Little Green Footblogs and Jihad Witchhunts: Blogalism Part 2

By an odd coincidence, I had inaugurated my return to this blog after six weeks of not posting with a post about “Blogalism”, and immediately after that decided to publish a post about the Little Green Footballs controversy (see the two preceding posts for more), without considering the two were directly related.

It had not occurred to me at the time, but those two subjects are in fact closely related, and it was my primary source of evidence, the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF) site, that framed the linkage between the two.

The linkage is not merely the fact that Little Green Footballs is a blog, and its owner, Charles Johnson, a blogger. The deeper, and broader, issue is reflected in the title of the CVF article about the whole issue: The European Foreign Policy of Charles Johnson. It is a rather odd title, boldly yet calmly assuming that a mere American blogger has a foreign policy at all.

Unpacking the title, one should keep in mind two things that make it not so odd after all: The significant popularity and influence of Little Green Footballs (apparently the fifth most read blog on the Internet, not to mention that all the major players of the anti-Islam movement know, read and cite it), and—as CVF articulates—the explicit intention of Charles Johnson to exercise his influence upon the “counterjihad movement”—in this instance specifically with regard to calling upon all those in his orbit of influence to ostracize those political groups in Europe he deems to be beyond the pale because of their putative “white power racism”. As CVF put it in their article:

. . .his wish and expectation that both U.S. and European groups and individuals should stop associating with VB [Vlaams Belang] and SD [Sweden Democrats] or any similar political parties or individuals.

Whether or not Charles Johnson will actually enjoy this kind of influence is another matter, and only time will tell; but his intent points to the fact that the phenomenon of blogging, in the sphere of important political issues, is increasingly growing into a global force: Blogalism.

And yesterday (November 15), Robert Spencer, another major contender (with his website Jihad Watch) in the Blogalist movement dealing with the exigent subset of the anti-Islamic movement, weighed in with a Jihad Watch post basically on the side of Charles Johnson and his vision of a united counterjihad movement that will not be chary of leaning towards suspicion, rather than a fair research of the facts, about the putative “white power racism” of political groups who, circularly, have been branded with that label. (That Jihad Watch post, incidentally, has, just over the past 24 hours, accrued over 250 comments—a tellingly rare spike indicating the high interest this issue has in the anti-Islam blog community. UPDATE: another 24 hours later, on November 17, the comments have risen to over 330. SECOND UPDATE: November 18, the comments are pushing 400.)

The unavoidable thrust of the Spencer post—however much he might try to frame it in weaselly language resembling a high-minded fairness to both sides of the controversy—is that the circularly branded political groups in question are presumed guilty, until they can be proven innocent. This unfortunately tendentious position was reinforced by comments Spencer himself made in the comments section of that post, for example:

I wrote about the BNP [as “Holocaust-denying white supremacist BNP”] according to the information I have. If that information is inaccurate, please provide evidence, and if I am wrong, I will retract.

And:

A note to the defenders of the BNP: please provide evidence that they are not a Holocaust-denying, white supremacist organization.

A commenter later provided sufficient evidence—quoting the head of the BNP, Nick Griffin—to elicit, at the very least, a response from Spencer to the effect that he will begin to reconsider and perhaps do some research on his own rather than force defenders of the BNP to do his work for him:

The Muslim in traditional garb tries to convince people I’ve taken things out of context, several of the leftists try to sidetrack the debate down the Holocaust road although that does at least allow me to set the record straight and deal with the combination of Wikipedia lies and out-of-context propaganda and to put on record the fact that – while I used to be very angry at (and rude about) the way the left-liberals use the Holocaust as a moral club to silence debate on the key issues of our time – I have never denied the fact that the Nazis murdered huge numbers of Jews in one of the great crimes of a century of terrible inhumanity.

One asks me how my demonisation of Muslims differs from Hitler’s demonisation of the Jews? The answer is simple: The Nazi critique was largely based on a hoax – The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It was this work of fiction, combined with the fact that the Bolsheviks carrying out mass murder on an unprecedented scale all over Eastern Europe included a disproportionate number of radicalised secular Jews (itself a reaction to Czarist anti-Semitism), that set the scene for the tragedy of European Jewry.

The Koran and Hadith, on the other hand, and their inspiration for hatred, violence and oppression of Unbelievers, are not forgeries. The threat to our civilisation is not a myth but a clear and present danger.

That commenter who had quoted the above then closes with this sober conclusion:

People change, I know I have. A life long Guardian reading 'liberal lefty' my realisation that Islam was a grave menace altered my views to the extent that, if there were an election tomorrow I would vote BNP.

That was, at the point I am writing now, over 16 hours ago. Nary a peep from Spencer. (UPDATE: November 17, 45 hours have now passed, with still nary a peep from Spencer on that thread, about anything, let alone in response to the cogent replies to his challenge. SECOND UPDATE November 18: Spencer still peepless.)

At any rate, the conclusion of CVF, as they distinguish themselves from the Johnsonian style of Blogalism, points to another style—no less global in extent, but a little more careful about playing ball with the Orwellian rhetoric of the anti-counterjihad movement:

We disagree with this projection of the highly “command and control” world of LGF onto the broader global political scene. Since European (and African, Asian, Australian and indeed American) political groups and individuals working against jihadists are often motivated by local cultures, heritage, traditions, religions and politics, the “counterjihad movement” is in fact many movements, each locally rooted in its own set of issues. There is no central “counterjihad movement” (CJM) office; no little green membership card in the CJM; and no “Nanny anti-jihad” approval board to monitor who attends which conference. We encourage all groups and individuals to oppose jihad without prior approval from their insurer, and to pursue liberty without a license. We hope Johnson would agree.

And we hope Spencer would agree.

I certainly would agree.