Commentary on Bryan Crump's interview with Dr Douglas Pratt on Reactive Co-Radicalisation

Radio New Zealand National Nights’ Pundit – Religion, 15 March 2016.  Dr Douglas Pratt.

Dr Douglas Pratt published a paper titled Reactive Co-Radicalisation: Religious extremism as mutual discontent.  Bryan Crump interviewed him about the concept.  Regrettably the paper is only available at a significant cost, so I’m grateful to RNZ for bringing us the interview. 

SUMMARY

Bryan asked an excellent set of questions which very subtly undermined Dr Pratt as an expert witness.  But the New Zealand world-view is such that the poor reasoning employed by Dr Pratt and exposed by his questioning is likely to go unnoticed.

COMMENTARY

One of the problems of being a good interviewer in a contentious area is that questions need to be elliptical, something Bryan has mastered well.  But in almost every such question he asked, Dr Pratt ignored the subtlety.  To his question, “Is that fear based on anything rational,” Dr Pratt responded by saying that it was quite irrational for New Zealand, yet the country is letting in undocumented refugees from an area which the evidence shows is exporting militants.  So Dr Pratt is unable say whether it’s irrational or not.  What we do know is that grounds for such fear exist, as evidence from the rest of the world attests.  His reference to Trump’s rhetoric about shutting the borders to all Muslims has to be seen in the light firstly that it followed the San Bernardino Muslim terrorist shooting, and secondly in the light of the United States attitude to Islam, in his words, “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”  Given the split narrative of Islam that affects Western discourse, and given that Al Qaeda and IS are explicitly at war with the US, that does not seem an unreasonable challenge.

Dr Pratt went wide of the mark in answering the question, “Is Islamophobia … [a] fear of Islam” when he referred solely to Muslims instead of their religion, then said that it’s the modern-day equivalent of anti-Semitism.  Anti-Semitism is an extraneously-created hatred of Jews for being Jews, not for their religion and particularly not for an explicit self-identified and actively supported ideology such as Islam’s. ‘Islamophobia’ is equated with radical Islam, where the cause of this ‘fear’, such as it is, is one created internally by Islam’s own ideology, by its doctrines, its rhetoric and its actions. For someone with a doctorate in theology to think in that way is an indictment of his reasoning or his learning.

Again, Dr Pratt avoided an explicit answer to the question regarding use of ‘Islamophobia’ to shut down debate, by creating a straw man – the “Islamophobia industry.”  I keep my eyes wide open for anti-Islamic sentiment, but never have I seen anything that remotely qualifies as an ‘industry’ antagonistic to Islam.  What I do see is an “Islamic migration industry” emanating from Middle Eastern and North African states, I see an “Islamic proselyting industry” emanating from Egypt, Islamic State and Saudi Arabia, and an “Islamic normalisation industry” pervading the entire Western world. 

But here’s what Dr Pratt is not telling us.  There is an industry that exists as ‘Islamophobia studies’ which clearly provides him with his raison d'être.  Google gives 571,000 results to the term, and lists huge quantities of journals, conferences, lectures, academics, resources, networks, documentation, papers, surveys – the list goes on and on.  All aimed at critics of Islam, none at its cause.  This is truly despairing. 

‘Islamophobia’ is an ad hominem attack targeted mainly at people who are knowledgeable about the arc of Islamic history, its ideology, its actions and its goals, but more particularly those who see the danger it poses to the West.  ‘Industry’ needs proof, but Dr Pratt only provides the example of a demented Norwegian and a Swiss minaret ban.  Dr Pratt seems to be advocating either changing the characteristics of the Swiss skyline against the will of the Swiss, or supporting Switzerland’s deculturation.  Good question, inadequate and dissembling answer.

Bryan asks, “I sometimes wonder whether if the extremists from both sides are in league, ISIS would love to have a holy war, I’m sure, and there are people here who want to give ISIS exactly what it wants, more people in the West, which is just dumb” surprised me because it is so close to my own thinking that I suspect I might have misinterpreted it¹.  Dr Pratt most certainly did since he wandered off in the direction of Armageddon.  No problem for the geographically-challenged finding it in the Islamic State, but in ‘Islamophobic’ extremists?  It simply doesn’t exist.  His use of Armageddon rather than ‘apocalypticism’ again discredits his academic credentials.  It’s the better word, fundamental to all Abrahamic religions, passive for Christians, preparative for Jews, and an active goal for Islamic State and a necessity for most if not all Islamic sects.

Dr Pratt goes on to the theme of his paper, the way in which a religious community was being targeted by the West for the actions of its extremist wing, but that we ignore the similar extremist rhetoric coming from “secular, fundamentalist and other forms of religious fundamentalism, Christian ones.”  Another straw man, which comes in the regrettable shape of Anders Breivik.  But only him, he is the sole example of violent ideological opposition to Islam.  Here’s something that has gone barely noticed about Breivik’s actions – they were entirely in line with Islamist tactics.  From the extraordinary detailed and successful planning, the diversionary bomb, wearing military clothing appropriate for the cause, through indiscriminate killing of innocents to the plan to behead the Prime Minister, everything came from an Islamist militant’s handbook and not from any other type of combat.  He knew what created fear in the West.  Deaths due to Islam – in the millions.  Given Bryan's comment that Breivik’s target was liberals, deaths due to ‘Islamophobes’ can be virtually counted on the hands of one finger.

There are real-world examples of reactive co-radicalisation, but short of finding out from Dr Pratt’s paper, which I’m not willing to pay for, they don’t exist in the West.  It can be found principally in India with Sikhs and Hindus, upset that their coreligionists are being forced to convert through marriage with Muslims. 

It could happen in Europe if nothing is done to change the present situation.  There are very few active extreme² right wing parties, but many with centrist or socialist policies which are being designated Right or far-Right simply on the basis that they wish to preserve national values against an obvious threat.  The question I would ask is, "why are such parties being denigrated for it?"  By such a definition Left-wing parties seek to destroy national values.  Which is worse?  As Left-wing as I am, I know which I would better off with.

In sum, the, Dr Pratt seeks to normalise Islam in the West by diminishing and ridiculing opposition to it with flagrant insults.  He raises a valid construct but applies it to a non-existent entity of his own creation, for purposes which do not serve Western civilisation.

CONCLUSION

‘Islamophobia’ is a classic straw man argument.  Anyone who opposes Islam is classified thus, as Bryan so rightly says, to shut down debate.  Radio New Zealand has on several occasions raised ‘Islamophobia’ as a topic of discussion but never once sought or interviewed a member of the ‘Islamophobic industry.’  Could be they don’t exist, since straw men can be guaranteed not to talk back.

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       1.       I have long held that there is a coalition of Islamists and the extreme Left that goes beyond mere Muslim support for Left-wing electoral candidates.  Both parties are communitarian, both want global domination, both want the abolition of the current cultural landscape and both will use any means possible to obtain it.  Evidence abounds.  What happens after one or the other side gets to dominate doesn’t bear thinking about since their ideologies conflict at almost every level.

       2.       ‘Extreme’ and ‘far’ need to be differentiated.  I do so here: http://dyspeptic-lucubrations.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/far-from-extreme.html

Commentary on Religion and the Unmaking of Prejudice toward Muslims

Commentary on Religion and the Unmaking of Prejudice toward Muslims: Evidence from a Large National Sample by John H. Shaver, Geoffrey Troughton, Chris G. Sibley and Joseph A. Bulbulia.  PLOSone; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150209

Acknowledgments

Grateful thanks to the authors for publishing on PLOSone permitting non-academics access to academic research.

Summary

In this paper the authors researched responses to Auckland University’s 2013 New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study to evaluate anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-immigrant prejudice.  Their findings indicate that anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments are conflated, and both have a higher level of prejudice than that against immigrants.  Results also show that in New Zealand’s peaceful and secular context, higher religious commitment of non-Muslims correlates with higher levels of tolerance towards Muslims. 

While I am unable to pass judgment on the process, results and conclusions of the paper, there are factors underlying the article that call into question aspects of the academic Weltanschauung.  These fall into three categories, pejorative inclination, the understanding of Islam, and purpose orientation.

Pejorative Inclination

The word ‘prejudice’ reached common currency in the phrase ‘racial prejudice’ which peaked, according to Google Books’ ngram viewer, around 1970 and has declined since.  I would suggest that one reason for the decline is that the phrase has been shortened to ‘racism’, causing the word ‘race’ to reduce in common usage and to be replaced by ‘ethnicity’ because of derived negativity.  ‘Racism’ on the other hand increased its value as an epithet, becoming an all-purpose slur against any comment or action that disturbed one’s equanimity.  It lost its relevance to race and thus the significance of its application to matters beyond the control of the subject.  It has been increasingly applied to religious criticism, almost exclusively that countering Islam, and by extension, Muslims.  While criticism of religion is ipso facto unrelated to race which makes the word essentially meaningless, the derogatory nature of the words racism and racist is now used as a potent weapon against free speech.  Ramifications of this, such as the injustices inflicted on young girls and their parents in the Rotherham child-exploitation case, can have horrific consequences.

In similar manner, ‘prejudice’ carries with it connotations of judgments made on unjustifiable grounds, and its use in this paper follows that meaning.  That its meaning is not qualified in any way can lead to complications.  For example, were a survey of Englishmen to question their attitudes to Germans in 1939, the responses would likely be highly negative.  Would it have been right to dismiss this as prejudice, given contemporaneous evidence?   It would have appeared to be highly justifiable in light of subsequent events.  This comparison is not made lightly.  The Nazi Party’s call for lebensraum to the East has its parallel in the Muslim migration industry’s push of migrants not to safety but specifically to the West.  And global domination was a doctrinal imperative for the Third Reich, and will be for Islam until it is achieved, however long that takes. 

The paper makes comment in three places that the use of the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Arab’ are conflated in the minds of New Zealanders, and that “[t]his result is at striking odds with the known cultural and ethnic diversity of Muslims in this country.”  The implication of this seems to be that New Zealanders have difficulty in discerning the difference and this “reflect[s] a lack of knowledge about Islam.”  The authors neglect three salient points. 

Firstly ‘Arab’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ are very highly correlated in Western minds, hardly surprising given that around 90% of Arabs are Muslims.  Even those most scant of Islamic knowledge will be aware that Islam is centred in the Arabic part of the Middle East.  Arabic terminology such as jihad, Qur’an, Allahu akbar, fatwa, hadith, haram, halal, hudud and taharrush gamea have become well-known thanks to the quirks of Muslims’ ethical codes.  Perhaps most importantly, it is largely Arabs, through Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are driving the global proselytisation agenda. 

Secondly, media focus relevant to Islam is on the Middle East.  It is far less concerned with events in Aceh, Mindanao or the Maldives because they tend to lead to a new and relatively prolonged stasis.  Not so in the Middle East where events in Syria and Islamic State occupy minute-by-minute news coverage of tragedies affecting Muslims in Arab lands. Terrorist acts by Muslims are daily events and whether they occur in the United States, Europe or MENA states, they are most likely referred back to Arab causes such as Islamic State or al Qaeda and their affiliates.

Thirdly, the authors’ comment on Muslim diversity in this country reflects the great efforts Muslim groups go to to dissociate themselves from events overseas.  There is irony in this.  One of the more prolific sources of Muslim press releases is Manukau’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at which goes to great lengths to profile itself, on behalf of Islam, as a peaceful organisation dedicated to community service.  The trouble is that it cannot represent Islam since Islam regards the Ahmadiyya sect as heretical.  At around one per cent of the global Muslim population, their media presence in New Zealand outweighs their reality.  With European Muslim terrorism gaining a disproportionate amount of media attention, the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand can be guaranteed to produce press releases dissociating ‘true’ Islam from the protagonists’ actions.  Its former president Dr Anwar Ghani was recognised for his activities as one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslims by Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Centre, which, despite his Indian origin, does nothing to resolve Arab/Muslim conflation for New Zealanders.

In sum, then, I suggest that Arab/Muslim conflation is well-founded but has almost nothing to do with Muslims in New Zealand and almost everything to do with the violent actions of Muslims, by their own lights acting in the name of Islam, in the predominantly Arab Middle East.  That the slur of ‘racism’ can be applied to ‘anti-Arab’ with relative cogency and cannot be applied to ‘anti-Muslim’ without sounding irrational, serves a very useful purpose for those who wish to supress opinions critical of Islam. 

Understanding Islam

The paper’s reference to “lack of knowledge about Islam” goes deeper than imputing provinciality onto the country’s citizens.  It implies that the authors accept, prima facie, New Zealanders’ opinions on Muslims derived from the Attitudes and Values Study, without taking into account Islam and its imperatives.  I accept that this goes beyond the purview of the paper, but the paper’s tenor gives voice to an idée fixe that pervades media and seemingly academia – do not disseminate knowledge or criticism of Islam’s fundamental doctrines.  The received wisdom of public commentary from government, diplomacy, academia, public media, the education system, prominent persons, and the Muslim community itself is that Islam is a religion like any other.  Its intentions are integrative, peaceful, and communitarian.  Evidence or activity to the contrary, and any denial of the validity of this process, is blamed on the conduct, ignorance or the religious perversion of others.

Those who read newspapers or watch overseas news sources are clearly perplexed.^1.  They are faced with conflicting narratives but no way of resolving them.  Eruptions in the Muslim world seemingly occur ex nihilo, so it is hardly surprising that a coherent account cannot be drawn using the Attitudes and Values Study.  Those who do have an understanding of the relationship Muslims have with their religion have no way of imparting their knowledge, and on the basis of this paper at least, academia seems to have no interest in conveying it either. 

There is a further perspective implicit in the paper but beyond its scope, that of morality.  It is not moral to be against religion or its followers.  We should accept another’s beliefs without question because it is personal. This is fairly recent given Christianity’s history, a product both of moral relativism and of the reduced certainty of Christianity brought about in part by cultural repudiation from the far Left. 

It now goes beyond civilised politeness and mutual respect, since the lessons from overseas are that the consequences for non-Muslims, ex-Muslims and ‘moderate’ Muslims engaging in discourse about Islam can be fatal.  This results in a fear of criticising Islam because of the likelihood of receiving vigorous disapprobation or violent repercussions - let’s call it ‘Islamophobia’.

But it is quite wrong to dismiss criticism of Islam as morally wrong if the West’s evolution of moral behaviour is pitted against Islam’s inflexible rule-bound 7^th century moral code based on one man’s writings, sayings and behaviour.  The resulting differences are far too great to detail here.  Consider two things, the West’s superior civilisational standards over the Muslim world’s when comparing country by country over a score of indices², and the extraordinary compulsion of people from the Middle East and North African states to migrate to what is sold as the Promised Land on Earth, with expectations of education, jobs, housing and welfare.³  It’s no contest.  No wonder Muslims do not want criticism of their religion – it will be seen to have failed as the perfect political and social system, culture and religion it purports to be.

One final point.  Given that Islam has failed in every country in which it is involved⁴, it should not come as a surprise that one study⁵ concluded that it is predominantly European states plus Singapore and New Zealand which most closely reflect Islamic doctrines, not Muslim-majority states.  In a just world, then, Muslims will comply with New Zealand’s mores.  But that won’t happen because Muslims expect New Zealand to comply with Islam.  This is a paradox that Muslims need to sort out, not New Zealanders.

Purpose Orientation

It is not possible for me to attribute an ethical imperative to the paper, yet it carries the tacit moralising tone I describe in Pejorative Inclination above.  It contributes to a collective world view that anti-Muslim prejudice is a temporary condition that will be ameliorated by moral pressure alone, and that Muslim immigration is to be welcomed, it is beneficial for New Zealand, and we have nothing to fear.  This is axiomatic of New Zealand exceptionalism.

Ordinary low-income New Zealanders, the Left’s natural electorate, will not gain from this, finding their wages depressed, their housing costs rising, and social and judicial services stressed due to immigrant pressure.  Increases in taxi drivers and short-order chefs will be no compensation.  Businesses will gain, with reduced labour costs and a greater talent pool. It supports a world-view that will appeal to exporters working under religious auspices assisting import/export industries.  Were New Zealand to continue to follow the European diversity model the same results will occur here – a sharp rise in support for the only political parties that offer to solve the problems perceived to beset the majority of voters, those on the Right.  Notwithstanding Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom being described, like many others of like mind, as centrist, the far- to extreme-Right parties will certainly gain a fillip.  As someone whose politics are most closely associated with Fabian socialism, this upsets me every bit as much as does the rise of extremism that inevitably follows Islam.

Support for a borderless world, unrestrained migration flows, and fragmentation of identity is now a far- to extreme-Left preoccupation.  Left-wing influence is controlling academic discourse.  For the United States, “it used to be two to one Left to Right, now it’s between five and ten to one, Left to Right, everybody’s increasingly polarised”⁷  For American psychologists, a survey reported that the Left to Right ratio reaches 36:1, presidential preference 76:1, and politically orientated policy items 314:1. “An academic field that leans left (or right) can still function, as long as ideological claims or politically motivated research is sure to be challenged. But when a field goes from leaning left to being entirely on the left, the normal safeguards of peer review and institutionalised disconfirmation break down. Research on politically controversial topics becomes unreliable because politically favoured conclusions receive less-than-normal scrutiny while politically incorrect findings must scale mountains of motivated and hostile reasoning from reviewers and editors.”⁸

The paper’s introduction states that explaining anti-Muslim prejudice is important.  But treating it in isolation as the paper does, with no reference to causes and no mention of how in almost every country in the world Islam, unlike any other religion, causes friction, means the paper’s conclusions add nothing to the debate.  This small, peaceable, religiously diverse country where pragmatism and egalitarian values are highly esteemed, with little history of religious conflict and its socially progressive and tolerant society, is not immune to ideologies with global hegemonic aspirations.  The Avondale Mosque incident⁶ was not an exception, it was a harbinger.

The problem is Islam.  When New Zealanders begin to understand just why this is the case, as Europeans are beginning to do so now, it will be too late.  Why would anyone knowingly support activities which will inevitably lead to the rise of the extreme Right?

     1.       http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/76068008/western-freedom-repaid-with-vile-acts

     2.       http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#/page/our-gpi-findings

Plus others on GDP, gender gap, gender inequality, FGM rates, life satisfaction, journalist safety and press freedom, democracy index, fragile state index, Christian persecution, corruption, competitiveness, best place to be born, women’s progress, peace index, slavery, well-being etc., etc.

     3.       Dominion Post 17 October 2015
BBC Documentaries Great Expectations – Migrants in Germany 8 October 2015

     4.       Huntington, Samuel: The Clash of Civilisations? Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993. “Islam has bloody borders and bloody innards

     5.       http://www.mpc.gov.my/ebook/e-book/ECONO%2015/files/res/downloads/book.pdf

     6.       http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11257805

     7.       Jonathan Haidt, professor  of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of    Business, interviewed by Sam Harris, http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/250955856-samharrisorg-evolving-minds-a-conversation-with-jonathan-haidt.mp3

     8.       http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/07/new-study-finds-conservative-social-psychologists/