Guest Column: What's in a name?
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
November 9, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3800/guest-column-what-in-a-nameIn some cases, it's an entire history of social change -- and a sign of things to come.
That fact became clear last week, when the newly-created "Islam Party" won seats in
the local governments of two towns just outside of Brussels.
Redouane Ahrouch, the founder of the Islam Party, and Lhoucine Ait Jeddig took seats
in the City Councils of Andelicht and Molenbeek-St. Jan, respectively, earning their
places thanks to votes from those towns' significant Muslim populations.
These gains in local elections by these two Islamists are troubling, demonstrating
an evolution of Islamist political savvy. The Islam Party holds many of the same
ideals as earlier Muslim political groups in the Lowlands, but while building on the
successes of those groups, they've repackaged their message while benefitting from
concentrated voting blocs in those towns.
Tiny Belgium (population 11,008,000) has a big history of Muslim radicals in
politics, most notably in the person of Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese-born
naturalized Belgian who, in 2000, founded and then led the Arab European League
(AEL), a political group that eventually gained a chapter in the Netherlands. A
member of Hizballah and the author of an autobiography in which he describes his
jubilation on hearing of the attacks of 9/11, Jahjah walked a tight and careful
line, preaching democracy on the one hand and Islamic supremacy on the other,
skillfully couching his extremist viewpoints in conciliatory speeches and
deftly-written publications.
The AEL eventually fizzled out, but the men and women who supported it remain and it
is likely they -- over 5,000 of them in the towns of Molenbeek, Andelicht, and
Brussels Ville -- who turned out to vote for the List Islam. (The party, with 4.1
percent of the vote in Molenbeek and Andelicht, did not obtain enough votes to earn
a government seat in Brussels Ville.)
And why not? By and large, there is little difference between the AEL and the Islam
Party -- except the name. And that distinction is notable, reflecting changes in
European culture as Muslims with an Islamic political agenda enter into the
mainstream. Ten years ago, the term "Arab-European" offered a soft link between
Islam and Europe, a tiptoeing, as it were, from one to the other. Even the words
"Muslim" and "Islam" were omitted: merely "Arab," (even though, at least in the
Netherlands, many of the AEL's most active members weren't Arab at all, but
Turkish). One could not, at that point, have gotten away with a name like "Islam
Party."
Then came Holland's Muslim Party, which, according to its Web site, was created to
suit "those who hope to develop or design society according to a schema that differs
from that of the majority." Its purpose, according to the site, is first and
foremost to support the right of free speech -- but to outlaw speech that "is
hurtful to others." In other words, they don't really support free speech at all.
Additionally, the party specifically renounces extremism "of any kind," but further
defines its goals as:
"Minimizing the social cleft between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Netherlands;
improving the image of Islam; strengthening the social position of the Islamic
community and its people in the Netherlands; [and] supporting positive relations
with others on the basis of mutual respect."
In effect, the Muslim Party, too, is virtually identical to the AEL (which did not
offer candidates for political office). But the creation of a "Muslim Party" in the
neighboring Netherlands -- versus an "Arab-European League" -- also opened the door
for the formation of a pure "Islam Party" in Belgium with all the differences in
nuances between them: one party may be made up of Muslims, but the other explicitly
seeks to define an Islamic agenda.
And that is exactly what its leaders proclaim.
Sure, like Jahjah, they mask their aims in colorful costumes and masquerades of
democracy aimed at soothing the fears of non-Muslims in the community: Ahrouch has,
for instance, denounced the radical Shariah4Belgium group as "far left" (though that
was as damning as he got). Yet, also like Jahjah, prior to the election he observed
that, according to the principles of democracy, "if a majority wishes to live by
Shariah, then Shariah should become law."
But things changed after the elections. In a recent press conference, Ahrouch
admitted that he, too, supports Shariah for Belgium, though "not just yet." First,
he says, Belgians must become accustomed to the idea, led gently to the end goal. It
"will take time -- decades, a century," he says. "But the movement has now certainly
begun."
That's a pretty scary statement from someone who just took the majority vote in his
district. But it was apparently his purpose all along: not as some may have hoped,
to encourage Muslims in the West to adopt Westernized philosophies, values, and
legal systems; but rather, to encourage Europeans adopt the principles and values of
Shariah. (Then again, that's hardly a surprise from a man who, while claiming to
place "ethics" and "family" at the center of his policy design, was convicted in
2003 for domestic assault and battery and sentenced to six months in prison.)
But what else could anyone really have expected? A political party that bases its
policies on the Koran does not truly represent democratic, Western goals -- however
well it plays the democratic game. If nothing else, the very notion of a separation
between church and state is negated outright by the central foundation of their
existence.
Ten years ago, Ahrouch was among the founders of Belgium's Noor party (now
essentially swallowed up by List Islam). It advocated, among other things,
abolishing taxes, encouraging teen marriage, banning abortion, eradicating interest
on bank loans, and "revisiting" the practice of mixed-gender classrooms. "We know
that religion provides the solution for the problems we are facing," states Noor's
home page, which even at its founding identified itself as "the Islamic party."
"Judeo-Christian values no longer provide foundations for the political orientations
that, for centuries, have defined our common history." (See
http://www.noor.ovh.org/Nederlands/Nederlands.html. NOTE: the English-language
translation on the Noor site alters the original text somewhat.)
Despite all this, the real threat, the real danger, is not the Islam Party or its
members. It is their supporters, numerous enough to have elected them to power.
Belgium's Muslim population is now around 6 percent; a recent Pew study suggests
that it will rise to above 10 percent by 2030. In Europe, only France has a higher
percentage of Muslim residents.
And already some studies show that Muslims account for 25 percent of the population
of Brussels, Europe's capital -- and that includes the regions of Molenbeek and
Andelicht. (According to Gatestone, "since 2008, the most popular name in Brussels
for baby boys has been Mohammed. It is also the most popular name for baby boys in
Belgium's second-largest city, Antwerp, where an estimated 40% of elementary school
children are Muslim.")
Many of the more radical of those Muslims, as it happens, live in Andelicht and
Molenbeek, or frequently attend rallies and demonstrations there. A Shiite mosque
was torched in Anderlicht last March by a Salafist who threw a Molotov cocktail into
the building even as congregants were praying. The imam died in the fire. And in
June, a French Muslim, who had come to Molenbeek to take part in a pro-Islamist
rally, stabbed two local police agents with a kitchen knife. The reason: an earlier
arrest of 24-year-old Stephanie Djato for refusing to remove her nikab despite
recent laws banning the full veil for women.
This makes it somewhat unsurprising that Ahrouch received so much support. But it is
also why the current local petition calling him a traitor and demanding a ban on the
List Islam is not only useless (you cannot rightly recall a democratically elected
official unless he can be charged with outright wrongdoing); it is entirely beside
the point. Because while many insist that radical Islam in the West is a fringe
movement with no substantial capacity to effect change in the way the West is run,
the very real success of Belgium's List Islam makes frighteningly clear just how
powerful -- and how insidious -- the radical Muslims among us really are.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning
Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York
and the Netherlands.
Related Topics: Abigail R. Esman
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