Now, this would be a nightmare for the racists, whose real concern isn't actually "Islamism"
Do you dare claim that a concern about the actual global insurgency happening in modern history is racist? Why would you put that in quotes? You know that Islamism is the term used by people living in muslim majority countries?
You misunderstand. I'm not saying that everyone concerned about terrorism is racist, I'm saying that at least in the UK racists tend to use concern about "Islamism" as an excuse to make their racist views look politically acceptable. That's why I put Islamism in quotes, because the racists use it as a meaningless attack word to justify hatred against people who are not actually Islamists. We've seen members of groups like the EDL who claim to be anti-Islamist attack Hindus, Sikhs and moderate Muslims. Anti-Islamism is just an excuse for them - what they actually want is to get rid of non-whites.
To explain for the Americans - in the US racist groups like the KKK tend to target black people, probably because they're your biggest non-white minority. In many European countries there are large non-white minorities from countries that are predominantly Muslim and so racists tend to especially direct their hatred at them.
What is an Islamist? My understanding of the word is that it means someone who believes that countries should be run along Islamic religious lines - basically an Islamic theocracy.
Thing is though that in the West this is a minority view. Most Muslims you meet here, even very devout ones, don't believe that their personal religious beliefs should dictate how the state is run. To direct hatred against all Muslims because of Islamists would be like directing hatred at all Christians because of those fundamentalist extremists who campaign to have laws based on the Bible.
It's normal to hate Islamist extremists and want our governments to fight them. I agree entirely. However I don't agree with extreme-right racists who want to use an Islamist minority to justify repression against all Muslims.
Pro-Israel thinktank from a website called jihadology. Sounds about as reliable as posting from thereligionofpeace.
I had a quick google and the guy who runs jhadology has written articles for places like the Washington Post and the BBC: for example
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28560449It does look like he's some sort of recognised expert on the subject, and the article in question is mostly a summary of ISIS public statements, with links to pages that show the video clips. I don't know if he's scrupulously neutral, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss him as a crank.
What's the source for this? Just posting an image of some text doesn't really show if it's a solid unbiased academic source, or some right-wing paper with a certain political slant, or an extreme-right conspiracy theory group.
It's not an academic piece, it's not some right-wing paper, it's not an extreme-right conspiracy theory group (I don't understand why Americans turn this issue of extremism into a bizarre paradigm where the left are supposed to deny it exists and the right are supposed to say shariah law ate your baby). It's from ISIS
Okay, I'll take your word for it, although as it refers to "The Islamic State" in the third person I trust you can see that it isn't obvious at a casual reading as an ISIS statement. I'm not an American by the way - by "extreme-right consipiracy theory" I'm talking about the kind of rubbish you see neo-nazis or extreme-right groups like the EDL talking about. You know, the apocalyptic predictions about how we need to get rid of Muslims or they'll overthrow the UK and make us live in a Muslim state.
There is no way of talking about this reasonably. Everyone has an enemy profile, a stereotype. No, you can't be concerned about security, displacement, resources or Islamism, it's just racism against brown people
It can be difficult to identify the racists who're using fear of terrorism as an excuse to justify actions against non-whites compared to people who are legitimately concerned. I hope you won't deny that both exist.
Consider the BNP, a group which is widely viewed as racist and which until a legal challenge in 2010 only allowed "indigenous British people" to be members. Of course by "indigenous" they meant white - English types descended from Saxon or Norman immigrants weren't excluded. The BNP is something I hope we can probably all agree is racist, but I've read their manifesto around election time before, and they skirt very carefully around the issue of race. A few elections back I had a look through it and the only reference I could find was saying that they wanted to repatriate immigrants
and the descendants of immigrants.
For me, the obvious difference tends to be the conclusions. The racists tend to go to extreme conclusions. You know: Close the borders completely. Crack down on all Muslims in our countries. Let them drown in the med or send them back to Syria where IS can torture them.
Personally, my conclusion would be that we need
organisation to the immigration. Set up a system where people have at least some background checks on entering Europe, are given a chance to make an new life in Europe if they're legitimately fleeing persecution, sent back home if they're from a safe country and just looking for work or arrested if they're known to be affiliated with IS.