Monday, August 14, 2006

Why Time Magazine Can't Explain British Muslim Radicalism

The subhead in this Time magazine article promises enlightenment, but fails to deliver: "Why do so many young British Muslims turn to violence against the land where they were raised?"

Unfortunately, Time's leftward slanted editorial policies don't allow an honest answer. Rather than exploring the root causes of Islamic radicalism, which is, after all, the root cause of British Muslim radicalism, Time offers a sterile hodgepodge of random observations and politically correct standbys; they actually cite "disaffection" with Britain's foreign policy, as if that were a cause rather than a symptom of the disease.

Buried within the article is the symptom that identifies the illness:
And among those British Muslims surveyed, a remarkable 81%--a percentage higher than that for Muslims not just in France and Germany but also in Egypt and Jordan--said they thought of themselves as Muslims first and citizens of their native country second.
The Pew Research poll Time cites also found that 15% of British Muslims sympathize with Muslim fundamentalists. The problem here is that Time, and other western media, steeped in the dogma of cultural relativism, fail to realize that a Muslim fundamentalist is not just a Christian fundamentalist who happens to worship Allah and Mohammed instead of Jehovah and Christ.

Christian fundamentalists and conservative Jews, as a rule, do not consider terrorism a legitimate means of furthering their religions' goals. Evangelicals might come to your door to proselytize, which is obnoxious, but they don't threaten to behead you if you refuse to convert. Nor do they practice their own form of taqqiyeh (lying to serve Islam).

This reflexive and fashionable lumping together of all the major religions prevents Time, and most of the mainstream media, from seeing the fundamental differences that separate them. It's why Time couldn't answer its own question.