by Atmane Tazaghart
But in the West, we were blinded to calling “moderate” all those who – even reluctantly – were opposed to jihadist violence.
For a long time, the Islamist branch of the Muslim Brotherhood benefited from kindness of the authorities and extensive legislation on political asylum in European countries.
A double aberration has long dominated in this respect. First of all, there is this striking semantic contradiction called “moderate Islamism”. Because, how can one be “moderate”, or even tolerant, while claiming a divine truth which is impervious to any criticism or examination of consciousness?
In the Arab-Muslim world, Islamists systematically disqualified their laical adversaries, designating them as “Satan’s disciples” (Hizb al-Shaytan), and presented themselves the Caliphs (heirs) of Allah on Earth !
But in the West, we were blinded to calling “moderate” all those who – even reluctantly – were opposed to jihadist violence. This was, for half a century, the case with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And this happened despite the fact that all the figures of global jihadism, from Abdellah Azzam and his disciple Osama Bin Laden until Aymen al-Zawahiri and his rival Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, experienced their first “feats of arms” within the Muslim Brotherhood.
To this voluntary blindness was added the victim’s posture adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood, describing themselves as supporters of a “political Islamism” persecuted by despotic regimes. And very quickly, western researchers, self-proclaimed “Islamologists”, for the mere fact to have learned some bits of Arabic in Cairo or Damascus, have invented the term calamitous “political Islam” in opposition to an “armed Islam”.
By amputating the term “political Islam” from its original –ism which was present in brother-Muslim literature – deliberately, as for François Burgat and his friends from the “school of Aix”, or by ignorance and lack of precision for other “specialists of the specialty” Islamist – they contributed to the trivialization of it.
Because, if it is “political”, this Islamism relieved of its cumbersome -ism, must be tolerated and integrated into the democratic game, both in the West and in the Arab-Muslim world!
It was necessary to wait for the terrifying and bloody attacks of Daech (ISIS), which were dropped on Europe, from 2015, so that voices rise – finally – against this Islamist “ideological enemy” of which the Muslim Brotherhood is not only the spearhead, but also the mother-house.
Thanks to this awareness, delayed but beneficial, we begin to understand the nature of the danger facing Europe. Because, the enemy is not only the one who puts knives or weapons in the hands of young European people freshly re-Islamized. They are also and especially the so-called “moderates” that make these young people a breeding ground for jihadist violence, by inculcating them communitarianism, living-between-oneself and the hatred of the others.
Article first published on Global Watch Analysis.
Atmane Tazaghart is the Editor-in-Chief of french-based Global Watch Analysis group. He tweets under @tazaghart.
