Churchill would admire Blair’s response to terrorism Aug. 11, 2005
By Maurice M. Eisenstein
Post-Tribune columnist
About two weeks ago, a political cartoon in this newspaper characterized a radical Muslim leading a group of neophyte Muslims to become terrorists. The resulting condemnation of this cartoon was represented by two letters to the editor condemning the cartoon as “racist” because it dared to name a particular religion, Islam. It should not be a surprise that the knee-jerkers were out in full force with their usual inability of thinking through the implications by recognizing reality. They continue silently in their rejection of the reality facing America.
The cartoon clearly stated in a label that the leader was representing extreme Islam. By its very nature, a cartoon is a characterization reflecting reality to a substantial degree. Otherwise, how can it be a political cartoon? Would the cartoon have made any sense if the lead character was a Scandinavian, a Hispanic or an Asian? The reality is that terrorism in the first part of the 21st century is predominantly an Islamic phenomenon.
What the whole world has recognized and what no one denies is this: It is a unique group of Muslims, commonly referred to as radical, extreme or fundamentalist, that is responsible for recruiting the necessary soldiers that compose our enemy in this new war. Violence is not part of most fundamentalist or orthodox religions. Further, this century’s terrorism is the response of Islam — at least that is what the terrorists themselves claim. Even the members of the Irish Republican Army never claimed they were acting in the name of Catholicism.
Our collective silence to the truth of what is occurring within the Islamic world and acquiescence to the revision of reality that those who labeled the cartoon “racist” would like to see, will only result in a disaster for us all in the West. After 9/11, after suicide murderers across the world, and finally two cowardly attacks in London that cost more than 50 lives and hundreds wounded, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has come to his senses, or was forced to by both circumstances and the English public, when he publicly called for a war on “British” Muslims who are part of a fifth column in this international war. Only after the second London bombing did he order that any Muslims calling for physical acts against civilians would be removed from the country, irrespective of their citizen status.
Finally, there are political actions in the tradition of Winston Churchill defending a 2,000-year-old way of life.
The cartoon only reflected the exact fact and commitment that the British prime minister made. He recognized that at the center of all this terror is Islam in its extreme — a not uncommon interpretation. No one is going to call Blair a racist or one who easily named a religion as being responsible for terror. The issue not yet openly recognized is the reality that the most conservative estimates place those committed to extreme action at between 10 percent and 20 percent of Muslims. That results in a worldwide army of between 100 million and 200 million people. How do you make yourself safe in Britain from 10 percent of the Muslim population living there?
Where is the American Winston Churchill? This inciting to extreme action was reported on the front page of Chicago newspapers to be occurring openly and universally in the Bridgeport section of Chicago. In America, Illinois, Chicago and Northwest Indiana there was only a yawn. Who are we kidding with this silence for which we will someday pay?
Maurice M. Eisenstein is a professor at Purdue University Calumet. Contact him at [email protected]. His opinions do not represent Purdue University.