A friend sent me this article recently regarding Blair's speech on "reactionary Islam"
In his
Los Angeles speech Blair defines what "moderate Islam" is and hopes for a "battle within Islam". He believes the British and Arab public opinion are misguided in not believing him that a Israel or Western policies were not the cause of the problem, but actually "reactionary Islam".
Disqualified in the first 20 seconds.
Of course Hizbullah is to be blamed for the crisis due to its “provocation” that “provoked retaliation by Israel”. Even better Blair thinks that Hizbullah calculated that its “provocation” “would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed”. As if the Arabs and Muslims have no mind for themselves and as if the Israeli brutality in the last 50 years did not contribute to the very existence of Hizbullah.
In the first few moments of his speech Blair managed to insult ones intelligence and earn the biscuits of the Zionist machinery. Yet he speaks of “a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in the Middle East”. For the first time the term “moderation” now has been brought to the point: giving up resistance to Israel.
His next definition of “moderate Islam” becomes clear when he labels Chechnya’s resistance “terrorism”, elected Hamas government and the resistance Hizbullah “reactionary”. For him all Islamist or Islamic elements in governance or genuine Jihad are not part of “moderate Islam”, whether elected or not.
New Cold War
With Blair’s term in office is close to run out, he now reinvents himself as the announcer of a new Cold War. His speech reads just as John Kennan’s long-telegram of 1947, which became the blue print for the US foreign policy of ‘containment’ and view of the Soviet threat.
Blair uses the same language and idea. In 1947 there was a camp of “freedom” and a camp of “socialism, control”. Today Blair says a world between “those of tolerance, freedom, respect for difference and diversity” and “those of reaction, division and hatred”. For him“the divide today is between open and closed”. Bold to be partisan and to push for Cold War he takes a position: “without hesitation, I am on the open side”.
In the 1940s Kennan outlined the concept of “containment”, Blair outlines the concept of “modern Realpolitik”, which is nothing more than old colonial policies of divide and buy up your enemy recast afresh. For him the enemy is “radical” or “reactionary” Islam. Blair sums up: “My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world. It is in part a struggle between what I will call reactionary Islam and moderate, mainstream Islam.” This new cold war is a battle of values.
And even better, he feels it necessary to fight the battle of others: that of between Muslims. However, Muslims never felt that there was a battle going on between them. Yet he wishes there were and he wants to be part of it. Or rather he wants Muslims, the moderate ones, to be part of him. The Quran always warned the Muslims to be wary of the non-Muslims in power, who want Muslims to become like them.The weakness of Blair’s camp of people who pray for a new Cold War is that he has to artificially portray ‘the other’ and even portray ‘them’ wrongly.
The ordinary Palestinian does not resist Israel out of hate for freedom but out of love to freedom. Hurndall and Corie, two Westerners, died in Palestine for freedom and not for hate.
Just like the Kennan portrayed the Soviet ‘bloc’ as the enemy, Blair now sees an “‘arc’ of extremism”. Blair bought in to the neo-cons and Texas School of thought. He might leave office soon, but his speech nevertheless reflects the new FCO and MoD thinking and Gordon Brown won’t be able to escape this. Before leaving office Blair managed to ruin his outstanding career with Iraq and now a New Cold War speech, slapping the face of all the Muslim voters. Muslim voters perhaps can learn a lesson that neither Tory nor Labour are an alternative and with that, that there is perhaps no alternative at all in the mainstream.
Islam is this animalistic creature: “Sometimes political strategy comes deliberatively, sometimes by instinct. For this movement, it was probably by instinct. It has an ideology, a world-view, it has deep convictions and the determination of the fanatic. It resembles in many ways early revolutionary Communism. It doesn't always need structures and command centres or even explicit communication. It knows what it thinks. In my view, we realised that you can't defeat a fanatical ideology just by imprisoning or killing its leaders; you have to defeat its ideas.”
Democracy
However, even better Blair makes an embarrassing plea for democracy in the Middle East and trumpets himself as the advocate of the “majority of Muslims who want democracy” but at the same time tellingly omits his policy towards Hamas elections or Musharraf’s dictatorship as well as British policy towards the FIS or Erbakan elections. Even better in Bosnia the Muslims are tied under the Dayton Agreement to accept the Bosnia High Commissioner to have the right to enact any law on financial matters superseding the elected Bosnian parliament.
While the first 20 seconds of his speech were an insult to intelligence, the middle of the speech would not have earned an undergraduate any marks whatsoever.Blair admits that “the banner was not actually "regime change", it was "values change" in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In clarity this means they want “moderate Muslims” to rule. Iraq was not really a Muslim state was it. In short: Blair’s “value change” means pro-Israeli cronies. Let us be clear about it. Both in Afghanistan and Iraq ex CIA employees were put in power first: Mr Karzai and Mr Chalabi. The remainder of Arab kingdoms and tyrannies are dependent or were maintained by the UK and the USA.
Current Battle
The future battle of Blair will be one of propaganda, spin and lies with which he so successfully kept himself in power with. He believes “that the stronger and more appealing our world-view is, the more it is seen as based not just on power but on justice”. Blair continues that it would then be “easier for us to shape the future in which Europe and the US will no longer, economically or politically, be transcendent.”.
However to maintain Western hegemony it is vital that “long before then, we want moderate, mainstream Islam to triumph over reactionary Islam.”. Thus he sees the survival of Western civilisation hinges on Islam. He wants to coopt it. Thus Islam is more of a potent threat to the West than is India or China as he thinks they all want “benign relationships with the West”. It becomes like self-fulfilling prophecy to create unjustice and then to imagine an overpoweful enemy which needs to be crushed.
Is the West so much in need of an enemy? The goal of this propaganda campaign is to divide Muslims and to coopt them into the British hegemony. Blair continously repeated the term “moderate Islam” vs “reactionary Islam” or the”battle within Islam”. It is so false then to go on TV and shed crocodile tears over the Shia-Sunni split in Iraq.He complains that the Ummah despite all ailments exist as “the read-across, for example, from the region to the Muslim communities in Europe is almost instant”. Muslims feel with eachother, this perhaps the very basic benefit of demonstrations in the West.
Failure
Yet if the people do not believe Mr Blair he thinks they need to be convinced. Blair wants to “Convince our own opinion of the nature of the battle” which he finds is “hard enough”. This declaration of defeat is compounded him admitting that in the “short-term, we can't say we are winning” . He is saddened and “it is almost incredible to me that so much of Western opinion appears to buy the idea that the emergence of this global terrorism is somehow our fault”. He just wants to shove it up the peoples faces to believe Islam is evil. The Muslim community should be thankful for this speech, since at least this is a self-revelation of the government policies of the past years. Yet many Muslims are keen on joining the military or the intelligence, the heart of the machinery in creating a war for no reason to continue Israeli oppression or puppet governments of British chosing.
In sum Blair’s speech is a declaration of an already declared war as well as a declaration of his own defeat. He hopes to busy the world with a new enemy instead of offering answers to his and Western own short comings.
