Good news, Bad news

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Apr 21, 2016 at 18:25

Of course it is GOOD NEWS that ISIS may be on the verge of collapse, a likelihood which seems more to be expected and hoped for with Dr Pipes article.
But I have the perverse feeling that such a result would be in another sense depressing ... if we continue to have the other depressing reality that it remains a planetary taboo against discussing and debating whether Islam itself is worthy of respect.
For if ISIS collapses this may easily be as a disease that goes into remission, but remains latent and will inevitably burst out anew, just as ISIS succeeded the decline of al Queda.

Since Pipes clearly recognizes this in his later paragraphs about Islam running amok in Nigeria, Somalia, and several other failed or tottering States, from Libya to the southern province of the Phillipines, then why not use this continuing fanaticism as the reason to at long last engage in a worldwide debate about the inherent nature of Islam. And let us ask whether its peoples will ever know a lasting chance of peace and prosperity as long as Islam remains the dominant belief system among Muslims.

Since every State that overthrew a dictator in power in 2011 has seen both a sharp decline in the condition and security of its people and increased danger to regional peace as jihadists have both flocked to hotspots of fanaticism and been exported to bring mayhem to other regions, especially to Europe.
Does anybody doubt that if we'd had a debate about the real nature of Islam 60 or 70 years ago,

taking seriously the meaning of the refusal of heartland Islam to accept the establishment of tiny israel in its tiny historic homeland, that we might have spared ourselves the existential threat looming in Europe today.

So I fear that there may be serious BAD NEWS alongside and within the Good News about the
decline of what is the most virulent expression of Islam-in-practice today. Because ISIS is not different in kind from Islam in majority-Muslim countries everywhere, and indeed in immigrant Muslim communities everywhere that have a strong Islamic consciousness.

So how many more ISIS-like eruptions will it take before we confront the basic question of whether Islam can ever be Islam without being intolerant, Anti-Semitic, violent, misogynist, and supremacist in its thought and actions?

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