The Definition of Hijacking - Cognitive Dissonance or Radicalism as a tragic choice for Muslims

Submitted by Michel C Zala (Switzerland), Jan 25, 2011 at 11:58

It is my personal understanding that hijacking a person or an idea is, to taking it to somewhere else, than it was originally intended to go. Simple as that.

It is to my opinion one of the greatest tragedies, that radical Islam does not hijack Islam towards a violent interpretation, but simply practises this religion to the letter of their scripture. Their fundamentalists become by design exclusive, non-cooperative, radical, violent and hateful. All fully within the framework of the Quran, which after all does promote deceiving, scheming, acts of violence and no tolerance soever versus followers of other belief systems, wich are simply classified as Non-Believers or Quffars, to be dealt with by all inconceivable means necessary.

As opposed to dealing with religions which are utterly different, most religons have shown to manifest much greater difficulties, when faced with their own fundamentalists or orthodoxy, as these movements operate as more confined part of and evenmore strictly within the context and frame conditions (scripture and dogma) of the respective religion.

This pesents for all Muslims a terrible dilemma: either follow the Quran and by design be a true muslim, hence become, what we in the West must perceive as fundamentalist or radical, or disregard entire sections of the Quran and forego the rewards of the hailed afterlife, while being ostracised by their fellow muslims, who consider themselves as the true followers of MoAllah.

The dilemma of either chosing to live prosperously and cooperatively (in the West), but practise this ancient cult haphazardly and thus jeopardizing the afterlife or be a true muslim and be a square peg in a round hole in this life, resulted (and consequently had to result) in a cognitive dissonance amongst most modern muslims living in the west, which in turn resulted in the silence of the muslim majority, so often deplored by us Westerners who do not have to navigate and compute thus diverging mission objectives.

I would assume that these people for the sake of their individual mental health (silently) support their Djihaadists in order to resolve the foregoing dilemma. Likely they would in the privacy of their homes, secretly applaude their activists and thus find some way to live with themselves and still call themselves muslim. It must nevertheless be terribly difficult and frustrating to live in such a state of denial.

Within the confines of the original muslim nations, where orthodoxy is anyway the norm and not the exception, this cognitive dissonance is much less expressed, which would explain those lynch mob type mass demos in Tehran for instance. To be a true muslim there - here considered as fundamentalist - is matter of life or death, defines the individual career, success or failure in their societies. In these regions radical islam is a self-propelling mechanism - a fire which only will burn out, when the grip of the oil on the global economy loosens and those rigid structures will implode, once the drip of petrodollars dries out.

Before any dissent, debate or questioning of islam can occur there, these nations will have to literally erode back to the medieval ages, which will (look at the state of politics, technology, science, literature, architecture, warfare, economy, societal development etc. etc.) unquestionably happen, once the world has shifted away from fossil fuels and an oil economy. It is a mattter of a couple of decades now and will likely result in an outright diaspora of muslims to other free prosperous democratic nations, from whence a new breed of muslim will logically originate.

I am hopeful still, albeit it will take many decades for that to happen. One can only live with a cognitive dissonance for so long, as the truth has this nasty habit to eventually percolate. Voices of dissent and questioning of Islam as a fundamentally flawed beliefsystem will get louder according to the foreseeable decline of the muslim world, while western and eastern democracies will continue to prosper.

Sooner or later not even the staunchest follower will be able to deny, how Islam has damaged progress and prosperity and maybe then, all those western muslims, considering themselves as muslims, while in fact practising already a - according to their own scripture compromised - form of Islam, may no longer passively approve of fundamentalism, but first silently , then increasingly louder promote their way of practising Islam as the just and right manner.

I dare to venture that in 100 years Islam will be a religion, which could no longer be compared to what is the norm today. Not because they want to, but because it will become a simple matter of self-preservation. The dinosaur of Islam will have to eventually join Buddhism, Christianity, the Jews or Hindus - all religiions, which by now have already more in common than not and most of all found ways to co-exist peacefully.

As mentioned before, I believe that reform will (have to) originate from a new breed of muslims, living in the west, as the "original" stemming from the middle eastern nations and being deeply entrenched and self-propelled there, is doomed to take those countries to the abyss. What is in those countries considered as corruption and perversion of Islam, muslims, drinking alcohol, cooperating with westerners, treating their women as equal, abdicating Sharia law and visiting the mosque every once so often, as we practise our own religion, people, adapting to the modern standards of a modern world and their host countries (and prospering, whilst doing so), will eventually become the norm and eventually constitute an outspoken majority.

Their numbers and their prosperity will at some point translate into power and influence over their fellows left behind in the desert dust.

Thus, today's hijackers may find themselves as tomorrow's hijacked. Not in our lifetime, but much sooner than they think. This has nothing to do with any debate about religion, but is simple natural science - the law of evolution or Darwinism in its purest form - survival of the fittest.

---

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".