Any Reasons to be OPTIMISTIC about Islam's Downfall?

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Jul 24, 2013 at 15:18

Jaladhi,

Of course I agree with yours and Domenic's characterization of Islam.

And so, what reason is there to be optimistic about the possible downfall of Islam?

Primarily because we DON'T KNOW what would happen if one or more of our leaders stood up to Islam itself (not the same as confronting all the People of Islam - that difference would have to be made clear and kept clear, even if most Muslims are currently unable to think of themselves as having any identity outside of their claustrophobic religion).

We have had no one confront the ideology of Islam as Churchill confronted Hitlerism.

We have had no one confront the ideology of Islam as Ronald Reagan confronted the ideology of Communism in 1981 ("the focus of evil in the modern world") and 1987 ("tear down this wall").

We have not any great novels, like 1984, by George Orwell, or Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, or essays like The God That Failed – all published in the 1940's – that have taken on this third great totalitarianism of the Modern Age.

No one has taken the analysis of Hannah Arendt's landmark book, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) , and applied it to Islam. In particular Islam would seem to fit perfectly the sinister difference she describes between 'mere' Authoritarianism, which seeks to crush actual opponents, and Totalitarianism, which goes after POTENTIAL opponents, that is those who have not consciously decided to oppose the ideology, but MIGHT do so. (Such an analysis would also seem to fit Islam's current worldwide drive to Outlaw any criticism of Islam, that is setting up a suffocating regime of Law that would preempt any future criticism of Islam by those who are still not paying attention, or who remain muddled in their thinking, and have not yet asked themselves whether Islam is a mortal threat to their beliefs, values, and preferred lifestyles.)

Because we have not had this debate on the nature of Islam, because we have not had this confrontation, we have NO IDEA how much latent doubt or dissent there may be among its Billion and a half adherents.

Is it a few dozen? Is it tens of thousands?

Or is it tens of millions, especially among the hundreds of millions of women who live lives not significantly different from outright slavery?

Although I don't think I'm starry-eyed about Human Nature, I find it difficult to believe that there are not many millions of Muslims who do have their doubts and dismays about their religion, even if they haven't communicated them to anyone else.

But if the chief targets of Islam's hatreds – Jews, Israelis, and all the "infidels" of the United States and the rest of the West, are not challenging the religion itself with its many hatreds aimed directly at them, why would those actual, latent, or potential doubters and dissenters from the religion, risk their own lives by going public with their feelings?

And yet we seem to see portions of the public, elements of Muslim populations, especially in the major Muslim countries of Turkey and Egypt, and four years ago before they were betrayed by Western silence, in Iran, who ARE questioning, in the form of demands for freedoms which can only come in a secular society, the nature and legitimacy of Islam itself, even if they are not (yet?) saying, Down With Islam, Death to Mohammed.

Who would have expected these populations, Anti-Islam in all but name, to have emerged even a few years ago? The biggest potential and fatal risk is that they, and their well-wishers in the West, fail to realize that in seeking Democracy, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, and even such freedoms as for women to dress as they please, they have NO CHOICE but to oppose Islam and seek Freedom of Religious Belief, or Unbelief, as well.

And so if we ever reach a Tipping Point, or a Critical Mass, where the views and conclusions of a growing minority in the West burst through the shell of this enormous self-inflicted taboo against criticizing Islam, I am confident that some truly startling events will take place, and that an enormous reversal of the perceived advance of Islam will take place.

I believe it could even be as dramatic, decisive, and world-changing, as was the fall of Communism, and the Soviet Union, in 1989-91.

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