From India to Nigeria to Norway, Islam is forcing non-Muslims, too, into extremist violence.
This article appeared in Jihad Watch
In recent decades, Muslims have obviously been the overwhelmingly dominant perpetrators of religiously-motivated extremist violence, targeting non-Muslims and their allies within the Muslim community, as well as Muslim sects which they consider deviant from orthodox Islam. But over the last couple of decades, extremist violence by non-Muslims, targeting people of differing faiths, has been becoming increasingly frequent. And disturbingly, an Islamic connection is becoming a common motivator of these non-Muslim extremist violence: Non-Muslims commit those violence due to instigation by Muslims or as retaliation to preceding violence by Muslims.
In the West, the last time a non-Muslim extremist committed a major terrorist massacre was the Oklahoma City Bombing by Timothy McVeigh (professed to be an atheist of Christian heritage) on April 19, 1995 that killed 168 people and injured 450. McVeigh's motive was his anger at the Waco Siege at Texas (February 28 to April 19, 1993) by the FBI that left 76 people of the infamous David Koresh-led Davidian Sect dead.
And whenever extremist Muslim groups or individuals have committed similar terrorist atrocities in recent years, we have been reminded by Muslims and their apologists with reference to the McVeigh incident that people of all persuasions -- Islam, Christianity, Judaism, White Supremacism, Communism, and such -- can commit extremist violence. So, Islam should not associated with extremism and terrorism for the actions of its individual followers, just as violence by a Christian or Jewish extremist must not be attributed to their faiths.
Now, in the West, we have a new extremist massacre in Norway: Bombing and a horrendous shooting spree in Oslo, both apparently committed by Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian Nationalist extremist and a Christian, have left nearly 100 innocent people dead. This Oslo extremist violence incident will certainly add further fuel to the Islamic apologists' attempt to shield Islam from criticism for the atrocities radical Muslims commit in the name of their religion.
The purpose of this note is, however, to highlight how Islam is also becoming the dominant motivating or instigating factor behind the extremist violence committed by non-Muslims around the world.
The connection of Breivik's motivation to Islam is already crystal clear. His 1,500-page manifesto, entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence”, is all about Europe's "Islam problem" caused by unrestrained Muslim immigration and aided by the predominantly leftist political elite. About Islam's historical problems, Breivik writes (p. 39):
Since the creation of Islam in the 7th century and to up to this day, the Islamic Jihad has systematically killed more than 300 million non Muslims and tortured and enslaved more than 500 million individuals. Since 9/11 2001, more than 12 000 Jihadi terrorist attacks have occurred around the world which have led to the death of one or more non-Muslims [2] per attack. In other words; there are around 150 deadly Jihadi attacks per month around the world. This trend will continue as long as there are non-Muslim targets available and as long as Islam continues to exist.
He mentions of the Norway government's cowardly handling of the Muslim rage surrounding the publication of Prophet Muhammad's cartoons in Danish magazine (2006-2007). His major concern: Muslim immigration, actively promoted by present leftist governments, was bringing in chaos to Europe. When thousands of Muslim enclaves in Europe -- in Norway, Sweden, Britain, France, Netherlands, and other countries -- have already become "no-go zones" for the native Europeans, and more and more neighborhoods with growing Muslim populations are becoming inhospitable to the natives, who are often forced out of those areas through intimidation and even violence by Muslims, Breivik's concern is not at all groundless. And he sees solution to this Tsumani of Europe's "Islam problem" in the waging of a "Western European Resistance Movements (anti-Marxist/anti-Jihad movements)" -- a European Civil War -- by the so-called "patriotic European political activists" against Muslims and their leftist allies; and he predicts it will eventually be won by the Resistance Movement in 2083 with the annihilation of the Leftists/Marxists and deportation of Muslims. His terrorist actions on July 23, 2011, are declaration of that Civil War, in which he targeted youths of Norway's Leftist ruling party.
Apart from the Norway incident, India is another hotspot where we see extremist homicidal violence committed by non-Muslim Hindus that are also connected to Islam: Hindus commit those violence either upon instigation by Muslims or in retaliation to preceding violence by them. An example is the infamous 2002 Gujarat Violence, in which Hindus attacked Muslims and Muslims counter-attacked. The violence resulted in 790 Muslim and 254 Hindu deaths. What is often omitted from discussion about Gujarat riot is that Hindus committed it in retaliation to an earlier Muslim atrocity, in which they set fire on a train full of Hindu devotees, mostly women and children, burning 59 Hindus to death.
Over in Africa, Christians in Nigeria (and other countries) have suffered sustained horrendous violence at the hands of increasingly radicalized Muslims in recent years. And on a few occasions, Christians have hit back in retaliation, causing large-scale homicide of Muslims.
One must consider the fact that the Chinese and Indians (Hindus) are also immigrating to Europe in large numbers, but they are no concern to Breivik; his concern is exclusively directed at the Muslim immigrants. The reason is: the non-Muslim Chinese and Indian immigrants integrate in European societies, or, at least, live peacefully with their native neighbors. But Muslims not only refuse to integrate in the host societies, but also have become a major source of social scourge and violence: all sorts of criminal activities, terrorist attacks, as well as rapes and eviction of the natives.
And source of these problems is Islam, not the individuals. Britain is facing problems with Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan, but not with the equally-large Hindu immigrant community from the same region. The Hindu and Muslim immigrants from the subcontinent are the same as individuals; religion is the only difference between them.
As the burgeoning and increasingly radicalized and violent Muslim populations distress non-Muslims all over the world, including in non-Muslim-majority countries, extremist violence by non-Muslims, like the acts committed by Hindus in India, Christians in Nigerian and the Norwegian nationalist Breivik, are set to become increasingly frequent. A full-scale Civil War in Europe, as anticipated by Breivik, cannot be ruled out. Instead, it remains a real possibility and may spread to other parts of the world.
The indiscriminate and ruthless killing of innocent young people by Breivik to draw attention to Europe's "Islam problem," as well as those committed by the Hindus in India or Christians in Nigeria, are tragic and indefensible. But as the state of affairs stands now, the occurrence of such tragic incidents with increasing frequency in future also looks to be a definite possibility. It is in the hands of governments as well as of Muslims themselves to mitigate the problem. Muslim immigrants can learn from the Hindu or Chinese immigrants in their host countries, while the governments should pay serious attention to a real problem, instead of turning a blind eye to it, which they have done for way too long.
---
M. A. Khan is the author of Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery and the editor of islam-watch.org.
