they are not praying to the "Kaaba" itself, let alone to the meteorite fragment within its walls, but instead use the building a worldwide point of reference that all Muslims can relate to, uniting them.

The Moon-God?

Apart from the Kaaba, the symbolism of Islam also features many other parallels to other (pagan) faiths. The major deity that the Pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped was the Moon-God, Hubal. This was a deity whose idol had a human form (probably from red agate), but whose right hand was gold. Seven arrows were used for the purposes of divination before the idol during rituals.

As anyone knows, the crescent moon is integral to the symbolism of Islam. Every mosque in Islam has a crescent moon at its highest point; the crescent moon is the most famous symbol of Islam. Does this mean that the "Moon-God" was replaced by  "Allah"?

Muslims vehemently refute this, and it is clear that the use of the moon as symbol was probably not a direct form of replacing Hubal with "Allah"; in battle at the battle of Badr, his enemy Abu Sufyan evoked Hubal with the words: "O Hubal, be high", to which the Prophet replied: "Allah is greater". Is this where Mohammed also got the inspiration for Islam's most famous verse?
From this we can make an educated guess that the use of the moon as the primary symbol in Islam may have been partially to assuage local Arab pagans with some familiar imagery, while yet claiming that "Allah" is higher than Hubal.
Furthermore, the use of the moon is also an essential part of a Muslim's practical life: it is needed to calculate the correct time to pray (more on that in a moment). It was for this very practical reason that the early Muslims became such expert astronomers compared to their contemporaries.

Other aspects of Islamic rituals also have parallels to other faiths.

The importance of praying five times a day (and ablution beforehand) predates Islam. Zoroastrianism uses this ritual as part of its sun-worship (though they pray in the direction of the sun, wherever it is in the sky at the time). However, in Mohammed's day, the Pre-Islamic Arabs would pray in the direction of Mecca.

An essential part of the "hajj" is the seven-times circumambulation around the Kaaba. Again, this ritual of passing seven times around an object of veneration predated Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabs did the same around the Kaaba, only in order to please Hubal instead. This ritual is also practiced in Hinduism; a faith older than Islam. In the Hindu marriage rite of  "Satphere", the couple pass seven times around a fire, where religious phrases are recited, the same concept as in Islam.

There are other rituals, such as that of "Ihram", which is another Pre-Islamic ritual involving washing as wearing "Ihram" clothes to enter Mecca. A final example is the seven-times walk between Safa and Marwa mountains close to Mecca, which was another Pre-Islamic ritual retained by Mohammed for the "hajj".

So as we can see, both Christianity and Islam as replete with pagan symbolism.
It is no surprise that both faiths would have needed to adapt to the social and cultural rituals and circumstances of the time in order to flourish; it allowed waverers of the time to have their cake and eat it.

The irony here is that Christianity chooses the symbolism of the sun as its religious banner; Islam, on the other hand, sides with the moon. No wonder the two don't get on.

The sad truth is that while the pagan origins of Christianity can be debated in Christian societies without seriously expecting to receive physical harm or threats (except perhaps for parts of the Evangelical USA, or Africa), the same cannot be said of large elements of Muslim society. This is something that Muslims have to an extent brought onto themselves, by moderate (and progressive) Muslims refusing to tackle the problem of the growth of Radical Islam in the last thirty years.
Radical Islam sees any debate within the faith (such as of the pagan origins of some Islamic rituals) to be worthy of a death sentence, or a severe punishment at best; go to Pakistan, for example, and see what happens, if you try to discuss the pagan origin of some key Islamic rituals. Only a very brave (or foolhardy) soul would do so. It is no wonder that Islam has such a poor image with the rest of humanity.

Herein lies the problem with many aspects of religion; it is immune to debate.

Islam: moderates versus extremists. Why are the extremists winning?

In a recent article about Islam, I discussed what drew some Westerners to become Muslim. Indirectly, I also posed the question "what is "wrong" with Islam?".

The main "problem" within modern Islam is the ideological battle between moderates and extremists. With the rise of "Islamo-fascism" in recent times, and the increasing influence that extremists have over the direction of Islam, it is clear that the extremists are "winning".

Silenced into submission

The extremists are winning within Muslim society mostly because of the passivity of the (far more numerous) moderates. To use a famous quote, evil,wins when good men do nothing. The same can be said of religious extremism: extremism wins when moderates do nothing.

To talk of "Muslim society" is a simplification. But broadly-speaking, most Muslim societies, whether they are a majority of society (such as in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia and North Africa), or a minority (such as in Britain and Europe), are roughly divided into "moderates" and "extremists".

Apologists for Islam's poor image in the world argue that it is not a problem with the religion in itself, but with the misuse of the religion by people (almost always men) who use Islam as a weapon to attack anyone who displeases or defies their will.
This is a poor argument, because it simply shows how easy it is to manipulate Islam for evil intent. The same inane defence could be made for any ideology or religion; it excuses the responsibility of those in positions of ideological/religious authority to properly guide their flock into moral behaviour. It is the "a few bad apples" argument" that resolves nothing.
That in itself is a poor reflection on the ease that its teachings can be abused; due to the attitude of "playing to the gallery" by those in authority, or those in authority choosing the easy path and simply turning the other way in the face of inhumanity.

From the "Trojan Horse" conspiracy in the UK, to the expansion of "sharia" law to places like Brunei, moderation in Muslim society is on the wane. There may be a number of factors (and arguments used by the radicals) that explain the "passivity" of the moderates:

Islam is under attack: since the "war on terror", Islam around the world has been identified by various governments, directly or implicitly, as an "enemy". As a result, Muslims should be seen to clearly unite. As the radicals present the most forceful and "pure" interpretation of Islam, the onus is on the "moderates" to fall into line.
It's time to rediscover our faith: The radicals, following from the previous point, may well argue that, as Islam is "under attack", it's an opportune moment for moderates to put down their beer and start reading the Koran again, properly. And that means listening to the "purest" interpretation of the writings.
Simplicity is easy to follow: The easiest way to follow Islam, as the radicals would explain, is to simply do what the Prophet said in his writings and in the "hadiths". The fuzzy and ambiguous "liberalism" and "modernism" of the moderates means they would find it more difficult to explain how they interpret their faith. Radicals therefore win arguments simply from quoting the Koran.
Cultural differentiation: Relating to the second point, the "renaissance" of radical Islam can also be justified as a way to, in the multi-cultural, "Godless" world of globalisation, have a clear identity. This is also true of what I said previously about Western converts to Islam: it's the easiest way to give yourself a definitive identity, separate from the crowd. It's a form of cultural rebellion against globalisation.
If in doubt, bully: if the above tactics don't work, use aggression instead. This seems to be how many Islamic moderates have been cowed into submission. From Britain to Brunei, radicals have seized control of the agenda by threatening unpleasant consequences. This is how unpleasant people have always used religion as a weapon of control and fear.

In the contemporary world, Islamic fundamentalism is just the most potent and visible form of religious intolerance and control. There are others, such as Hindu radicals, Christians and Orthodox Jews, but they seem to pale in comparison in terms of their effect on the world at large.

A history of violence

Islamic radicalism only really came to the world's attention with the fall of the Shah in Iran. While the Gulf States had been ruled by extremely conservative Islamic governments (ruling dynasties), the influence of Islam as a radicalising agent was seen as almost microscopic, and no-one took it seriously.

The fall of the Shah changed all that in 1979, as well as the attack on the holy sites in Mecca by Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamic revolution in Iran led to a horrific, US-backed war by its neighbour, Iraq. Yet conversely, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to the US covertly financing and supplying military hardware to Islamic radicals (later known as "Al-Qaeda") to fight against them. A few years later in Syria, there was the attempted Sunni uprising against the secular (Alawite-led) government. Also in the early eighties, there was the creation of (Iranian-backed) Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the creation of Hamas, a radical Islamist group, that countered the secular power of Fatah in Palestine. So by the end of the Eighties, Islamic fundamentalism had become far more overt in its presence compared to ten years previously.

The end of Communism brought about further "opportunities" for radical Islam. The break-up of Yugoslavia led to radicals gaining a foothold during the war in Bosnia, while over in the Caucasus, wars were raging in Karabakh and the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya and Dagestan); in the latter, radical Islamists had gained a very visible presence, while in the Karabakh war, Islamic radicals used the bitter war between Azerbaijan and Armenia as another "playground".
In the last years of the twentieth century saw "Al-Qaeda" become a household name with the East Africa terror attacks of 1998. Since the turn of the century, radical Islam has spread at an ever greater rate across the Middle East and North Africa, especially since the aftermath of the "Arab Spring".

Put into this context, it is beyond reasonable doubt that radical Islamists are "winning" the war within Islam itself.
Apart from the Arab states of the Middle East, Turkey's own form of Islamism (in government since 2002) has been seen to be becoming increasingly uncompromising and polarising over time. With Turkey's Islamist government being so clearly allied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it looks ever more so that Erdogan was simply playing a cunning waiting game, until it was too late for the secular moderates in Turkey to turn back the clock. The "mask of moderation" that Turkey's government had used effectively for some years, has now well and truly been discarded.

As things stand, the future of Islam belongs to those who are prepared to fight for it. The moderates look to have long given up the fight.

Islam and Western converts: from the "Trojan Horse" to the Danish Cartoons, what is "wrong" with Islam?

I recently found out that one of my old acquaintances converted to Islam. I listened to his explanation of his decision with polite respect, and was intellectually interested to discover his reasons for becoming Muslim.

This experience got me thinking more about why Westerners in particular become Muslims. As with many people who are religious in general (I am not), the most common explanation for the attraction of Islam to Westerners is the moral and ideological certainty inherent in the faith. In Islam, there is little room for equivocation; for the most part, there is only right or wrong - halal and haram.

In many cases, Westerners who convert to Islam are either people who were non-religious (and usually morally lax, or even entirely absent of morality), or people who were religious (eg. Christian) but had fallen out with their former faith. In these circumstances, the appeal of Islam is obvious: such people are attracted to the certainties of the moral guidance that Islam provides. Submit, and be happy.

Can't you take a joke?

There is a reverse side of the coin to this. After what has happened in the Islamic world in the last fifteen years, it is hard to see how Westerners can convert to Islam, and yet ignore (or rationally explain) the reality that Islam has brought to the world compared to other major world religions. There is little objective doubt that in the contemporary world, Islam is the most uncompromising, polarising and extreme of the major faiths on the planet.

I should emphasize from the last sentence the part "in the contemporary world". Islam was not always so uncompromising or extreme in its methodology, but gradually became so over the last hundred years (more on that here). But the radicalisation of Islam in the last fifteen years or so is impossible to refute or ignore. Compared to other major world religions (Catholicism and its many Christian Protestant off-shoots, Hinduism and Buddhism), Islam is the most-feared religion in the world today. And for good reason.

There is a stereotype that Muslims are cheerless, and take their religion and life too seriously. Unfortunately, this "stereotype" is often proven to be truth in many cases. Recently, some British Muslims made a version of the Pharrell song "Happy". The response to this from some quarters of the Muslim community was less charitable, calling it "haram". This has then led to a debate about whether the idea was "haram" or not. Seriously. This tells you the mentality of some Muslims, living up to the stereotype of being cheerless and taking things too seriously.

Much more controversial was the "Danish Cartoons" issue, that provoked outrage across much of the Muslim world. The worst that can be said of some of the cartoons is that they were in poor taste, but some of the cartoons featuring "Mo" were actually helpful to the agenda of moderate Muslims: one cartoon featured the Prophet at the gates of heaven, saying to two suicide bombers "I'm sorry, we've run out of virgins".
The best way to refute the ideas of extremism is to ridicule and lampoon them.

The controversy about picturing the Prophet Mohammed is that the prophet's face isn't shown because it is considered idolatrous in Islam. And yet "Mohammed" is the most popular name given to men in Islamic countries. There was also a controversy some years ago in Sudan when a female English teacher was arrested for allowing local children to name a school teddy-bear "Mohammed".
Yet why is it not idolatrous for parents to name their children after the prophet? Surely this should be "haram" too, for encouraging the idolatrous idea that the boy is equal to the prophet himself?

A "Trojan Horse"

The most recent scandal relating to Islam in Britain was the unearthing of the so-called "Trojan Horse" project within the school system in urban areas with a high number of Muslims. Again, we see an example of what might be called "Islamic exceptionalism": Muslims being given ground to change the teaching of the national curriculum (as well as breaking schools policy, if not the law) in state schools. The creeping Islamisation of Britain has been going on for decades, but its only in the last ten years that people have paid any attention to it.

Another example is the "halal" controversy just uncovered in some of Britain's biggest food chains. Some food companies had been serving "halal" meat to its unwitting, non-Muslim customers for years. Regardless of the "animal rights" aspect to this issue, which I'll ignore for the sake of the argument, there is the central issue of a) choice, and b) minority rights subverting majority rights. In a supposedly democratic, free-market society, it is extraordinary that private companies are happy to autocratically decide what their customers should eat, out of fear of the wishes of a small minority of their customers.

These two examples demonstrate what is "exceptional" about Islam compared to other contemporary major religions: the disproportionate amount of bullying some of its adherents use to get what they want from society, and the fear that they create in the rest of society. Apart from isolated cases of fundamentalist Christians in the USA, or occasional stories about conservative Hindus in India, the prevalence of this aggressive attitude that emanates from many Muslims is unprecedented in modern society. Of the theocratic states that exist in the world, almost all of them are Islamic; of the most religiously-conservative nation-states that exist in the word, almost all of them are Islamic.

Rebels with a cause

I've digressed from the original theme of this article, which was about why Westerners convert to Islam. Apart from the "moral" reasons, there may well exist a more superficial one. Because it is the ultimate act of rebellion towards "Western values".

Back in the days of the Cold War and the earlier threat of Bolshevism, some Westerners became drawn to some idealistic romanticism of equality and morality that they saw in the principles of Communism. Some journalists had a word for these types: "useful idiots".
While I don't wish to make direct comparisons, it is a self-evident truth that some "real" (i.e. born into the faith) Muslims have a wariness towards Western converts, being initially sceptical of the converts' true belief in Islam. They are wont to "test" them. On the other hand, Western converts often turn out to be much more uncompromising in their Islamic faith than those actually "born into it", often shocking even "real" Muslims about how seriously they take things.

Those imams that are responsible for a Westerner's conversion to the faith often use the strategy of preying on those Westerners that seem pliant and willing to listen to an alternative telling of the "accepted" Western world-view. Tied in with the moral underpinning of Islam is the implicit politics of the faith: that, like Communism, becoming Muslim is the ultimate act of rejecting the "New World Order".
Modern Islam is fused with the politics of conspiracy theories: like Communism (and Fascism), it uses conspiracy theories to argue that Muslims are the world's great "victims", have been oppressed, and that "the Jews" can be squarely blamed for much of it.

It goes without saying that some of these imams are responsible for radicalising converts into suicide bombers or for fighting "Jihad".

The irony these days is that Islam's biggest "war" is not against non-Muslims, but fighting a sectarian war against the Shia Alawite government of Syria. After fighting a "jihad" against the West for ten years, radical Sunnis like Al-Qaeda and others are now fighting a civil war against Shias in Syria instead.

Then again, there is a further ideological divide within the Islamic world, at least in the Middle East. Apart from the sectarian Shia-Sunni civil war in Syria, there is the wider, ideological "cold war" between those supporting the Muslim Brotherhood (such as Qatar and Turkey), and those opposed to it, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

So for those Westerners converting to Islam, please understand what kind of world you're signing up for.

Extremism, Islam and British appeasement: how Islam has become Britain's "national religion" by default

I've written before about how Islam has slowly encroached into Britain's national imprint, through using the language of "freedom of expression" to defend the interests of its extremists.

As I wrote in that article:
"Islamofascists have been able to preach their violent, undemocratic and pernicious ideas under the protection of "free speech"; at the same time, they have also been allowed to conduct behaviour that could land any British non-Muslim in prison, while claim the right to religious expression; and most subversive of all, have denounced and threatened anyone who criticises their faith, ideas or behaviour with violence"

There are regular stories in the press about this, and another one this week (highlighted by Nick Cohen) displays to what extent the BBC, Britain's national broadcaster, and the Liberal Democrats (part of the government), have succumbed to the will of extremist Islam.

It is as though the very institutions of Britain and its ruling politicians have given up on the idea of real, universal, freedom of expression: freedom of expression is dying as an idea in Britain because no-one in authority believes it is worth fighting for, at least when it comes to Islam.

This seems to be how "freedom of expression" is defined in Britain these days: the state will defend your freedom of expression, unless your point of view questions something about Islam. Thus Islam holds the unique and vaunted position in The UK of being the only religion people are terrified of offending.

In this way, it has become the "default" religion of The UK, by virtue of its unassailable status.

A state within a state?

From a practical point of view, then, extremist Islam has been given almost free rein in The UK. While the police and intelligence services may closely monitor the more radical parts of Muslim society in Britain as part of the "War On Terror", on a day-to-day basis, the authorities do not interfere with the actions of the Muslim community.

On the surface, this may seem a good thing, but this also means that the authorities have been turning a blind eye to cultural practices that are clearly illegal in British law, and would get any non-Muslim in conversation with the police if they repeated the same behaviour.

When I talk about "cultural practices", I'm talking about domestic violence that goes unreported by battered wives; arranged (and underage) marriage that is got around in the Muslim community by being organised in Pakistan rather than in Britain; marriage between relatives, that creates children with deformities and cognitive dysfunction; there was the famous case of the "rape ring" in the Greater Manchester area, which suggests an endemic culture of misogyny; there is the incendiary rhetoric that goes on in the mosque and in the community (the police are paid to monitor this, however); and finally, the idea that all Muslims' first loyalty is to their faith, their family, and only lastly their country.

While the danger of the last point can be over-stated (if you compare this to the "Red Scare" back in the day), the effect that extremist Islam has had on British culture in the past ten years has been noticeable and undeniable. The policies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey have been called "creeping Islamisation", but in a different way the same could be said of life in Britain.

Assigning blame

Ten years ago, for example, there was no stigma attached to criticising (or simply discussing) some aspects of Islam. In the light of the 9/11 attacks, shining a strong spotlight on Islam seemed like only the most natural thing in the world.

In Britain, this "critical eye" seemed not to last very long, though. Because Britain had had a culture of tolerance, its defenders said, it was unfair to overly-blame "every Muslim" for the terrorism of its extremists. This is a fair point, but at the same time every "ordinary" Muslim has a moral responsibility to stand up to the extremists and pick apart their false arguments and dangerous rhetoric. This has not really happened.

So on one hand the Muslim community has shown weakness as a whole towards its own radical brethren, and thus allowed the radicals to hijack the faith and hold the rest hostage. On the other, some in the British establishment have held up the historical "culture of tolerance" as a sign that Britain didn't really have "a problem" with Islam and its Muslim population; unlike, say, France.

This is complacent and it misses a crucial point, though. Historically, the wave of Muslim South Asians who came to Britain after the Second World War to fill in a weakness in the British economy and labour force: in other words, the arrival of these populations to Britain was a sign of Britain's fundamental weakness and failure of its Imperial model. The empire had collapsed in on itself, almost literally, from a population point of view.

I'm not saying this was a mistake; simply a sign of the times. However, it is possible that the relative weakness of the British state after the Second World War was simply storing up problems for later. While those South Asian immigrants who arrived were subjected to local prejudice, racism and (sometimes) worse for decades, from an official government point of view, they were allowed to live, culturally and religiously-speaking, much the same way as before.
And here begins "the problem" that the British establishment refuses to accept it created. The British government, by the Sixties and Seventies, believed it was creating something like a "multi-cultural" nation. But it some crucial cultural respects, especially in regards to the Muslim community, it wasn't: it was creating mono-cultural ghettos in towns and cities with sizeable Muslim populations.

When "multiculturalism" goes wrong

This form of so-called "multiculturalism" was mostly a sham when it came to the Muslim community, because they either tended to be encouraged to move to post-industrial towns in the North, or to poor inner city areas in larger cities, such as Birmingham and Leicester, to name two. And when immigrants are not encouraged to integrate, but allowed to stay together, the result is a closed-off community. When you introduce religion into the mix, you have a potential time-bomb on your hands, as Britain has seen post-9/11.

By the Nineties, "multiculturalism" had become part of the establishment's "PC" campaign, so that by the late Nineties, the Muslim community was one of many parts of Britain's "multicultural tapestry" that became "Cool Britannia". Britain was "cool" because it allowed different cultures and religions to freely exist without government sanction, or so it thought.

This brings us to the present day, where the British tolerance for "the other" has become almost a fetishisation in parts of the establishment, while the Muslim community has become increasingly dysfunctional. I say dysfunctional, but what I really mean is that the extremists have seized the banner for the whole of the Muslim community. A combination of weakness within the Muslim community, and the British establishment's weakness for allowing "culture" to trump freedom of expression (or even the proper application of the law), have brought us to the current situation.

It is not "multiculturalism" that has brought about this situation: it is the state actively allowing (even encouraging) mass mono-culturalism in some parts of Britain for decades, then congratulating itself on its own "tolerance".

Real multiculturalism does exist in some cities in Britain: places where there are dozens of nationalities living in the same neighbourhood. This is what multiculturalism really means: when people exchange their cultures freely while living in a third country, for example. But this tends to be where Muslims do not make up a noticeable chunk of the local population.

When you have a weak state and a weak community, you allow the social conditions for extremism to breed, take root, and finally control others through fear.

This is what has happened in Britain over the last ten years.