Religion of Peace

 

by Daniel Greenfield

 

Words are tricky things. Virtually every tyrant, no matter how bloody, has talked about his plans for conquest in terms of "peace". For example in 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR signed a declaration in which they described their conquest of Poland as creating "a sure foundation for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe". The same year that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he delivered a speech at the Amman Summit in which he insisted that; "the Arabs seek peace and justice throughout the world". And how can one argue with peace?

 

The Romans had the Pax Romana, which meant peace under Roman dominion. The "peace" that Hitler, Stalin and Saddam have in mind, was of that same nature. Dictators and tyrannies, national or ideological, frame the world as chaotic and requiring order. Only under their leadership and only their way will the world finally experience peace.

When Lenin stated that; "without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace", he was laying out the same basic thesis of every tyrant, and of Islam as well. That there can be no "true peace", without the creation of a society that follows his ideology. For Lenin, everyone had to submit to Communism. For Hitler, to Nazism. For Mohammed, to Islam. Each spoke about peace, but they defined peace only in terms of their own ideology and rule.

When apologists insist that Islam is a religion of peace, they are correct. Insofar as it believes in peace through conquest, and its intended state of peace is to reduce non-Muslims to second class status. But since Islam is global and it recognizes no limit to its borders-- its form of "peace" is to engage in constant wars to conquer the territory of non-Muslims and Muslims whose legitimacy they do not recognize in order to achieve "peace".

Islam's peace has as much in common with what most people think of as peace, as Hitler and Stalin's assurance that they had laid a foundation for a lasting peace, by conquering Poland does with reality. Islam's peace, like Hitler's peace, was and is an expression of a Will to Power, a belief that the world would not be right without Mohammed or Adolf, or their followers running it.

Where most people define peace as the absence of war, Islam sees war as the means of creating peace. The Pax Islamica covering the globe is the aim of the Jihad. And so the Pre-Orwellian doubletalk of Islam turns war into peace, and violence into mercy-- so long as they are practiced by Muslims, and against non-Muslims. Muslims may kill, but they cannot be killers. Muslims may terrorize, but they cannot be terrorists. They may commit genocide, but they are only the better for doing it. Because their object is always "peace".

In this way the Islamic system turns black into white, and white into black. Nations that try to defend themselves against Islamic terror are the real villains because they are obstructing peace. And the terrorists themselves only want peace, which can only come about when their victims accept their authority. Much the same way as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union laid that "lasting foundation for peace" by ending the threat from Poland.

When Westerners talk about peace, and Muslims talk about peace, they may use the same translated English word, but they mean different things. To Westerners, peace does not depend on any ideology. To Muslims however, peace is indivisible from Islam. Just as in Russian, Mir meant both "peace" and "world", resulting in an ironic interpretation of any pronouncements on peace by the USSR, in Arabic the linkage between Islam and Salaam creates its own linguistic complications.

Aslim, Taslim was the message that Mohammed sent to non-Muslim rulers, literally meaning, "Submit and you will be well". Since then that message has been sent by Muslim leaders, political and religious, to Western leaders. The multiple meanings of "Peace", "Submission", "Wholeness" and "Security" connecting to the name of the religion itself, play on the ambiguity of ideas. Peace becomes surrender. Islam becomes safety. And security means submission.

 

For Westerners peace can exist apart from religion, for Muslims, peace is a theological state, rather than a political one. A political peace will never be considered by Muslims as anything but a temporary truce to gain strategic advantage. A true peace must be theological, in that non-Muslims must concede the superiority of Islamic law and the Koran. To achieve "wholeness" with the Dar-Al-Islam, one must first submit to it. Aslim, Taslim.

Western apologists for Islam highlight that Islam is a "Religion of Peace." The implication is that Islam preaches peace, when in reality Muslims see peace as existing only within the context of Islam. This theology of Pax Islamica makes any notion of peaceful co-existence into an absurd joke, because it defines peace only in terms of itself, and treats everyone else as wayward heretics who must be suppressed and made obedient to Islam.

Islam is certainly not peaceful. It just claims to be the only means through which peace can be achieved. And it sees no paradox in using war to achieve that peace. No more than Lenin did, when he denounced pacifists for giving up the struggle against the capitalists who were the real cause of war. So too Muslims see non-Muslims as the cause of war. A Muslim may be a Jihadist, but that only means that he is fighting for peace. Much like the Red Brigades. And so Muslims incorporate their means into their ends. Murder becomes a peaceful act, much like the religion which commands it.

Any mention of the Religion of Peace should only remind us that Islam views even peace as a Zero-Sum Game, in which only Muslims and to those who submit to them may be at peace. While everyone else remains a source of war and conflict. When Israelis try to show their good faith by singing "Shalom, Salaam", they only make a laughingstock of themselves, because though the words may be similar, the ideas are not. And non-Muslims who speak of peace are treated as either signaling submission or a temporary truce. Since a non-Muslim country cannot be allowed to exist in the Dar-Al-Islam, just as a synagogue was not allowed to be taller than a mosque, Israel can never achieve a peace that Muslims will recognize. Only temporary truces, if even that.

As the Caliphate goes global, this will begin to hold true not only for countries such as Israel or India, who cannot win true peace on any terms, but for every country, no matter how much it is eager to appease. Truces will expire and war will come in their place.

The hysterical violence of terrorism is the response of Muslims who identify their personal honor with that of Islam as a whole. It is the intersection of the tribal and the theological, the same family honor that causes fathers to kill their daughters, is behind the suicide bombings in the name of the Jihad. A non-Muslim who is in any way better than a Muslim, dishonors him individually. A country of infidels superior to Muslim countries dishonors all of Islam. A Muslim leader who makes a deal with an infidel, dishonors Islam, and is murdered for it. A Muslim country that lives in peace with infidels, will have terrorists rise up to try and overthrow it.

 

The two faces of Islam, the violence and that distant peace which never arrives, mark the border between its actuality and its mythology. Much as the USSR insisted on the misery and deprivation of workers, so that they may one day live under true Communism-- Islam cultivates violence in the name of a peace that will never come. Because the underlying dirty secret of Islam is that it has been nothing more than a tool for conquest, robbery, rape and murder from the very beginning. From Mohammed to the present day, the leaders of Islam are men who want power. Islam is their means of getting it. Just as Nazism and Communism were for others. Islam is an ideology of power that can only imagine peace in terms of conquest.

"Give me your money and no one gets hurt," the mugger says. He's expressing the same basic idea. He's promising peace in exchange for cooperation. Mohammed's agreements with non-Muslims were of the same variety of peace. But where the mugger robs and leaves, Mohammed instead created permanent systems of obligated, which required non-Muslims to become Dhimmis, to pay protection money to Muslims, and which made him the final arbiter of all arguments. Eventually despite any agreements, Mohammed wound up killing, enslaving and expelling the remainder of the non-Muslims in the area. Thus was the first Dar Al Islam born.

 

 

Daniel Greenfield

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