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Anti-Jihad Manifesto - Flaws?

March 1, 2006 |

An Anti-Islamism Manifesto has been issued by 12 authors. They appear to be mostly (former) Muslims as well as some French philosophers. You can find information about the authors here. Since many are covering it you can find the manifesto here, here, here and here with pictures.

Certainly it is a bold document and elements with which I would agree on. However, I appreciate Paul Belien’s (Brussels Journal) approach to the document and what he sees as flaws in the manifesto. Whether you agree or not, bear with the discussion.

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and StStalin-ism the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash ofcivilizationss nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Belien’s sees this as the fundamental flaw and frankly I would have to agree.

The above paragraphs clearly display the manifesto???s defects. While Islamism can be considered the perversion of religion, the three scourges of the 20th century ??? Fascism, Nazism (National-Socialism) and Stalin-ism ??? were secular ideologies. Neither Adolf Hitler nor Joseph Stalin were theocrats. It takes ???French intellectuals??? to use mankind???s experience with National-Socialism and Stalinism as motivation for a rallying cry to oppose ???religious totalitarianism??? and a call for ???secular values,??? which they hold to be ???universal values.???

A call to secular values is a foreign concept to the United States Declaration of Independence which found that universal values or rights were extended to the creation by its creator.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ???That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Where do secular values acknowledge rights and values that come apart from themselves if not the government? Unalienable rights are granted to the people by a power separate and greater than the state.

Belien also asks and answers the next question.

Is Islam dangerous because it is a religion? Do Muslim values differ from European values because the latter are rooted in Christianity or because they are secular? These questions are at the heart of the debate in Europe today.

In our opinion, man is a religious being. Secularism destroyed the Christian roots of Europe and, in doing so, created the religious vacuum that is now being filled by Islam. The manifesto warns against

Islam isn’t dangerous because it’s religious. Secular values as demonstrated in Nazism and Stalin-ism were just as dangerous. It is at this point that Belien draws all the elements together in his final statement.

The Islamists and the secularists (including the priests and bishops among them) have more in common than the Islamists and the Christians (including the agnostics among them), because the latter acknowledge that at the heart of Christianity is the individual with his individual responsibility before God. Without Christianity, individual responsibility would not have become the centre of European civilization. It was the French Revolution that jeopardized this tradition and that became the root of collectivism, with its socialist, fascist, national-socialist and communist excesses. From this perspective even Jihad-ism is more a child of secularism than of religion.

Europe, once filled with active Christian churches has been gutted and refitted with the liberals’ version of Christianity, gutted and/or neutered. Europe is the model which the liberals’ in America wish the US would become. In the end the void would be filled with some ‘religious’ and most likely it would be a radically dangerous one like Islamic Jihad-ism.

The writers of the Constitution and Declaration were written to avoid both religious jihadists and the secularists who see religion as the problem.

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Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. pbswatcher on March 1, 2006 12:16 pm

    I agree that the manifesto is flawed. This should not be surprising with Europe still in the grip of multi-cultural delusions and only a tiny few willing to speak out against the Islamic threat. Nevertheless these people are risking their lives to make their stand. They deserve our support. The manifesto should not be viewed as the last word, but rather the first awakening from suicidal nonsense.

  2. Agora :: Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali et al Slam Islamic Totalitarianism :: February :: 2006 on March 1, 2006 12:49 pm

    […] Conservative Culture: "Anti-Jihad Manifesto - Flaws?" CC adds: Certainly it is a bold document and elements with which I would agree on. However, I appreciate Paul Belien’s (Brussels Journal) approach to the document and what he sees as flaws in the manifesto. Whether you agree or not, bear with the discussion. […]

  3. Blue Star Chronicles on March 2, 2006 12:42 am

    Manifesto Against Islam

    Solidarity. The 12 people who wrote and signed this document know very well the risk they take. We need to send a clear message that they don’t stand alone.

  4. spoootnik on March 2, 2006 12:29 pm

    It’s true that comparing fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism with islamism is a bit direct but it is obvious that secular or religious, all these ideologies (for lack of a better global word) share a common trend for oppression. They all had there share of crime against humanity in its essence.
    The fact that islamism is religiously oriented insetad of a secular ideology only makes things worse when ones considers the horrors of past religious wars (crusades, …)

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