Sharia.
The London Telegraph reports that Al Qaeda sympathizers will meet in the UK to celebrate September 11 and to lay plans for imposing sharia in Britain. (*) In a recent article, Christopher Hitchens seeks to draw attention to human rights atrocities committed in Nigeria by the minority Muslim population there in an attempt to impose sharia over the whole of that country. (†) In the course of his essay, Hitchens concludes that the attacks of September 11 were designed “both to intimidate and impress” peaceful Muslims of the potency and authority of extremists like Al Qaeda. Taken together, these articles occasion an analysis.
I’m tempted to go even further than Hitchens does. I take note that there will be celebrations in the UK to mark the first anniversary of 11 September, as noted by the Telegraph article. No doubt there will also be such celebrations, albeit in secret, in the US. As the same Telegraph article observes, the aim of the group in question is to impose sharia in the UK. Are there then not similar designs made upon imposing it on the USA? Of course there are. Let there be no doubt as to what these religious extremists want: to impose sharia around the world.
Sharia is the extremist interpretation of Islamic law. In countries where sharia is law, non-Muslims face intense discrimination and are pressured to convert.
To impose sharia on the West and thus convert the West to Islam is not just their goal, it is their feasible goal. Given time, perhaps 100 years, enough demographic changes and terrorist acts could occur anywhere for to make it happen.
So why did Bin Laden want to hit the US as he did? To impress secular Muslims of the power wielded by his group, Al Qaeda? Sure, but that is not the end game. The aim of Bin Laden and others is expansion of Islam by force. As opposed to conversion by free choice, the Osama Bin Ladens of the world want conversion by force. The unstated message of Bin Laden to the West is: convert or die. This is totally unacceptable to us on the Left. Of course, the Establishment Left may have another reaction, but that is nothing more than a dead branch.
I agree with Christopher Rhoades Dykema that this kind of religious extremism is to be resisted, be it Islamic or Christian. So what then of countries like Nigeria where Islamists are attempting to expand their influence by force? Is that not just as bad as when Christian missionaries slaughtered local populations who would not convert? Should we not take action against them?
Originally posted to Democratic Left.
Update: 2 December 2003. VDARE.com links. (‡)