Hitler and Nazi Resurgence

An Oft-Ignored Threat Of Islamo-Fascism
By: Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin

We hardly know we're in a war for the survival of civilization, and we hardly know the full extent of the threat of Islamo-fascism. That's in large measure due to the dishonest, fraudulent and biased reporting of the mainstream media and to political correctness, which now infects even the Pentagon. For that story, see Bill Gertz's report in the Washington Times about the Pentagon's firing of Stephen Coughlin, a leading expert on Islamic extremism and Islamic law, because he was too critical of Islamo-fascism.

Here's another chapter in that book about threats more serious than the mainstream media would have us believe. It involves India, the great democracy of Asia, the largest democracy in the world and an important ally. The mainstream media would have you believe that Muslim extremism is not a threat to India, to the U.S. or to the world. New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman, like so many of the mainstream media and the loony left, would have you believe that there is no Indian-Muslim involvement in international terrorism. As with so much of the views of the Times and the mainstream media, that conclusion should not be trusted, and if the evidence is examined, it will be found to be dead wrong.

I am indebted to Sadanand Dhume, a former correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review and a fellow at the Asia Society, for clarifying this issue in Commentary (January 2008). This magazine is a key source for those who do not want to accept the false and fraudulent picture of the world as painted by the mainstream media.

The world's second largest population of Shiite Muslims, 150 million (that's second only to Iran), can be found in India. Although Mr. Dhume concludes most Indian Muslims are peaceful and make important contributions to that nation, he rejects "the widely touted notion that Indian Islam is uniquely tolerant, or somehow immune to Islamist sentiment."

Muslims in India are permitted to be governed by shariah (Muslim religious law) in civil matters including marriage, divorce and inheritance. One consequence of that peculiar legal arrangement is that separate, ghettoized Muslim societies have developed in India, the very kind of separate nations within a nation that are now the curse of Britain, France and Holland.

Most of India's Muslim middle class emigrated to Pakistan when that nation was created by partition from India 60 years ago. Mr. Dhume writes, "In much of the community that remained, cultural markers of backwardness like high birthrates and an aversion to the education of females have persisted. As a result, Muslim literacy rates and incomes lag behind the national average."

Even more alarming is that this community has given birth to Deobandism, a cousin of Wahhabism, with an outlook similar to that of the Taliban. In a survey of Indian Muslims, it was found they now have three role models:

1. A man who formulated ideas favoring a society run strictly by the dictates of shariah

2. A man who was a Muslim supremacist, i.e., Muslims uber alles

3. A Bombay-based cleric who calls for all Indians to be governed by shariah

With that background, you can more easily understand why India has had more civilian deaths by Islamic terror than any other country besides Iraq and Afghanistan. In view of the strength of Islamist extremism in Indian, it should also not be surprising that Indian doctors were involved in last year's failed attacks on London and Glasgow.

This all adds up not only to mortal danger from terrorism across India and the world but also to electoral power in India. Muslims constitute 20 percent of the electorate in 80 parliamentary constituencies and 15 percent in 40 or so. That means, in a system where 35 percent of the vote may ensure victory, the Muslim vote may be decisive.

Consider what kind of electoral tactics this has led to. Mr. Dhume points out that a leading candidate for public office in Bihar, a northern state, enlisted the help of a bin Laden look-alike to campaign for Muslim votes. This candidate was elected and is now a federal minister. Another minister in India's most populous state offered an $11 million reward to anyone who would behead the Danish cartoonist responsible for "disrespectful" drawings of the prophet Muhammad. In Hyderabad, three sitting legislators roughed up Taslima Nasreen, an author who had been critical of Bangladesh's treatment of its Hindu minority and of Islam's treatment of women. Finally, a leading politician in the southern state of Kerala is a declared Islamist who spent nine years in prison for his role in a terrorist attack that killed 46 people. And those are just a few examples.

As you might guess, Indian leftists don't see the threat of Islamo-fascism. Instead, they see the primary threat to the country's secular fabric to be Hindu nationalism. Indian leftists and Muslims have started to band together, as they are doing in Europe. The communists provide the organization and the Muslims provide the numbers.

Mr. Dhume concludes India has made great economic advances, and one of the most striking features of the end of the Cold War has been the rapprochement between India and America. Even since the early 1990s India has made great progress: "It boasts an energetic middle class, a clutch of world-class companies and an increasingly influential diaspora. The country's sheer size - by population the equivalent of 40 Malaysias or more than twelve Egypts - means that even modest advances at home will ripple across Asia and the globe."

But Mr. Dhume leaves us to wonder about the success of India as an economic power and the strength of India as a dependable ally: "But the jury remains out on the longer term. Until India is able to view itself and its history dispassionately, reject ... socialism, modernize its Muslim citizens and bring their aspirations in line with those of the Hindu majority, it will likely remain an underachiever - and for the U.S. and the West, an uncertain friend."

Herb Denenberg, a former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner and professor at the Wharton School, is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the National?Academy of Arts and Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us .