Sam Westrop, director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch Project, spoke to an April 28th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) about the threat of non-violent Islamism within Western liberal democracies, and the American and European responses to the threat. The following is a summary of his comments:
Over twenty years after 9-11, the U.S. has largely stopped focusing on the issue of Islamism and its impact on America, whereas European media has concluded that Islamism is a “clear and persistent danger to Europe and the West.” The perceptible difference between how the U.S. and Europe view their respective futures with Islamism raises the question as to why there are such disparate approaches. Europe’s demographics are a significant reason for the heightened concern on that continent.
At 7 percent and 10 percent, respectively, Britain’s and France’s Muslim populations are far greater in both proportion and number than the 2 percent in the U.S. In addition, Islamists have more sway over Muslims in Europe than in the U.S. because European Muslim communities are more “homogenous,” making it far “easier for a single Islamist group to take over.” The UK, where Muslims are mainly of South Asian descent, has the Deobandi Islamist network. In France, the Muslim population is largely of North African origin and hence North African Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood and various Salafi groups, dominate. In Germany, the Muslims are mainly of Turkish origin and therefore “Turkish Islamism has a very strong presence in the country.”
In the U.S., however, competition between the diverse Muslim groups prevents a single Islamist organization or individual from taking charge. In contrast, the tendency for a single Islamist entity in Europe to impose itself on a homogeneous community of Muslims is much easier. “Suddenly, Muslims become a lot more visible in the country because you have a political force driving every public expression of that country’s Muslims.”
Many of these communities are “ghettoized,” and Islamists instigate outbreaks of frequent violence to evoke fear in the local community. Examples of such enclaves are in the suburbs outside Paris.
Beyond demographics, Islamist control over European Muslim communities could not have taken root without the “bad political ideas” of European leaders that “have not come to fruition in the U.S.” In the seventies, a “distinct political idea” emerged that took hold throughout Europe during the eighties and nineties — multiculturalism. Multiculturalism sees citizens not as individuals, but as members of distinct ethnic, religious, or racial communities.
In 1988, following the Salman Rushdie Affair, Deobandi Muslims in the UK, in collaboration with global Islamists, organized riots and burned Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, in the streets of Britain. As these Islamists were the only visible face of British Islam, the government decided to believe they represented British Islam. The local government rewarded the Islamists with money and political power— all in the name of “multiculturalism.”
Over the last three to four decades, multiculturalism has benefitted European Islamists, who have been showered with “hundreds of millions” in funds from the EU, national government, and local councils. This has been “hugely damaging.”
A second contributing factor to the rise of Islamist power in Europe is the lack of an equivalent to America’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. Litigious Islamists, who run rampant filing lawsuits accusing their detractors of “Islamophobia,” bully critics into “self-censorship.” Consequently, Islamists have free rein to instill fear in anyone who will stand up to them because “criticism of a theocratic idea” is not necessarily protected speech in European countries’ legal systems.
In addition, unlike in the U.S., where the separation of church and state provides protections, the intertwining of religion and state in the UK provides an opportunity for Islamists to infiltrate schools and other institutions. Half of British schools are religious schools, or “faith schools.” During the Trojan Horse affair, a 2013 UK scandal, Islamists handily took over religious public schools in their communities and “advance[d] very hardline ideas within their community.” The system that was already in place was exploitable by the Islamists who were “waiting to radicalize local Muslim populations.”
Finally, some argue that mass migration has fueled the growing problem of Islamism in Europe.
The continent is slowly realizing that the large number of terror cases absorbing their security sectors is the result of four decades of ignoring moderate Muslims, who warned authorities of the Islamist takeover in their own communities.
In recent years, Britain, Germany, and France have begun to act. In a 2011 speech, then-Prime Minister David Cameron said that Europe focused primarily on the jihadist threat, but ignored the threat of non-violent Islamists who inculcated the same hatred for the West within the continent’s Muslim communities. Angela Merkel, former chancellor of Germany, expressed alarm that multiculturalist policies were not working. France, meanwhile, passed legislation to reduce Islamist influence among French Muslims by shuttering mosques and deporting imams. Britain is now taking a positive step by revising its flawed counter-extremist program. [Read the Middle East Forum critique of Britain’s “Prevent” program on pages six through eight of “Rethinking Counter Extremism.”]
Work remains to be done. Britain and other European countries continue to work with radicals and appoint Islamists to political positions, or distract themselves from focusing on the actual threat with endless discussions about “Islamophobia.”
Despite the widespread perception by Americans that Islamism in the U.S. has “disappeared,” it would be a mistake to believe it has lessened here and is only a European concern. While European Islam is “visible,” non-violent Islamism in the U.S. is pernicious and strong. It exploits the language and processes of democracy to undermine democratic ideas and institutions.
“America still has an enormous Islamist problem and just because the jihadist threat appears to have lessened, it will be an enormous mistake to assume that the Islamist threat more broadly has lessened. It is still there, but now it operates under the cover of lawful behavior almost entirely.” Even Salafis, “once a reliable provider of jihadists, are now setting up lawful institutions and getting involved in politics and setting up enormous networks of institutions that move millions of dollars through their coffers.” A decade ago, many Islamist groups would have refused to work within Western systems, believing it to be a betrayal of “fundamental Islamic ideas.” Today, almost all Islamist movements in the U.S., including the “quietist” ones, have “embraced” America’s 501(c) non-profit approach by “manipulating Western systems in order to exploit them and eventually destroy them.”
Although security services in the U.S. lack the concerns about ghettoized communities and jihadist plots that preoccupy European agencies, America’s non-violent Islamism is proceeding more rapidly with the “changing politics” of American Islamism. Operating “under the cover” of increased Islamist influence in American media, Islamist money in U.S. politics, and an increasing number of Islamist politicians, city councils such as Hamtramck, Michigan, are being taken over by Islamists, and Muslim areas of Minneapolis, Minnesota, have become radicalized. By using financial “grant-making foundations,” as well as “Sharia banks,” Islamists are moving hundreds of millions of dollars through its systems as part of the “Islamic economy.”
Non-violent Islamism’s success in America is serving as a model for foreign Islamists seeking to develop extremism in their own regions, thereby making the U.S. a “major exporter of Islamism” abroad.
The new prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, is a graduate of the Virginia-based Islamist Safa Network. He is propagating ideas taken from U.S. Islamist think tanks and exporting them to Malaysia. Islamists are thus using the U.S. as a terror financing hub for money laundering and the export of “dangerous theocratic ideas.”
“Jihad will once again come to America’s shores. Such Islamism will not remain lawful forever, but this lawful, non-violent Islamism will do its own damage.” It is found in whole suburbs in Chicago, while New York City neighborhoods are radicalizing and “South Asian terror finance networks” are active in Houston. It is disheartening that the political and media sectors ignore these red flags. While there are other global threats to discuss, it is short-sighted to be “complacent” about the threat of Islamism here in the U.S.
There are numerous past examples that show that Islamist advances through legitimate means are “a temporary measure.” Deobandi groups in the U.S. are becoming wealthier and growing more powerful, not unlike the Deobandis in the UK, who have contributed greatly towards the domestic terrorism threat.
Moreover, there is a growing number of Islamists who are losing patience with lawful Islamism. Their increasing anger can easily turn into action. Westrop believes that “America should see Europe and its troubles as a harbinger of problems for the U.S. in the future.”
(The article was published on Meforum.org on April 28, 2023 and has been reproduced here)
