Islam's Underworld

There are some ethnic groups well known for their warrior status, as fighters, and more than that; as people with few physical or psychological constraints in waging their wars. Lacking ordinary human compassion, some might say. That is the kind of thing being observed in places like Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran and in Libya and Somalia and Sudan and elsewhere both in the Middle East and North Africa.

At the present time in world affairs, come to think of it, it is by and large tribal societies, those mired in the remembrance of ancient conflicts, ancient insults that represent the world's most bitterly opposed peoples. Seen in the Republic of Congo, in Uganda, in Rwanda, in Zimbabwe, and in the violence of South Africa. Where deep-rooted civilization seems to have evaded settling in to produce social mores respecting human life.

But nowhere is this blatant disregard for human rights and the right to live more evidenced than in countries that are dominated by Islam. A religion that was born in tribal-based Bedouin deserts of remote settlements and blazing rage and hatred, united and pacified the tribes toward one another through Islam, while militarizing them against the unbelievers. Their duty in submission is to spread the power of Islam and its laws.

Their weapons: the sword and the Koran and the much-blessed memory of the Prophet Mohammed, his message, his battles, his example.

When, after hundreds of years of conquest, there arose caliphs of rare good sense and the world of Islam had bloomed with the effect of human curiosity to develop its own blend of art, letters and sciences, it seemed as though it had been transformed luminously into a force for universal good. But then that lapsed into a moral senility as it slid back into its timeless age of conquest led by the bitterness of territorial and controlling losses.

The new age of Islam is not seen in the enlightenment of an 'Arab spring', bringing young Muslims into the folds of liberty, freedom and respect. From the Middle East to the Caucasus, the Hindu Kush, the Maghreb, the Sahara, the Saudi Peninsula, the Balkans and the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos, militant jihad has re-surfaced and it rages through its environment, sweeping before it as dross those who will not join its marauding rage.

New generations are carefully and lovingly indoctrinated in the history of betrayal and loss, conflict and revenge. They are fed the pablum of hate, encouraged to consider the blessings of martyrdom for the cause is great and the opportunities endless. Take Chechen jihadists, for example. The prospect of slaughtering hundreds of theatre-goers in Russia, of equal numbers of children in a school setting, of people in Russian subways, does not faze them; it empowers their vision of conquest.

And in his own small way one sole man exposed to the freedom and opportunities of democracy and equality, did his part to enlist a younger brother to conspire together to wreak havoc and to demonstrate clearly that what happens in Russia can equally occur in America. The reach of militant, raging jihad is long and it is determined to make its terrorist impact.

This is purpose, and this is determination, and this is a measure of success. This is the dementia that must be guarded against, controlled and defeated.