SODOM & GOMORRAH: Carl Schmitt once said, “Tell me who your enemy is and I’ll tell you who you are.” Westerners haven’t and won’t listen to Schmitt’s wisdom when looking at the revolutions in the Middle East because the truth is uncomfortable.
The Economist recently ran an article pointing out that Islam will play a greater role in Arab politics than in other countries. This author is still a little perplexed at how this is news, but he trusts that the editorial board knows what they’re doing. The article discusses the role that the Muslim Brotherhood has had in the recent uprisings. In particular, it’s mentioned how the Brotherhood has reassured the West as to its relationship with the extreme jihadists in the region. The Brotherhood, it’s said, supports parliamentary government, women’s rights, and other liberal values.
The media in liberal democratic countries have accepted this narrative about the Brotherhood. Why? They have their theory about world history and the information that actually comes to their attention is bent to conform to the theory. The theory is that revolutions are uprisings against illegitimate oppression and result in more democracy as part of progress’ unfolding plan. In a Huntington-style wave, country after country has had a revolution. Adherents to particular ideologies explain their reality by fitting events into their ideological theories.
But is this true? Saul Alinsky, both one degree of separation from Satan and the current American President, would probably be the first on the left to point out that the Muslim Brotherhood is just being smart. Alinsky argued that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were only non-violent because they didn’t have enough guns. When you think you can win a shooting war, you have no problem waging a shooting war. When you think you’ll lose, you make do and find other ways. The Brotherhood can’t come out and say that they’re the same radical group that’s been blacklisted in every secular Middle Eastern government and that they have a history of advocating strictly Islamic, non-pluralistic government – and they certainly can’t discuss their dream of a united Muslim state. If they said these things, they would be left alone waging a shooting war against governments that have more guns.
As Half Sigma points out, heads of state in this part of the world actually take their religion seriously. When religion is turned into a political force, the religious community begins to identify political enemies based on religion. Make no mistake; efforts to empower revolutionaries will enable them to destroy the enemies of Islam. Unfortunate for our well-meaning friends in the media because they are on the radicals’ short list.