Islam and Islamism: One and the same

Submitted by Sergio R (Mexico), Dec 5, 2010 at 09:01

Mr. Pipes:

Your distinction between Islam and Islamism, although appealing, is fundamentally wrong.

Christianity at one point it time stood where Islam stands today in terms of being a violent, intolerant religion. Namely the Inquisition, the Crusades and the Spanish invasion of central and south America, to name but three of the most famous events, dealt thoroughly with attacking, breaking and killing "infidels", all in the name of religion but with the real undercover motive of acquiring wealth and power. The history of Christian anti-Semitism is also much older and richer than Islam's anti-Semitism. The tide started to turn when the church started to lose strength among the European governments, basically when a true separation between church and state started to happen. Back then it was not "Christianism" the true foe while "Christianity" was a peaceful religion; rather they both were two separate manifestations of the same problem. While the church held the power, they didn't have to concern themselves with rhetorical or philosophical questions on which was which, they were one and the same.

Islam stands today at the same position, but with a twist. In Islam, the church holds the power of the governments, with the notable exception of Egypt, who will soon fall into the church's hands. The twist is that Islam's constitution, wrongly thought as a holy book, and in marked contrast to the Christian Bible, commands to kill, to plunder and to sharply distinguish between a moslem and a non-moslems in all steps of life: religious, economic and social. So there is not a "political Islam" and a "religious Islam", just like in the 15-th century there was no such distinction in Christianity.

Islam feels strong enough today as to aim once again on the conquest of Europe and even the USA. Islam will try to impose its rule both through sword and fire and through exploiting the West's indecisiveness, and if the West makes the mistake of trying to sort out between the "good moslems" and the "bad moslems", the West will lose the war, just like what would have happened in the 1940's if the American army would have lost their time and resources trying to figure out who was a "good German" and spare them from the "bad Germans", rather than bombing the hell out of them regardless, as actually happened.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".