The Somalization of The Islamic World?

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Jun 14, 2012 at 13:01

I'm glad to see the vigorous response Dr. Pipes has received to his strong column against US intervention in the death struggle of the Alawite government in Syria, both as to his bottom line and the reasons he gives. We need to have this debate not only with regard to the increasingly deadly and no-end-in-sight struggle in Syria, but to the related struggles throughout the Muslim world from Morocco to Pakistan, and not excluding that darling of those who believe that something like a 'Muslim democracy' can EVER be created, Turkey.(I believe Turkey has produced something like a one-election-only democracy).

The larger question is whether the entire world of Islam, possibly if not certainly excluding Indonesia and Malaysia - nations not originally Islamified by the sword - are not collectively on a path to 'Somalization', an awkward word first heard from a correspondent.

Looking beyond Somalia to Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Tuniisa, Egypt, and Nigeria,do we not see a pattern that the more these countreeis, or their most active political minorities, see their salvation through 'More Islam', do we not also see increasing fragmentation, disintegration, violence, chaos, anarchy, and the wholesale suffocation of Rights for everybody? At the same time, in all these countries do we see any remotely competitive politcal impulse, except the retention of authoritarian military autocracies/kleptocracies?

Maybe sometime, we should face; however belatedly and overdue, the possibility that what is wrong in all these societies is what is most important to their identities, namely the core beliefs and, much more, the core practices, of their religion?

When you hear that all the Muslim societies named WANT to be governed by Sharia law, and understand that Sharia law mandates the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy, mandates virtual slavery for women (regarded as half the worth of men), hates democracy as 'man-made' law opposed to the perfect 'divine law' of Islam (which calls all believers to wage international and perpetual war on all non-believers), perhaps it's time to conclude that such societies are incompatible with the liberty, prosperity, and good order of all other societies. and that our dealings with them should be limited, to the largest extent possible, to our own national security and economic interests, keeping as far as possible out of their hopeless internal struggles.

to those who say, Oh we can't be uninvolved with their struggles because of our humanitarian beliefs, and because they present a threat to our own safety, I would reply, in agreement with Pipes, that we cannot ultimately determine their fate. And second, that while there is certainly some danger of terrorist threats, the more likely result is that they will implode on themselves and become, collectively, less of a threat and nuisance to the other civilizations on this crowded planet.

Ironically, as these societies make themselves weaker by 'doubling down' on a religion that is incompatible with civilized life, the bigger threat from that religion may be coming, not from countries smothered beneath it many centuries ago, but from its burgeoning aggression among large immigrant communities in the prosperous societies to which its adherents have immigrated, societies which have foolishly financed their aggression by irresponsibly generous welfare programs which should be confined to citizens and immigrants not imbedded and psychologically trapped in an totalitarian ideology.

Ron Thompson

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