Ex-Muslim Christian Writers: Calling Islamic Terror 'New Normal' Is What Radical Muslims Want
Prominent ex-Muslim writers who are now Christians are urging the West to spurn the idea that Islamic terror attacks are the "new normal," a phrase they say emboldens the terrorists to continue rampaging.
In a Sunday essay titled "Accept Islamic Terror As The New Normal?" for the Gatestone Institute, Nonie Darwish, author of Wholly Different: Why I Chose Biblical Values Over Islamic Values, explained that this language must not be used because it signals a submissive yielding to them, and certain Islamic doctrines depend on conquered peoples acting in this way.
Terrorism, she noted, is not just used on non-Muslims and the West but is a mechanism to keep "moderate," peaceful Muslims in line.
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Likewise, Palestinian-American Hazem Farraj, author of Mohammed, Jesus & Me, which chronicles how he came to follow Christ, thinks that the West is in a key window of opportunity, telling The Christian Post in an Monday interview that he believes that around 40 percent of the Muslim world is waiting to see who wins this cultural war.
"There is a major demographic within the 1.6 billion Muslims who want nothing to do with Jihad and terrorism," Farraj said.
Repeated terror attacks and other Islamic practices are most definitely "not the new normal," he emphasized, noting that no one should ever hesitate challenging the violence or questioning other things practiced widely in the Islamic world, like child marriage and honor killings.
Farraj asserted that the United States is now making "massive advancements" against Islamic terror, but that is no thanks to the rhetoric from the Obama and Bush administrations who pushed the "ISIS is a JV team" and "Islam is peace" storylines.
"Where we take this conversation now matters in the big picture of history," Farraj maintained.
"For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to resist whatever way of life is being shoved down our throats if it is against our own American culture. In a world of globalization and boundary-less countries, we need not apologize for being Americans with values and borders," he said.
"My confidence in saying this is my experience with Quranic textual proof, Mohammed's authentic sayings, historical evidence, and an Arab culture undergirding multiple terror networks."
Last year, Farraj explained much of the confusion surrounding ISIS and the Islamic doctrinal roots underpinning it on his YouTube channel.
Yet with the resolve of President Trump, key figures in his administration, and the hopeful Muslim reformers and the ex-Muslim community, "the narrative is shifting," he said.
He noted that evidence of such a shift is already being seen in that following Trump's recent speech in Saudi Arabia, where he urged Muslim leaders from 50 nations to "drive out" extremists from their lands, the Arab world is now isolating the Gulf nation of Qatar, a longtime sponsor of terror.
Even in the midst of the crisis of increasing terrorism, America has an opportunity of "historic, cosmic proportions," Farraj said.
"And this is why we must resist the 'learned helplessness' which our leaders and politicians are feeding us," he added.
Darwish elaborated in her essay that within Islam, the doctrines of jihad, expansion and what is called "dawah" — Islamic outreach and proselytizing — relies "heavily on the use of both terror and luring."
Known as "Targhib wal tarhib" which, roughly translated, means "lure and terror," this is a tool they use "to conquer nations and force citizens to submit to Islamic law, sharia," she said.
The outreach approach is manipulative, playing upon "the instinctive parts of the human brain with extreme opposing pressures of pleasure and pain — rewarding, then severely punishing — to brainwash people into complying with Islam."
Extremist online recruiters who are looking for new warriors also employ this strategy. They emphasize the glories that await them to "lure" them to join their cause; yet later on in the process should they fail to participate in jihad the recruits will be threatened with "terror" and risk being shamed.
"Islam has been using these 'pleasure and pain' brainwashing techniques, and cruel and unusual punishment, from its inception and until today," she said. Unlike the Bible and the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, Islam contorts "the human instincts for self-preservation and survival to break the people's will and brainwash them into slavish obedience."
Yet many Muslims are not aware of this doctrine as Darwish was not when she was a Muslim even as she experienced its impact in her native Egypt. But mainstream Muslim clerics do promote it in the media, she asserted.
In an Al-Jazeera television show called "Sharia and Life," Muslim sheikh Salman Al Awda recommended employing extreme measures in order to "exaggerate ... reward and punishment, morally and materially ... in both directions." Acts of terror under this doctrine are "legitimate" according to sharia law, he said.
Darwish further lamented that moderate Muslims are often citizens who have learned to accept terror as a normal part of life and many make excuses for it or remain silent about it.
"The Islamic culture in which I lived looked the other way when women were beaten. When girls were honor-murdered, the question was 'what did she do?' instead of 'how could that be?' When Christians were killed and persecuted, many blamed the Christians for their own persecution at the hands of Muslims. The normal Islamic response to terror became: 'None of my business,'" she said.
Her assertion seems to comport with an April 2016 poll conducted by Channel 4 News in England, which surveyed 1,000 British Muslims and was fleshed out in a current affairs documentary called "What British Muslims Really Think."
Only 34% percent of respondents said they would report someone to the police if they thought he or she was getting involved with people who support terrorism in Syria.
London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, said last September that acts of terror are "part and parcel of living in a big city," sentiment that has been echoed in major mass media in light of the reality of recurring attacks.
That Western politicians and media talking heads now suggest that people should consider Islamic terrorism as the "new normal" as one would natural disasters like earthquakes is evidence that the Islamic doctrine has worked on their psyches, Darwish said.
"Islam counts on turning everyone into 'moderate' Muslims who will eventually look the other way when terror happens to the person next to you," she said.
Farraj added: "It's time to either submit in fear to the boogie monster of Islamic Jihad or — the only other sane response — resist in love. Only time will tell if we'll be bold enough to be who we want to be and fight for what's already been lost."
