The Name Game

Come on everybody I say now lets play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme, out of anybody's name
The first letter of the name I treat it like it wasn't there
But a 'B' or an 'F' or an 'M' will appear
And then I say "Bo" add a 'B' then I say the name
Then "Bonana Fanna" and "Foe"
And then I say the name again with an 'F' very plain
then a "Fee Fi" and "Mo"...

-- The Name Game, by Shirley Ellis (1964)

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A recent Jamie Glazov discussion with Stephen Coughlin features one of the main facets of the Problem of the Problem (i.e., the secondary problem of the Western Mainstream dealing inadequately with the primary problem of Islam) -- the failure to "Name the Enemy".

At the beginning, Jamie Glazov starts off by noting that Trump has been calling out Obama on his failure to name the problem of “radical Islam”.

It is exquisitely ironic that Glazov, on his own show featuring the problem of “Naming the Enemy”, has to provide a buffer to protect Islam by qualifying it with “radical”, as though there exists a non-radical Islam that is not our enemy.

When Coughlin begins responding, he doesn’t advert to Glazov’s gaffe, but proceeds to the mainstream problem of not naming the problematic extremism that is besetting the world as being specifically “Islamic”. That’s a subtle distinction; and if it implies that our only problem is “Islamic extremism” and not simply “Islam”, then we still have a problem of the problem of the problem -- a tertiary problem, where the Counter-Jihad, in complaining about the secondary problem of the problem (i.e., the problem of the Mainstream in its inability to deal adequately with the primary problem, Islam) itself equivocates on naming the primary problem -- not Islam itself, but “Islamic extremism”. At best, we have so far with Coughlin a failure to clarify this important subtlety. One bracing, refreshing, and easy way to do it would be to boldly condemn Islam itself.

The discussion then moved on for several minutes to the specific problem of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration and the only candidates to name that branch of the enemy (Trump and Cruz). Later, a little after 6:00, Glazov does refer to the problem of “Islamic supremacism”, which is a good sign… At about 9:00, however, Coughlin repeats a thought he has expressed elsewhere that is disquieting, implying that the enemy goes no deeper and broader than the “Muslim Brotherhood” (and its many subsidiary alphabet-soup tentacles, including CAIR, ISNA, MSA, etc.) -- namely, his recommendation that we partner up with “Arab countries” (an oddly archaic way of referring to Muslim countries) like Egypt who have arrayed themselves against the Muslim Brotherhood in their own countries.

On a level of the pragmatic casuistry of a Realislamik, I don’t necessarily mind that recommendation. But one can’t be sure Coughlin is proceeding on that basis. Again, he could dispel this disquietude with one bracing, refreshing, and simple condemnation of Islam qua Islam -- followed by the logically consequent clarification that our partnering up with Muslim countries to undo the Muslim Brotherhood influence would be done with our eyes wide open to the fact that any country that is Muslim is, ipso facto, our enemy also, just as much as the Muslim Brotherhood they happen to be opposing (and opposing likely for reasons entirely different from our own); and that thus we would only be making temporary “deals with the devil” for tactical reasons.

To see how Al-Sisi ain't the "reformer" he's cracked up to be (not that a stalwart Counter-Jihadist, having cultivated what I call rational prejudice, should need any evidence anymore), one could at least start with perusing these various Jihad Watch articles showing that Egypt under his reign continues to persecute Christians; and, for good measure, include these postings by Andrew Bostom on Al-Sisi's support of Islamic Jihad.

On the broader subject of Realislamik, see at least the first three essays from this Google page.