How Terrorism Helps Radical Islam (Note: editted version of prior submission)

Submitted by Stu Fagin (United States), Jan 11, 2015 at 21:11

All of Daniel Pipes' examples of how terrorism harms radical Islam are on target. But, there are two sides to this coin. I suggest two ways in which terrorism helps radical Islam.

(1) Nonviolent Islamism is made to appear more respectable by its contrast with violent Islamism. Moreover, nonviolent Islamism is made more valuable to society as a suppressor of violent Islamism. In essence, this is a playing out of the good cop, bad cop routine. It is predictable that European governments will look to strengthen the role played by nonviolent Islamist organizations as a way to control their violent counterparts. For example, in Paris, the scope of Islam-based civil authorities (and Sharia writ) will be expanded in the no-go zones in return for assurances that they will work with authorities in hunting down and controlling terrorists. Similar arrangements will be made in London with local nonviolent Islamists groups, in return for information regarding the multitude of international terror groups based there. In this way violent Islamists enlarge the stature of nonviolent Islamists

(2) The self-censorship of western media will likely be heightened after the mega-posing of world leaders (complete with Parisian synagogue photo-ops) is done and over. Few institutions will be willing to endanger their personnel for the sake of covering stories critical of Islamic culture. It will be interesting to see if Charlie Hebdo, is reconstituted in its derisive and satirical form, or if another journal is created to fill the void. I doubt one will. In this way violent Islamists reduce the willingness of western media to call attention to the defects of nonviolent Islamism.

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