Remarkable statement from Egyptian President Sisi

Egyptian president, AbdelFattah el-Sisi made some fairly remarkable comments last week. He acknowledged that Islamic 'thinking' is antagonizing the entire world. I'll paraphrase that to say it is Islamist ideology that is antagonizing and threatening the entire world. Islamists seek to expand the dominion of Islam to all people of the Earth, through violent conquest, subjugation or forced conversion. Non-Muslims, dhimmi, have no rights under the Islamists. There can be no peaceful co-existence with this sort of ideology. There can be no civilized society, as we know it, under this ideology. President Sisi is a military dictator, but he has spent enough time in the West to know that the two cultures cannot coexist peacefully. He attended the U.S. Army War College. He has had close ties with the US military. He may not be a good guy, but he knows what a war between the West and the Muslim world would be like. He also knows that his most immediate threat is the Muslim Brotherhood, which is using Islamist ideology in an effort to bring down his government. Maybe it's self-preservation or just a desire to keep the gravy train of the US-AID-funded Egyptian government running. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that for the first time a leader of a Muslim nation has acknowledged that Islamist ideology is a real problem for all Muslims.

There are millions of Muslims living peacefully in the United States. Most have learned to coexist peacefully with their adopted culture. This proves that, at some point in the future, peaceful coexistence between Muslims and other religions will be possible. But it isn't going to happen if the Islamists are allowed to drive Muslim culture. That's the problem. Islamism is definitely driving all Muslim culture at the present time. The liberal multicultural appeasers tell us all the time that Islam is a religion of peace and that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful. That can be argued, but it is a false argument. It is rare that any major political or cultural movement (make no mistake; Islamism is not a religion; it is a political movement that uses religious justification for its actions) involves a majority of the population. The Nazis were not a majority of the German population. The 1917 communist revolution was not driven by a majority of Russians. A motivated, vocal minority often drives cultural change. The more violence that minority is willing to use the more impact they will have on the course of events. By any standard, Islamists are religious fanatics. They are not just willing to use violence, it is an integral part of their ideology. Add to that the religious element. Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. As the Islamists proclaim themselves to be the guardians and protectors of 'true' Islam, it is natural that they would accuse any Muslims who oppose their goals or methods as being against Islam. This has been seen over and over throughout the Muslim world for the last two decades. Since 9/11, the vast majority of people killed in Islamist terror attacks have been other Muslims. They were killed for being the wrong type of Muslim. The Wahabbi Sunnis, who are at the heart of the Islamist movement, have declared the Shia, Kurds, Ahmadis, Yazidis, Sufis and other sects to be apostates. Tens of thousands have been murdered at the hands of the Islamists. It is not hard to see why it is so rare for most Muslims to speak out against the Islamists. That silence in the face of Islamist aggression is effectively the same as support. That silence must end if there is ever to be any hope of peaceful coexistence between the Muslims and the rest of the world. They must speak up against the Islamists and the imams who support them. President Sisi's recent comments are a good start. Whether his words have any lasting effect remains to be seen. He may have signed his own death warrant.

I don't think that a military dictator, even in as influential a country as Egypt, will be the one to lead the Muslim world to moderation and peaceful coexistence. It is going to come from westernized Muslims. Muslims who practice their faith as equals among other religions in the western nations will be the ones who lead the way to peaceful coexistence. The benefits of classical western liberal thought will take hold among these Muslims. It will be spread by the internet, social media and popular culture. It won't happen quickly and it won't be easy. And it definitely won't happen if the western nations continue pursuing destructive multicultural policies. We need to be inclusive and bring these Muslims into our culture. We must teach them the benefits of our freedoms. We must be proud of our culture's achievements and expose our new citizens to them. The worst possible thing we can do is to encourage them to keep their culture after arrival in our nations. That has been done throughout Europe and it has been a resounding failure. Muslim live in Muslim ghettos; separate, isolated and given no reason to adopt the culture of their new homes.

The threat of Islamists, to the west and Muslims, will not go away anytime soon. It will never go away unless westerners and Muslims fight against it. Appeasement will not work. It is nothing more than slow surrender.