Unchanged Terror Stories

Uncharted Territories is a Substack blog written by Tomas Pueyo.  He is prolific, with very well-researched, written and illustrated essays on a wide variety of subjects, all of which are interesting.  One that caught my eye was Islamismophobia, subtitled Support Islam. Oppose Islamists.  I thought Support Islam?  I can't, as a Humanist I oppose theocracy and as someone with centre-Left politics I oppose the extreme Right.  But I'm open for contrarian reasoning and followed through on Pueyo's arguments.  It's a popular concept with Middle East experts like Daniel Pipes who evokes the same spirit – the problem is militant Islamism, the solution is moderate Islam.[i]  Three months after Pueyo’s essay, The Economist published an article headed “Islamism is a threat to Britain. Islam is not”, which demonstrates the success of Islamists’ control of discourse and of Islam’s policy objectives.[ii]

Pueyo’s is a superbly presented piece, but sadly for the West, it has a fundamental flaw in its reasoning.  Put simply, Islamism, just as Pueyo describes it, is the real Islam, not that of moderate Muslims.  "There is no radical or moderate Islam. There is only authentic Islam."  (Mohamed Achamlane.)  Or to quote Conor Cruise O’Brien: “Fundamentalist Islam is a misnomer which dulls our perceptions in a dangerous way. It does so by implying that there is some other kind of Islam, which is well disposed to those who reject the Koran. There isn’t. Islam is a universalist, triumphalist and political religion. It claims de jure dominion over all humanity.”

Islam is based on the Koran, the eternal and uncreated word of Allah who said, “This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favour upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion.” (5:4).  The laws laid down in the Koran are eternal and not subject to interpretation.   Islam has a rules-based ethic and since Allah is a god for all mankind, his rules apply to all mankind.  Islam’s telos is global theocracy, and the roles that ordinary Muslims play in its progress are vital to achieving its goal.  The 14th century philosopher Ibn Khaldun said, “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.”  In Milestones, called ‘the jihadists’ constitution’, Sayyid Qutb talks of Universal Sharia, not only applicable to Islamic society but to all societies. Islam itself is a civilisation, the nationality of a Muslim is his faith.  All other identities based on the modern nations-state should be abolished.

Much in the essay concerns Islamic violence, but as I detailed in Argumentum ad Cultro, another take on this is intermittent reinforcement.  When Allah says, “we will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve,” (3:151) there is no need to “…slay them wherever you come upon them” (2:191) to obtain Islam’s goal.  The occasional beheading, driving cars into crowds, flying planes into buildings or just the threat of violent riots, is enough to make people respect Islam through implicit fear.  It’s a far more economic process of conquest compared with, for example, the Islamic conquest of the Balkan peninsula in the 14th and 15th centuries even if it doesn’t produce hundreds of thousands of slaves.[iii]

Pueyo's defence of the Islam of the moderate Muslim is optimistic.  Moderate Muslims, for all their number, cannot and do not drive the Islamic agenda.  That’s what the Islamists do.  Moderate Muslims are aware that Islamists are more dedicated to Islam than they are, so they have no power to influence them.  Moderate Muslims have more to fear even than us infidels since they will be regarded as apostates through takfirism[iv], and their punishment is death.  When push comes to shove and shove comes to jihad, they will have to make a choice – be regarded as friends of the enemy or support jihad.   Meanwhile, moderate Muslims serve the fundamentalists’ agenda in presenting Islam with a moderate face with its increasing numbers of ‘Potemkin villagers’, and a lesser evil for pandering purposes.  I've expanded on this when commenting on Pauline Hanson's "Good Muslims" statement.

A generally unconsidered factor likely to play its part in Islam’s goal comes from Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth who says that according to the data, if 3.5% of the population happens to identify enough with your cause to engage in some sort of activism, then society will change in the direction of that cause.   Gramsci's long march through the institutions is a formidable example of its effects.

It’s not just Islamists that want Islam to prevail, it’s Islam.  Islam is the problem.  Pueyo's and The Economist’s apologias will be welcomed by Islamists.

But there is a far deeper and greater issue that concerns people who are knowledgeable about Islam and its telos.   Why is it that media and commentators give such an unwitting free pass to Islam?  Its history is a matter of undisputed record – it conquers places and turns them into a virtual monoculture.  Islam is less a religion and more of a mandated modus vivendi subservient to a 7^th century set of moral imperatives.  And influential writers support this.  They must answer these questions.  Why?  Qui bono?

 

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[i] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2005/01/militant-about-islamism-html

[ii] Paywalled; available from me on request.

[iii] Bostom, Andrew G. The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Prometheus Books, 2008.

[iv] Takfirism is literally “excommunication and exile”, the ostracism of the insufficiently pure.  Created by the 13th century Damascene Sunni scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, a takfiri is a Muslim who accuses another Muslim of apostasy.  They consider secular Muslim society as heretical. It is permitted to kill such infidels and apostate Muslims, and to take their property. Wikipedia.

Post-Christian Guilt

 

Mike Gallagher asks, “Would you mind expanding on what you mean by "self-criticism grounded in inherited Christian guilt"?  This came from my essay Civilisationism.  My answer is as follows. 

We live in a post-Christian era, in that Christian influence has affected all parts of the Western world, mainly Europe and anglophone countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and our own.  It is what built our institutions into what we see today, business, legal, educational, governmental and more.  But our current era is secular; the church has little direct influence on day-to-day interactions, yet is grounded in Christ’s comment, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.”  The Muslim world does not have this separation of church and state.  Islam is both church and state, dependent on the will of Allah. 

Western guilt arises directly from the doctrine of original sin due to the Augustinian view that humanity inherits both the corruption of Adam's nature and the guilt of his actual transgression. Because every human was theoretically "in Adam's loins," this inherited guilt implicates every individual, creating an innate, lifelong sense of moral debt even before personal sins are committed.  This guilt is remediated by redemption through baptism and faith in Christ’s sacrifice.  

The previous paragraph is courtesy of Google’s AI since theology isn’t my specialty.  In terms of redemption, we see guilt affecting moral responsibility.  The West’s self-criticism of slavery, for example, is regarded with guilt, and reparations are being advocated as a form of redemption, along with destruction of statues of those who benefited the nation with its profits.  Cultures such as Islam and in Africa which engaged in far worse examples of slavery don’t feel any guilt at all.  That the West ended slavery and made it illegal throughout the world is ignored and not seen as redeeming its sinfulness.  The same goes for colonisation.  The West’s response is to assist in ‘decolonising’ both formerly colonised states and of their own.  This has clearly not benefited either party, but in terms of redemption this doesn’t matter very much.  Again, Islamic culture has colonised to a greater or lesser extent over fifty countries world-wide and feels no guilt for its irrevocability, its slaughter or its tyranny. 

There is another factor which gets little notice in terms of Western redemption of guilt, and that is the feminisation of society, in part a result of a period unique in Western history of eighty years of peace.  Helen Andrews has written about this in Compact magazine, and J Stone in The Great Feminization – women as drivers of modern social change.  The leading factor resulting from the feminisation of society is an increase in empathy, inherent in the female psyche because of the demands of motherhood.  Empathy has been wittily contrasted with sympathy by describing the latter as seeing someone struggling in a quicksand and throwing them a rope and calling for help.  The empathic person feels compelled to jump in and give the victim a hug.  In its way, this summarises much of the response we see to the results of war elsewhere in the world, only to have the West’s generosity exploited mercilessly.  

I hope this answers your question, Mike.

 

Civilisationism

The European culture I am firmly grounded in is being attacked from within and without, with almost no reaction or resistance.  In its defence I felt pressure to ascribe to myself a political identity which I call ‘civilisationist’.  I say this because I regard civilisation as the highest good, as the best protection against vicissitude.  Its nature is to solve problems, but solutions tend to create problems over time which in turn need to be solved.  By means of this continuous incremental improvement, progress is made.  So I call myself a progressive which I hope will annoy real ‘progressives’ who probably think I’m Right-wing.  But real ‘progressives’ want to change society, not improve it, according to an ideology which promises the triumph of aspiration by force with no thought of consequence.  It does not relate to human nature or the reptilian cortex and indeed refutes its importance.  

When such an ideology as Marxism was external, as it was during the Cold War, it offered the West shadow projection enabling it to exceed all other nations in social and economic progress.  But the loss of it at the end of the Cold War brought about an era of increasing self-criticism grounded in inherited Christian guilt, opening the doors to two ideologies known with certainty in the past to be diametrically opposed to Western values and virtues.  These are now operating internally, destroying the foundation and fabric of the greatest civilisation the world had ever seen.  These are firstly cultural Marxism, through Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony which evolved into ‘woke culture’ ably assisted by the Duchy of Muscovy in pursuit of its own goals.  The second is Islam, through a confluence of factors enabling its resurgent form to use oil money and uncontrolled borders to expand into the West at a rate not seen since the Ottomans’ conquest of the Balkan peninsula in the 14th century.  Ironically this seems not to be recognised by Humanists as the danger it is, since Humanism in principle opposes Islam’s telos, that of global theocracy.

When I revised this piece I found Google AI placed ‘civilisationism’ as an “often far-Right ideology…characterized by the belief that this civilization is under threat and must be defended.”  Support for civilisation as the highest good, not so much.  The corollary would appear to be that the far-Left supports civilisation’s destruction, and this is in line with Marx’s ‘forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions’ and Islam’s deen, the imposition of divine law and the institutions which enable it.

No other nation or civilisation is having ‘diversity’ forced upon their people or told that their civilisation is grounded in the sins of slavery and colonisation by a detached and educated elite unaware of the ideology that formed their opinions.  No enemies to the Left; only racists, bigots, xenophobes, Islamophobes, far-Right, extreme-Right, fascists and Nazis to the Right.  Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.  There’s a Gramscian morbid symptom right there.

This, then, is the perspective through which I view the present, the most polarised and irresolvable in my lifetime.

Diary of Defeat, February 2026

PAULINE HANSON QUESTIONS THE EXISTENCE OF "GOOD MUSLIMS" and well she might.  "You say, 'Well, there's good Muslims out there.' How can you tell me there are good Muslims?"  The Spectator gives us the transcript which makes it clear that whatever Hanson’s faults might be, she certainly understands Islam. 

‘Good Muslims’ fall into the ‘millions of moderate Muslims myth’ category.  No question that there are good and moderate Muslims who want nothing more than to live the great life that Western civilisation offers and the Islamic world does not.  (Their children might not see things that way, but that’s another matter.)  But it’s worth examining the role played by moderate Muslims in terms of Islam’s telos.  Here are six reasons why ‘moderate Muslims’ are not a group the West can count on.

1.      Moderate Muslims do not drive Islam’s agenda, the Islamists do.

2.      Moderate Muslims are more fearful and less able than Western authorities to criticise, resist or change Islamists’ activities.  Hamas' wilful slaughter of its fellow citizens shows the power that Islamists have over the moderate and the good.

3.      When push comes to shove and shove comes to jihad, moderate Muslims will have no role to play in defending either side.

4.      Moderate Muslims will be regarded by Islamists as ‘friends of the enemy’ and will have to make a choice – support jihad or face death as apostates.  They know this.  Islamists’ fake narratives of grievance and oppression, of Western attacks on the Middle East and Islam itself, and Hamas’ attack and Israel’s reaction will force moderates’ polarisation. 

5.      Moderate Muslims serve the fundamentalists’ agenda in presenting Islam with a moderate face – Potemkin villagers – and a lesser evil for pandering and leveraging purposes. 

6.      Islam is regressively essentialist.  The children of moderate Muslims will have to make a choice between Western liberalism and Islamic conservatism and there is no guarantee of them being moderate.  European-born Islamists testify to that. 

“There is no moderate Islam.  Islam is Islam and that’s it.”  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
"There is no radical or moderate Islam. There is only authentic Islam." Mohamed Achamlane
“Islam is very similar to our ideology.” Heinrich Himmler 

Further reading
https://spectator.com/article/the-myth-of-moderate-islam/
The Quranic Concept of War by Brigadier K S Malik
Takfirism in Wikipedia

Diary of Defeat, December 2025

 

GOOGLE’S AI OVERVIEW IS GREAT.  Ask a specific question and it will give an accurate, sourced and specific answer.  Not that its sources will answer specifically, however.  Asking for the population of the United Kingdom will give a variable answer depending on which regions it includes.  But when I asked Google AI for separate population figures for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the 2001, 2011 and 2021 censuses I got exactly what I wanted and could assemble the answers into a coherent whole.

I wanted to know what the rates of increase of Muslim and non-Muslim populations of the UK were.  It’s not possible to look back further than 2001 since the 1991 census didn’t include a figure for religions.  This is a pity in a way, since the equivalent New Zealand figures show that the Islamic attack on New York’s Twin Towers had a salutary effect on immigration policy.  The annual rate of increase in Muslim population dropped from 10% before 2001 to 5.4% afterwards.  Just as well.  The ratio of Muslim growth fell from a twenty year average of 24 times the non-Muslim growth rate to just under 5 times post 9/11.

Here's the equivalent growth rate calculations for the United Kingdom:

The phrase “demographic bombing” is dismissed as conspiratorial but is supported by these statistics.  The causes are more diverse, and include the chaos caused by Islamists in Africa and the Middle East forcing an exodus, Islam’s telos of global theocracy and the Koranic injunction to migrate in the cause of Allah (4:100, 8:72-75), and Europe’s Christian moral obligation to give succour to migrants.  The ‘pull’ factor of Europe’s welfare system mustn’t be underestimated as it forms a major part of migrant narrative and discourse.