Following the recent series of terror attacks in Europe, Hamed 'Abdel-Samad, a liberal Egyptian writer living in Germany, published an article in the liberal Egyptian newspaper Al-Maqal and on the Moroccan news website Al-Kanat, in which he harshly criticized Europe for allowing extremist political Islam to run rampant on its soil in the name of tolerance and cultural pluralism. The "monster" of political Islam, he said, which is sponsored by Turkey, Qatar and Iran, aims to impose its extremist values wherever it gains a foothold, and establishes mosques in which it poisons the minds of the Muslims living in Europe. Al-Samad, who has been living in Germany for 25 years and has written extensively against political Islam, added that he too now fears retaliation from terrorists. Like other critics of the Islamists in Europe, he cannot walk freely in the streets or deliver lectures without fearing for his life, he said. Yet, instead of fighting the Islamist terror and closing the mosques that preach hatred and violence, European countries embrace Turkey, Qatar and Iran, he added. Moreover, they ask the movements of political Islam to help them draft curricula for Islamic schools, and provide Turkish President Erdogan, the "official sponsor of terror," with billions in financial aid. Al-Samad called on the Muslims to fight political Islam in their own countries, for it will not rest until it devours everyone.
Hamed 'Abdel-Samad (Source: Dw.com/ar)
The following are translated excerpts from the article: [1]
"The Islamists have once again struck in Europe. Within two weeks, terrorists perpetrated several attacks that rocked the most beautiful Western cities and raised numerous questions regarding Europe's treatment of political Islam. Fear filled the hearts of the residents of Paris, Nice, Dresden and Vienna, yet Western politicians are still confounded and don't know how to destroy this monster which [they themselves] permitted to grow in the name of cultural tolerance and pluralism.
"Ever since the events of September 11, I hear Western politicians saying, 'There will be no tolerance towards those who are intolerant,' or 'We will suppress terrorism with an iron fist.' However, it seems that this is nothing more than empty rhetoric, intended to pacify public opinion. Only the president of France and the chancellor of Austria have dared to explicitly criticize political Islam and its leader, [Turkish President] Erdoğan, while the chancellor of Germany [Angela Merkel] dreams of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for opening the gates of her country to additional Muslims, who enter claiming that they are refugees fleeing from the dictatorships in the [countries of the] East.
"Political Islam, which destroyed the countries of the East and cast them into the darkness of ignorance, fanaticism, and civil and sectarian wars, has infiltrated Europe and is now attempting to impose its laws on the descendants of Voltaire, Immanuel Kant and Mozart. It was not content with isolating the Muslims in slums in the West and creating a cultural and moral rift between them and the countries which took them in and granted them citizenship. [Now] it is trying to intimidate anyone who criticizes it and wants to dictate what the teachers say in [Western] schools, what lecturers say in the universities and what writers [write] in their articles and books.
"After threatening to murder Salman Rushdie and murdering the cartoonists and employees at Charlie Hebdo, they have now slaughtered history teacher Samuel Paty on a main street [in a Paris suburb] because he showed his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to discuss with his students, both Muslim and non-Muslim, the topic of freedom of expression and its clash with the sentiments of Muslims in France. But political Islam is not interested in freedom [of expression] nor in the sentiments of the Muslims. It is interested only in imposing its ideas and lifestyle everywhere it sets foot. As far as it is concerned, the sentiments of Muslims are nothing more than fuel for its precisely calculated wars.
"I came to Germany 25 years ago to live here in freedom and express my opinion without having to fear for my life or risk ending it in jail. Yet after all these years, and after publishing 10 books in Germany, most of which criticize the political aspect of Islam, I have started to travel only in an armored vehicle. I don’t dare buy bread without an escort of seven officers from the Special Forces tasked with protecting public figures, and I don't deliver a lecture without wearing a bulletproof vest. Here I am, living in prison in the heart of Europe, fearing for my life every day, because the Islamist monster reached this country [Germany] ahead of me, built its mosques and poisoned the minds of generations of Muslims who came to the West to escape their countries, which political Islam helped to destroy.
"People like me cannot walk the streets of Europe without police protection, while the Salafis and the terrorists roam its streets [freely], preach in its mosques and point their fingers threateningly at everyone who criticizes them. Most of the people who perpetrated acts of terror in Europe were known to the security forces as extremists who pose a danger to public safety, and some of them had been previously tried and imprisoned for their involvement in terrorist activities.
"Europe glories in its enlightened principles which enshrine cultural pluralism. The continent which renounced religious wars and the Inquisition, after paying a heavy price in the blood of its sons; the continent which paved the way to liberty by criticizing religion and patriarchal authority, [now] allows the Islamic Inquisition to return and rule over the writers, teachers and playwrights on its soil. Europe's failure in the war against Islamic terror is thus not only a [failure] in the field of security, but is an educational and cultural failure. Europe has surrendered. Instead of closing down the mosques that preach hatred and violence, it asks the Islamic organizations that support Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood to formulate curricula for the Muslim pupils in the German and Austrian schools. Instead of punishing Erdoğan, who has become the official sponsor of terror and has started to operate Islamist mercenaries in Syria, Libya and Armenia, Europe assists him with €3 billion annually, so that he won't allow additional refugees to cross into Europe.
"Yes, the era of values has come to an end. Europe embraces Qatar, Turkey and Iran in favor of [its] economic and political interests, and in so doing betrays the principles established by the most powerful continent in the world [i.e. Europe itself]. But the crocodiles embraced by Europe are likely to devour it in the near future. The campaign has already begun, yet Europe has become powerless. Unfortunately, all that is left of Europe is an old guilt complex about Imperialism, slavery and the Holocaust. The white man has become one of three things: a leftist who is easily blackmailed by virtue of his guilt complex; a radical right-winger who wants to rescue his aged continent from the hatred and violence of political Islam by means of a different kind of hatred [i.e. his own], which is no less criminal or violent; or an apathetic middle-of-the-road individual who, in the name of tolerance, leaves the right, the left and political Islam to fight it out [among themselves].
"Voltaire and Kant are surely turning over in their graves when they see the politicians in their countries ignoring the proponents of freedom and enlightenment and embracing those who nurse hidden hatred for these values. They surely weep bitter tears at the sight of a beheaded teacher in a pool of his own blood on a Paris street. They are surely wondering if everything that they did and everything that they wrote was in vain. They surely feel sorrow and disappointment when they see the citizens of Europe tweeting 'We are all Charlie [Hebdo]' after the supporters of freedom of expression have paid with their lives, but [at the same time] ignoring the warnings of the critics of political Islam, as if only a dead critic is a valid critic.
"Wealth, apathy and a naïve understanding of tolerance have worn down the beautiful and unique continent of Europe, the last oasis of liberty, and it is [now] infiltrated by benighted rightists and besieged by illegal immigration.
"Still, our campaign against political Islam continues. We must wage it alone in the East. We must wage it using what we have learned from the history of Europe and from our own history, against the monster of politicized religion which will not be sated until it has devoured us all.
"We have learned that cultures come and go like castles built by children in the sand, which are washed away without a trace by the waves of the sea. But cultures are destroyed not only when others attack them from without, but [also] when they become fragile and hollow from within."
[1] Facebook.com/almaqaleg, November 5, 2020; al9anat.com, November 6, 2020.
