Occidental View

There are quite a number of statements - the above is one example - that are laying the blame for the most recent of the uprisings in France on Islaamic radicalism.

Islaamic radicalism is essentially indistinguishable from national radicalism. Of course, national radicalism is not known as such. This is because national radicalism springs from the “state”, which basically means, “that which is” or “that which is allowed or recognised to be a legitimate first cause. In other words, the state becomes that from which all actions and thoughts can emerge. Thus, national radicalism becomes a seemingly high-sounding “patriotism” – at least to those who, like our juvenile cousins across the straits of the Atlantic like to say, “get with the program”.

Islaamic radicalism, however, is action and thought not coming from a state even if its community may be as numerous as any particular U.N.-endorsed state or even larger than the state that endorses the U.N. Thus, without a “state” – or “body” – its actions are understood in itself and stripped of cause. It is like the traditional “God” that creates itself. Of course, we have to cast aside any scientific notions we might have that would undermine our faith in the allegation that it creates itself, or risk sanctions which all scientifically or rationally inclined persons, from Copernicus onward to the present had to endure in the face of the ecclesiastical inclinations of the powers of the day.

“Radicalism” is basically a “reaction to”, though it is commonly perceived to be a phenomenon in itself because its consequences are more salient than its causes - at least to the observer or victim of radicalism. When we call Islaamic radicals, “radicals”, we generally do so not because of what they do, but because they don’t have a state from which what they do can be given another name.

Islaamic patriotism, like national patriotism, or, Islaamic radicalism, like national radicalism, is a paradigm through which self-defence is articulated. Offence, however, is the grounds from whence emerges the propensity to engage in defence. Before we use the “R” word, and allege that Islaamic, Hindu, Christian or Buddhist “radicalism” is behind acts of violence, we have to first inquire after the grounds upon which offence might be caused, lest we mistake the means via which defence is articulated for the cause. The burden of proof must be placed on the prosecution.

Unless, of course, one has good reason to believe that the self-defence mechanism has its origins in Islaam.