I’m just going to do a stream of consciousness thing and see where it leads us (although I thought my original post was too all intents and purposes, for a blog at least, self-explanatory).Originally Posted by William F. Owen
Firstly a working definition of insurgency, with which to begin answering your question (more for my benefit than yours), would probably go something like this, as per FM 3-24-2, “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict [/B][/I]. The key distinction between an insurgency and other movements is the decision to use violence to achieve political goals. An insurgency is typically an internal struggle within a state, not between states. It is normally a protracted political and military struggle designed to weaken the existing government’s power, control, and legitimacy, while increasing the insurgency’s power, control, and legitimacy”. Though I have issues with this I'll leave it as a heuristic steering mechansim for what (I think) I want to say.
More directly I do believe that Muslim communities constituting ‘parallel societies’ are engaged in an insurgency within their host societies. The mass of Muslims, passive though they may be (taking a backseat for the moment), provide the more politically active members of their community with an ample base from which to draw support (there are few Muslims, IMO, who would refuse mobilisation, in whatever form, once that call has been invoked with explicit reference to the Quran, the Hadith or the Shari’ a). Furthermore, the religion itself is incompatible with Western Democracies as Islam defines itself as a complete political system (this is not an invention of Qutb but is traceable to Mohammed) not merely a system of religious belief (I for one am apt to define communities as they themselves understand themselves rather than how we would like to them to understand themselves/behave). Loyalty for a Muslim is to his/her Ummah first (normatively speaking), everything else comes second.
The idea of Islam’s supremacy over any and all other political systems is “hardwired” into the Islamic mentalité. After all if you want to know what makes an Islamist you only have to look at Islam (as the COG). What is a “Radical” Muslim if not someone who has taken the Quran it its word (or Muhammad for that matter). Islam, after all, means “submit!” (it is the verbal imperative form of the root verb “he submitted”, sa-la-ma). Any system of belief that has as its title, to say nothing of its contents, the command to submit (or what? one asks?) is suspect in my eyes. Perhaps I’m prejudiced but then there’s a lot to be said for prejudice pace Burke:
"Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit; and duty becomes a part of his nature‟ .
As for insurgent acts; Muslims born in Britain have been found fighting their supposed compatriots (the British Armed forces) in Afghanistan; the failed Glasgow airport suicide attack; the 7/7 attacks ; the establishment of Shari ‘a courts and the declaration of the Muslim Council, now the supposed Muslim Parliament, that Shari’ a law supervenes UK constitutional law (i.e, that Muslims are beyond and even above the law of the UK) and thus directly threatens the legitimacy of parliament and constitutional democracy as the sole representative mechanism for the UK, etc. We could quibble over the distinction between the above as acts of terrorism, insurgency or political activism but I’d rather see them as forming a continuum rather than as distinct activities per se. Very often insurgencies abroad (one thinks of Afghanistan and Pakistan here but also in the wider ME) are appealing to a support base in the West drawn from their own communities who can, if activated, become proxies in the rear areas of their host states (sort of like Soviet Partisans). And let’s not forget the funding, equipping and even training of insurgents (whether that be at “paint-balling events” or hiking) undertaken or provided by Islamic charities (which see the case of the Holy Land Foundation and its relationship to CAIR in the US at the NEFA website).
Interestingly over at the blog-them-out-of-the-stone-age-blog the site founder (whose name currently escapes me) claims that the civil rights movement spearheaded by Martin Luther King qualifies as an insurgency, counter-intuitive yes, but I believe there’s a grain of truth in there and similar thinking/reasoning can be made for what’s happening here in Blighty.
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