Whenever the cry of ‘Allahu-Akbar’ rings out and yet more innocents are slain, Muslims disassociate themselves, organisations, communities and, most of all, their religion from the violence against unbelievers that their holiest scriptures quite specifically endorses
Tricky Dick had a dirty secret or two, as did Bill Clinton. Probably if you put some effort into it you could find lots of dirty secrets in history. They would have one thing in common. They were hidden before being uncovered. After all, that is the nature of dirty secrets. Except, that is, for one. One dirty secret is on open display.
Come on, you might say, how can that be. Easy, people systematically look the other way. Journalists look the other way. Politicians look the other way. Christian leaders look the other way. “Nothing to see here,” they all proclaim. Of course not everyone looks the other way, but such people, like, say, blogger Robert Spencer (banned from entering the UK by the Home Office in 2013 for not looking the other way), tend to be on the fringes of debate and the main players double down by ignoring them.
These days with so much widespread, vicious and well-publicised Islamic terror, so-called moderate Muslim leaders are often asked to comment. To a man and hijab’d woman they disassociate themselves, their organisations, their communities and, prominently, their religion from violence. Whenever “Allahu-Akbar” violence occurs, it has nothing to do with Islam – the religion of peace, we are told. And that surely must be true; Pope Francis says so.
At the back of the papal plane, hopes are raised; hopes are dashed. Following two Islamic terrorists slitting the throat of Fr. Jacques Hamel, an 85-year-old French priest, the Pontiff declares that we are at war. At last, muscular Christianity on show, a not-before-time holy war of words is in the offing to protect Christians! Alas, his minders at the front of the plane quickly re-educate their man. He dutifully returns to the back of the plane and recants. “When I speak of war, I am not speaking of a war of religions. No. There is war, a war for interests, for money, for natural resources, for domination of peoples … All religions want peace; others want war.”
So there we have it on papal authority. It is beyond parody. The bloody mayhem stretching from the Middle East and North Africa into the heart of Europe and America is not about religion, it is all about money. And all the while the jihadist playbook is in full view. If only someone from the great and good would take a look.
So it was that I tuned last week into the Bolt Report on Sky News. Andrew Bolt is interviewing Keysar Trad, the new President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Bolt does something that is exceedingly rare among his fellow journalists. He quotes from the Koran. He opens the playbook at verse 9:29. He outs the dirty secret.
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – until they give the jizya willingly while they are humbled.”
