The Alt-Counter-Jihad

It's about time for an Alt-Counter-Jihad.  After all, there's an "Alt Right" and an "Alt Media".  And like those latter two, an Alt-Counter-Jihad is needed to redress deficiencies in an existing order -- namely, what I call the "Counter-Jihad Mainstream".

I've been thinking about this for quite some time, but only recently did the name for it hit me.  In the comments thread of a You Tube video on the ominous movement in Canada for a law against "Islamophobia", I saw among those comments a refreshingly bold expression of the very heart of what would be the Alt-Counter-Jihad, by someone who calls him (or her)self "Freedom Versus Islam" --

You cannot oppose Islam without opposing Moslems. All Moslems must be held personally accountable, for their continued allegiance to this violent, savage ideology. If you are anti-Islam you must be anti-Moslem. Otherwise you are a hypocrite and a coward.

Guardians of the status quo of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream continue to husband their avoidance of the Problem of Muslims; meanwhile, they think they are oh-so robust and politically incorrect when they focus all their energies on the Problem of Islam.  A typical example of this type is a long-time commenter on Jihad Watch (that bastion of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream), one "PRCS".  I've found PRCS to be quite good when he's focusing on the canard of locutions like "radical Islam" or "radical Islamism" or "extremist Islam" etc.   These locutions tend to insulate Islam itself -- mainstream Islam -- from criticism, let alone the condemnation it deserves.  And PRCS has been good about pointing this out in many comments at Jihad Watch over the years.  However, he doesn't seem to comprehend how this sets up an inconsistency or an incoherence with regard to Muslims.

In brief, the incoherence is laid bare by examining the latent logic:  If we say, as PRCS rightly counsels, that we should stop using locutions like "radical Islam" (or worse, "radical Islamism") and just boldly articulate our condemnation of Islam full stop -- that would logically entail that we are condemning mainstream Islam, the Islam of all Muslims.  How do we then avoiding condemning all Muslims?  Well, I've noted before how the Counter-Jihad Softy manages that.  Of course, he doesn't do what the PC MCs of the broader Mainstream do -- they posit that the vast majority of Muslims are fine and dandy because the Islam they follow is fine and dandy, and that the "Extremists" among them -- a Tiny Minority -- are somehow "twisting" Islam to suit their own extremist purposes.  The Counter-Jihad Softy of course doesn't avow this.  Instead, he opts for a complicated, and never clearly articulated taxonomy of Muslims which basically ends up in the same place.  All those Muslims out there (a vast majority? a slim majority? it's never specified) who would be exempted from our policies that would protect our societies from Islam are vaguely deemed to be "lax Muslims" or "Muslims in name only" or "Muslims ignorant of their own Islam" or "Muslims afraid to come out of the closet" or (my favorite) "Muslims who are citizens of our country" and therefore magically harmless.

For a more thorough analysis of this, see my recent essay, The Psychology of the Counter Jihad, yadda, yadda...

Of course, one important psychological and cultural facet to this attitude of the Counter-Jihad Softy who dominates the Counter-Jihad Mainstream is their insistence on treating Muslims as we treat any other members of any other religion or ideology: Innocent until proven guilty.  These Softies apparently haven't really digested the horrifying mountain of data about Islam (including the disastrous data of taqiyya) to see that Islam is a special case, unique in the world.

Perhaps it's time for an Alt-Counter-Jihad to form.

I won't hold my breath, however (since not only is the broader Mainstream hostile to such a movement, but so too, it seems, is the Counter-Jihad Mainstream itself).  So, don't mind me; II'll just be over here, as usual, rearranging deck chairs on the H.M.S. Titanic...

Take it away, Merle and Willie...