{"id":1671,"date":"2011-10-29T17:46:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T17:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2013-03-12T17:48:32","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T17:48:32","slug":"tunisian-election-and-the-read-to-caliphate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tunisian-election-and-the-read-to-caliphate\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisian Election and the Read to Caliphate"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n

Jihad Watch<\/em><\/p>\n

Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings began, remains an ominous model for where these uprisings will end.<\/p>\n

The nation’s first round of elections are in, and, as expected, the Islamist party, al-Nahda, won by a landslide, gaining over\u00a040% of the seats<\/a>\u00a0in the national constituent assembly. As usual, the mainstream media, interpreting events exclusively through a Western paradigm, portrayed this largely as a positive development.<\/p>\n

Thus, a\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0editorial, “Tunisia again points the way for Arab democracy<\/a>,” asserts how “the country’s leading Islamic party claimed victory \u2014 and that, too, could prove a positive example.” Other reports, perfunctorily prefixing the word “moderate” to “Islamist” \u2014 an oxymoron to common sense, an orthodoxy to the MSM \u2014 gush and hail “democracy.”<\/p>\n

Such sunny depictions are not mere products of Western projection but augmented by conniving Islamists who spoon-feed the world what it wants to hear. Thus, an MSNBC report, “Tunisia’s Islamists Seek to Reassure Secularists<\/a>,” optimistically talks of how the Islamists “said they would share power and would not try to push through radical measures.”<\/p>\n

Of course they did.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, despite these fantasies, the mood among seculars on Tunisian ground is one of dread and urgency. Wael Elebrady, host of the popular showAl Haqiqa<\/a><\/em>, speaking to a correspondent in Tunisia soon after al-Nahda’s “sweeping victory,” confirmed that the Islamists have immense grassroots support, that they will have a major say in the formulation of laws (Sharia), and that, if the Western MSM is eating up Islamist talk of “sharing power,” the apparently outnumbered “liberals and secularists” are not.<\/p>\n

Some reflections: First, among Arabic speaking nations, Tunisia has long been recognized as an especially “Westernized” nation, secular and liberal \u2014 at least in comparison to other Arab countries, and not unlike traditional Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Now, if Islamists have risen to power in onetime “moderate” Tunisia, through the usual conduits \u2014 grassroots support, lip-service to democracy, promises of “sharing power,” and a complacent West \u2014 is there any doubt that Islamists will also takeover in those nations where they are especially entrenched, like Egypt and Libya?<\/p>\n

Ali Akbar Velayati<\/a>, top advisor of Iran’s Supreme Leader, accurately predicts that “the result of the election in Tunisia will positively affect regional developments. We will observe the victory of Islamists in future elections in Egypt and Libya.”<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>\u00a0report elaborates:<\/p>\n

Tunisia’s small, well-educated and religiously moderate population could make it an unreliable metric for gauging the regional political changes that will follow. The Nahda Party distinguished itself as uniquely moderate when compared with other Islamist parties in the Arab world. Egyptian Islamists, who are led by an 83-year-old organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, in general take a stricter view of the role Islamic law, known as Shariah, should play in Egyptian governance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Accordingly, not only are Islamists better positioned to come to power through elections in Egypt than Tunisia, but more critical consequences are sure to follow: peace with Israel will be contemptuously scrapped \u2014 once capability permits \u2014 and the suffering of Christian Copts, who are already under attack in a myriad of ways, will be institutionalized.<\/p>\n

Yet the West remains transfixed before the words “democracy” and “elections.” Nice words, to be sure; but just as the generic word “terror” \u2014 as in “War on Terror” \u2014 provides absolutely no understanding of the ideas motivating\u00a0Islamic<\/em>\u00a0terror, so too does the generic word “democracy” provide no understanding of the draconian, anti-infidel ideas the “will of the people” will establish \u2014 ideas encapsulated by one word:\u00a0Sharia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Consider the following excerpt from a\u00a0Fox News<\/a>\u00a0report:<\/p>\n

“I am the enemy of democracy,” Hesham al-Ashry said in an interview with Fox News in his Cairo tailor shop. The devout Muslim is a main organizer in a group called the Salafists, which is working to bring Shariah law to Egypt. They, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, have risen quickly in the past eight months to fill the power vacuum left in post-Mubarak Egypt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Left unspoken is how they rose \u2014 and will continue to rise \u2014 to power: democracy, “people-power,” which al-Ashry gladly exploits, even as he is “the enemy of democracy.”<\/p>\n

The report continues: “As for what’s next if al-Ashry and his followers get their way, ‘instead of one Iran \u2026you have two.'”<\/p>\n

Actually, “what’s next,” in the grand picture of things, not the myopia of the moment, is the resurrection of a Sharia-enforcing Caliphate and the ushering of a new age of conflict \u2014 an age when future generations will look back to their Western predecessors and see in them the sort of passive naivety that would make Neville Chamberlain look like Winston Churchill.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92011 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings began, remains an ominous model for where these uprisings will end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,59,227],"tags":[1034,1035,1017,1044,1022,162,605,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-qX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6383,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-terror-leader-behind-bars-in-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":0},"title":"A Terror Leader Behind Bars in Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the head of the Islamist snake, Muhammad Badie\u2014who had slipped security forces by traveling in and out of the\u00a0Brotherhood torture camps\u00a0(known as \u201cpeaceful sits ins\u201d by the mainstream media\u201d)\u2014has finally been arrested in Egypt and is awaiting trial.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4090,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/radical-muslims-in-america-all-the-benefits-and-still-turning-to-jihad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":1},"title":"Radical Muslims in America: All the Benefits and Still Turning to Jihad","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Recent remarks by Attorney General\u00a0Eric Holder\u00a0on the threat posed by \"radicalized\" American Muslims are revealing \u2014 not just because of what they say regarding the domestic situation, but for their international implications as well. 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Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building and pounded its walls down with sledge hammers \u2014 to cries of \"Allahu Akbar!\" Adding insult to injury, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1429,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-arab-winter-approaches\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":3},"title":"The Arab Winter Approaches","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Defining Ideas The revolutions against Arab autocracies \u2014 dubbed the \u201cArab Spring\u201d \u2014 have been greeted in America with bipartisan celebration. To President Obama, the uprising in Egypt reflected the yearning of Egyptians for \u201cthe same things that we all want: a better life for ourselves\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1402,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ground-zero-mosque\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":4},"title":"Ground Zero Mosque","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Why it is counterproductive to the Islamist cause. by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media While vexing to many, the\u00a0mega mosque\u00a0set to be built two blocks from Ground Zero has produced one interesting but unintended consequence: like the 9\/11 strikes a decade before it, the \"9\/11 mosque\" is also creating a stir,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3818,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-american-values-radicalize-muslims\/","url_meta":{"origin":1671,"position":5},"title":"Can American Values Radicalize Muslims?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media Recent comments by US officials on the threat posed by \"radicalized\" American Muslims are troubling, both for their domestic and international implications. 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