Blair: Islamic extremists have no real grievance against the West

[Ibtisam]

Islamic extremists have no real grievance against the West, former British prime minister Tony Blair says, and Western democracies should stand up and say so.

 

Mr. Blair said that, faced with terrorism and extremist rage, liberal-minded Westerners sometimes assume that "there's something that we should be doing, or have done, that is causing this."

 

In fact, he told a lunchtime audience in Toronto yesterday, extremism is the result of an internal fight over the future of Islam, not any crime or injustice perpetrated by the West against Muslims.

 

"The truth is that they have no sense of grievance against us," he said. "Truthfully, a Muslim in my country today has more freedom than they do in many Muslim countries." If democratic countries want to defeat extremism, he said, they have to be ready to say that it is more than the extremists' methods they abhor.

 

"It is the presumed sense of grievance. It is the idea that we are the cause of an injustice."

 

Instead of blaming themselves, he said, the democracies have to be proud of their values and confident that those values are right, not just for the West, but for people in Islamic countries that suffer under dictatorship or religious extremism.

 

"We're not going to win this battle by half-apologizing for our own existence," he said.

 

His comments got a round of applause from a sold-out audience in a downtown ballroom. Tickets to the event, An Afternoon with Tony Blair, co-sponsored by The Globe and Mail, went for $400 each.

 

After his talk, which ranged from terrorism and globalization to leadership and the rise of China, Mr. Blair was asked a series of questions by Frank McKenna, Canada's former ambassador to the United States, who joined him on the podium. Mr. McKenna said many Canadians are feeling let down by the country's NATO allies, who have left Canada carrying an unequal load in dangerous southern Afghanistan.

 

Without criticizing any NATO country, Mr. Blair said that the Western forces in Afghanistan have to stick with their mission, which he called "as noble a cause as you can imagine."

 

"This is a fight that we're in - we didn't choose it - and we've got to take it on and keep at it until we win," he said to more applause.

 

"What is actually happening is that our enemy is fighting back and they think they can outlast us. They think their determination is better than ours," he said.

 

He said that terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere know that, in the age of mass media, their crimes can influence Western public opinion.

 

"They know that for us there is nothing more terrible than the loss of the lives of our soldiers or carnage across the television screen."

 

"Our determination to fight," he said, "can't be in inverse proportion to theirs, so that if they kill our soldiers or try to kill our citizens or try to injure and maim ordinary innocent people, which is what they do, then the appalling nature of that carnage can't sap our determination; on the contrary, it's got to make us more determined to fight back and succeed."

 

Mr. Blair resigned in June after 10 years as Britain's prime minister, having won majorities in three straight elections. He is now acting as international peace envoy to the Middle East.

 

Source: theglobeandmail.com

Hat-tip: islamophobia-watch.com

[me]

Is it me or is the spring offensive early this year?

 

This looks like someone is trying to give new impulses to the campaign that has been running the past couple of years.

[Ibtisam]

Elaborate please, I cannot make up my mind who you are referring to? Blair, his view, the source, or me?

[-Lily-]

Yep, it looks like it's picking up again ME and Ghanima.

 

Blair makes me sick, can he be more specific with his enemy? Whenever someone starts to refer to complex issues in terms of 'us' and 'them' there is something seriously wrong.

[Malika]

""This is a fight that we're in - we didn't choose it - and we've got to take it on and keep at it until we win," he said to more applause."

 

How short sighted is he? has he forgotten the crusaiders,colonialism and capitalism and their hand in the state of Israel..

 

Can he really fight a war with men fighting for their freedom from the chains of oppression of any form.

[me]

G: I mean there is a general offensive starting again after a lull in Islamaphobia activities. Because when I turned on the radio this morning the first 3 stories in the news where Islam/terror related.

 

1. Hofstad group

2. Burka ban

3. Wilders movie

4. Palestinians

 

Thats Holland today, I bet ya in every western country you will find Islam related stories dominating the news.

 

ps. That persian from the comite of ex-muslims is gonna make his own film too. So Wilders film is not the last one. To count as an Islamaphoob you have to make your own movie these days.

[Ibtisam]

Lily Blair has been using us and them terms since 9/11. I remember him saying "the terrorist should know, that we hold our believes, every bit as strongly as they hold theirs"

 

Dahia: I could not agree more.

 

ME: yes today we are dominating.

[cynical lady]

Dahl- what freedom?

[N.O.R.F]

Blair has some points there

[Ibtisam]

^^^REally? such as? I must have missed them :confused:

[Thierry.]

extremism is the result of an internal fight over the future of Islam

I agree with Northerner TB has some agreeable points the one above mainly.

 

Extremism in Muslims has existed ever since the prophet (saw) era with the Khawariij if that’s what TB means then he has a point because the clock did not start in 9/11 or even the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

 

Sheikh Ibn Al-Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah gives us a good reminder

 

 

The Deception of Satan in Causing People to Fall

 

 

So from his (i.e. Satan’s) strange plot/stratagem is: that he will test the Nafs (soul) in order

to see what it has with it. This he does to determine which of the two resolutions is a

mainstay over it:

• The resolution of fearlessness and bravery; or:

• The resolution of turning away and abstention and contempt.

 

For if he sees that its mainstay upon the soul is: contempt and abstention, he then begins to hinder him and weaken his endeavour as well as his intent from that which he was commanded with.

 

Thus he makes it burdensome for him, and so he demeans it upon him

in order that he should abandon it – such that stage by stage he abandons it; or falls short in it; and so neglects it.

However if he sees that its mainstay over it is: the strength of fearlessness and being strong-hearted; he then seeks to cause his underestimation of that which he was

commanded with. Thus he causes him to fall into the illusion that he has not sufficed in it; therefore needing exertion with that along with that which is additional.

So he causes the first type to fall short whilst the second he causes to go to extremes. It is

 

just as some of the Salaf said:

‘Allaah The One free of all imperfections never commanded with a command – except that Satan

had in it two incitements: either towards negligence and shortcoming; or towards transgressing

the bounds and extremism – and he (Satan) does not care to which of them his achievement lies.’

Indeed most of the people have diverged to these two wadi’s (valleys) – with the exception

of lesser than a few. That being the wadi of falling short and the wadi of transgressing the

bounds and transcending.

Yet a very small number of them are firm upon the path which the

 

Messenger of Allaah

(Sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and his companions were upon.

For there are a people who he caused to fall short in performing the obligatory acts of

purification.

Yet there are a people whom he caused to go to extremes such that they exceed suchbounds through whisperings.

1 Taken from: Ighaathatul lahfaan fee massa’id ash-shaitaan (Daar Ibn Al-Jawzee) 1/222-226.

 

 

you can get the rest of the article from the link below

 

http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/

[Ibtisam]

^^^^You should have came to the talk "What Islam can offer Europe" at LMC last week It covered this so called internal struggle within Islam. It is a weak case, if I may say so.

[Thierry.]

Well thats your fault for not inviting me

[Ibtisam]

^^^I assumed you heard about it. It was even on Newsnight. Sorry.

[Che -Guevara]

It is hard to take Blair seriously. His only legacy is being Bush's little B*tch.