FROM MOHAMMED TO AYN RAND
IN A SPLENDID FRONTPAGE.COM piece, David Swindle, free lance writer, film critic, and blogger, interviews the former Muslim cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, creator of the fascinating anti-jihadist superhero character Pigman. It's time for Americans to inform themselves, grow bold, and take a stand, each in his or her own way wherever one can against the stealth jihad creeping into every continent on the globe, bringing the promise of sharia law with it. Here's a taste of what Mr. Fawstin is doing in this direction:
DS: What prompted you to abandon Islam? Could you discuss the circumstances behind that decision?
BF: I didn't so much abandon Islam as fade away from it, and I didn't have much faith to lose to begin with. It's tough to say you've left something if you've never really embraced it. Hugh Fitzgerald is right in saying "the atmospherics of Islam" can affect even the least devout Muslim in a detrimental way. A strong thrust within Islam is to see any and all things outside of Islam as worthless, most particularly non-Muslims. When we did go to mosque there was never any real sense that something important was taking place. The majority of us who were involved in this pretense had no idea what to do, unless we followed the imam's prayer moves (and many in attendance were fooling around anyway). "Islam" was the name of the thing that was held as 'the good' in my household, and it was that vagueness which helped keep it at bay. It was only when I started taking morality seriously that I realized Islam had nothing to offer me.
DS: You say that Islam had nothing to offer you. What did you find that did? What are the schools of thought and who are the thinkers who have most influenced you and your work?
BF: I found Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, first by watching the film version of The Fountainhead, and then by reading her novels and nonfiction works. I felt at home reading her work. It was the first time in my life that I saw the concept of morality being taken seriously outside of religion. A morality that was based in reality and had more to say about life on earth, freedom and the individual than anything I had read before. It was only fitting that my favorite storyteller in comics, Frank Miller, was also influenced by her work, as was another favorite of mine, Steve Ditko, who has spent most of his career expressing Objectivist ideas through his work.
DS: Now that we know a bit more of the background behind your work lets discuss some of the specific pieces in ProPiganda and the ideas they depict. One of the most challenging, interesting illustrations in the book is the “They Say We Say” image on page 43. It's an illustration of a point you elaborate on in the book's essays: the enemy is Islam, the so-called moderate Islam of the West is not really true Islam at all. This strikes me as one of the most important ideas in the book. It's also one of the most controversial. Could you elaborate on this idea for those new to your work?
BF: They say Islam, we say anything but Islam, leaving the troubling impression that the enemy's religion is something other than Islam. There is no "Political Islam" or "Totalitarian Islam" that is distinguishable from Islam itself. Islam is normatively political and totalitarian. We have evaded the true meaning of Islam in the name of respect for religion. But we cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. Mohammed was a Muslim and his religion was Islam; he was not an Islamist practicing Islamism. He was a Muslim who practiced Islam and engaged in its violent Jihad, forcing Islam into a world it failed to get into on merit. And any Muslim who is peace-loving and tolerant is by implication condemning their violent, intolerant "prophet" and the means by which their religion was spread. How Islam spread tells us exactly what Islam means. When the moral standard for an entire culture is a bad guy who crossed the line as a way of life, it explains why his most devout followers are the most violent among Muslims. We can try our best to stay clear of Islam, but Muslims have proven that they will never keep Islam to themselves unless they are forced to. It is a faith that sanctions any evil against those who are not part of it. Our not calling this evil by its name, Islam, is sanctioning it and leaving ourselves at the mercy of those who will stop at nothing to bury all we hold dear.
DS: This understanding of Islam would represent a pretty fundamental shift in the American approach to the War on Terror. Currently US policy from the President down has held that Islam is not the enemy, that Islamic terrorists represent a perversion of Islam, and that the US is not engaged in a war with Islam. The ideas of ProPiganda turn that approach on its head, flipping each proposition 180 degrees: Islam is the enemy, Islamic terrorists are merely acting as Mohammad did, and that we actually are fighting a war against Islam. What implications would such a shift in ideas yield toward how the United States deals with this threat? In one of your essays you challenged President Bush for his "quarter-assed response to 9/11." Would it simply be a matter of getting more aggressive? Do we need to fight the War on Terror Pigman style?
BF: If 2,996 American politicians were murdered on 9/11, do you think Washington would have been interested in exonerating Islam and allowing this enemy to kill again? We all know the answer. Our politicians are so disconnected from the American people, that they now do everything but their job. If they can't defend us, they're good for nothing. They think that their job in this war is to win hearts and minds that already belong to Islam. And while they dispassionately wage a war on "terror", not jihad, they allow the two greatest state sponsors of jihad terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Iran, to remain in business. For now, our government goes big on us and small on jihad, while telling us that we are not fighting a war against Islam, even though Islam is fighting a war against us.
Ayn Rand said, "To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true." And the worst is true about Islam, which is why no one in our government challenged Bush's famous anti-reality check, "Islam means peace." We have gone from the terribly named "War on Terror" to the now even more euphemistic "Overseas Contingency Operation," while the enemy has stuck with the same jihad for over a thousand years.
Those who've sworn to defend us have decided that there are more important things to them than defending us. As I wrote in my introduction to ProPiganda, "Our leaders have decided that, while the protection of America is optional, the defense of Islam is absolute." Our government has waged war the way the enemy wages peace and has never given the enemy a reason to end jihad. This enemy has been out for blood for over a thousand years. Obama, following in Bush's compassionate war mode, is hoping that the enemy tires in the face of our unused power. But they will never tire of spilling our blood; this is what they do, what they've always done, and they have always counted on their savagery to help them overcome all odds against those they conquered. So yes, we need to fight the War on Jihad, Pigman style. Above all, we need to follow the truth to wherever it may lead in order to show us what must be done. We need to terrify the enemy by saying and doing the once unthinkable against them and all they hold dear. You will see what I mean in The Infidel.
Read it all.
DS: What prompted you to abandon Islam? Could you discuss the circumstances behind that decision?
BF: I didn't so much abandon Islam as fade away from it, and I didn't have much faith to lose to begin with. It's tough to say you've left something if you've never really embraced it. Hugh Fitzgerald is right in saying "the atmospherics of Islam" can affect even the least devout Muslim in a detrimental way. A strong thrust within Islam is to see any and all things outside of Islam as worthless, most particularly non-Muslims. When we did go to mosque there was never any real sense that something important was taking place. The majority of us who were involved in this pretense had no idea what to do, unless we followed the imam's prayer moves (and many in attendance were fooling around anyway). "Islam" was the name of the thing that was held as 'the good' in my household, and it was that vagueness which helped keep it at bay. It was only when I started taking morality seriously that I realized Islam had nothing to offer me.
DS: You say that Islam had nothing to offer you. What did you find that did? What are the schools of thought and who are the thinkers who have most influenced you and your work?
BF: I found Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, first by watching the film version of The Fountainhead, and then by reading her novels and nonfiction works. I felt at home reading her work. It was the first time in my life that I saw the concept of morality being taken seriously outside of religion. A morality that was based in reality and had more to say about life on earth, freedom and the individual than anything I had read before. It was only fitting that my favorite storyteller in comics, Frank Miller, was also influenced by her work, as was another favorite of mine, Steve Ditko, who has spent most of his career expressing Objectivist ideas through his work.
DS: Now that we know a bit more of the background behind your work lets discuss some of the specific pieces in ProPiganda and the ideas they depict. One of the most challenging, interesting illustrations in the book is the “They Say We Say” image on page 43. It's an illustration of a point you elaborate on in the book's essays: the enemy is Islam, the so-called moderate Islam of the West is not really true Islam at all. This strikes me as one of the most important ideas in the book. It's also one of the most controversial. Could you elaborate on this idea for those new to your work?
BF: They say Islam, we say anything but Islam, leaving the troubling impression that the enemy's religion is something other than Islam. There is no "Political Islam" or "Totalitarian Islam" that is distinguishable from Islam itself. Islam is normatively political and totalitarian. We have evaded the true meaning of Islam in the name of respect for religion. But we cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. Mohammed was a Muslim and his religion was Islam; he was not an Islamist practicing Islamism. He was a Muslim who practiced Islam and engaged in its violent Jihad, forcing Islam into a world it failed to get into on merit. And any Muslim who is peace-loving and tolerant is by implication condemning their violent, intolerant "prophet" and the means by which their religion was spread. How Islam spread tells us exactly what Islam means. When the moral standard for an entire culture is a bad guy who crossed the line as a way of life, it explains why his most devout followers are the most violent among Muslims. We can try our best to stay clear of Islam, but Muslims have proven that they will never keep Islam to themselves unless they are forced to. It is a faith that sanctions any evil against those who are not part of it. Our not calling this evil by its name, Islam, is sanctioning it and leaving ourselves at the mercy of those who will stop at nothing to bury all we hold dear.
DS: This understanding of Islam would represent a pretty fundamental shift in the American approach to the War on Terror. Currently US policy from the President down has held that Islam is not the enemy, that Islamic terrorists represent a perversion of Islam, and that the US is not engaged in a war with Islam. The ideas of ProPiganda turn that approach on its head, flipping each proposition 180 degrees: Islam is the enemy, Islamic terrorists are merely acting as Mohammad did, and that we actually are fighting a war against Islam. What implications would such a shift in ideas yield toward how the United States deals with this threat? In one of your essays you challenged President Bush for his "quarter-assed response to 9/11." Would it simply be a matter of getting more aggressive? Do we need to fight the War on Terror Pigman style?
BF: If 2,996 American politicians were murdered on 9/11, do you think Washington would have been interested in exonerating Islam and allowing this enemy to kill again? We all know the answer. Our politicians are so disconnected from the American people, that they now do everything but their job. If they can't defend us, they're good for nothing. They think that their job in this war is to win hearts and minds that already belong to Islam. And while they dispassionately wage a war on "terror", not jihad, they allow the two greatest state sponsors of jihad terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Iran, to remain in business. For now, our government goes big on us and small on jihad, while telling us that we are not fighting a war against Islam, even though Islam is fighting a war against us.
Ayn Rand said, "To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true." And the worst is true about Islam, which is why no one in our government challenged Bush's famous anti-reality check, "Islam means peace." We have gone from the terribly named "War on Terror" to the now even more euphemistic "Overseas Contingency Operation," while the enemy has stuck with the same jihad for over a thousand years.
Those who've sworn to defend us have decided that there are more important things to them than defending us. As I wrote in my introduction to ProPiganda, "Our leaders have decided that, while the protection of America is optional, the defense of Islam is absolute." Our government has waged war the way the enemy wages peace and has never given the enemy a reason to end jihad. This enemy has been out for blood for over a thousand years. Obama, following in Bush's compassionate war mode, is hoping that the enemy tires in the face of our unused power. But they will never tire of spilling our blood; this is what they do, what they've always done, and they have always counted on their savagery to help them overcome all odds against those they conquered. So yes, we need to fight the War on Jihad, Pigman style. Above all, we need to follow the truth to wherever it may lead in order to show us what must be done. We need to terrify the enemy by saying and doing the once unthinkable against them and all they hold dear. You will see what I mean in The Infidel.
Read it all.
Labels: anti-jihad, Bosch Fawstin, Camp of Islam, cartoonist, jihad, Pigman
posted by Gabriel Thy at 7:13 AM
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