Good Mo/Bad Mo

 

Taking a break from my ongoing multi-part series "Taking the temperature of the Counter-Jihad", I note an unusually important posting on Jihad Watch (not that any posting there isn't important on many levels; but some pierce through to rise above the rest) -- this one concerning the O.I.C.

What is the O.I.C., some readers may ask? Well, that's part of the problem, that most in the West still don't know this most crucial part of the disastrously unfolding problem of Islam.

It stands for "Organization of Islamic Cooperation". It is the official international representative body representing all 56 Muslim nations and all Muslim Ulemas (the Ulema is the religious body of clerics of each Muslim nation or region (there are Ulemas in the West as well) who determine what are Islamic laws and teaching in fidelity to Islamic orthodoxy.

I.e., all this sly talk of how "diverse" Islam is which we hear from Islamopologists and their Useful Idiots in the West -- alleging a wondrous diversity making it supposedly impossible for us to pin down any unity about Islam (such that we may be able to criticize it, if not subject it to the condemnation it so richly deserves) -- is demonstrably false: the O.I.C. and the bodies of Ulemas in fact constitute the pragmatic, concrete unity of the Muslim world. I.e., it's not really a moving target of a turgid pool of elusive eels we can't get our hands on.

And where does this unified representative of the Muslim World stand? It has often behaved in a sly manner, apparently playing a Good Cop/Bad Cop game.

Robert Spencer articulates this well in light of a recent policy recommendation by the O.I.C. in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre-cum-commando operation:

If anything shows the falsity of the mainstream narrative about Islam and jihad, it’s this. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is the world’s largest Islamic world body, and the largest voting bloc at the United Nations. If the Barack Obama/David Cameron/John Kerry/Theresa May narrative about Islam were true, the OIC would be denouncing the murders of the [Charlie Hebdo] cartoonists and developing programs to teach Muslims why the freedom of speech is so important and why the death penalty for blasphemy must be discarded. Instead, we get this this.

The OIC and the Charlie Hebdo jihad murderers are playing a game of Good Cop/Bad Cop that we have seen Islamic supremacists play before: on the one hand there are the murders, and on the other hand there are calls for legal restrictions on criticism of Islam, presented as a means to foster community cohesion and harmony. And behind those calls, there is always the subtle threat of more violence if the restrictions are not implemented.

The whole logic of the Good Cop/Bad Cop tactic is that, in order for it to work, the dupe which the two of them are separately engaging has to be naive enough to think the two "Cops" are NOT in fact working in collusion with each other.

Which is what the entire Western Mainstream seems to believe about the "Islamist extremists" vis-à-vis the supposedly non-"extremist" mainstream Muslims. And the Western Mainstream continues to indulge this rosy picture in great part because it continues to ignore stories like the above -- and there have been thousands of stories like this of various kinds, each one representing a "dot" which, all told, taken together, requires only a "mental pencil" to connect (as Hugh Fitzgerald put it).  The entire Western mainstream, in its various dimensions (academic, political, news media, business sector, popular culture) seems to lack this elementary mental pencil.

Further Viewing:

Stephen Coughlin on the importance of the O.I.C. (and on the staggering ignorance of the O.I.C. among our representatives & public servants who are tasked with the obligation to protect our society -- full video here).