Summary: As Trump decides what to do with the Long War, now in its 18th expensive and pointless year, we can turn to one of the leaders of modern jihad for stunning insights that can help us understand the roots of this conflict – and win. Trigger warning: this post contains crimethink.
The foundation of the War on Terror is our knowledge that we are better than them. We are certain that our morals are better than those of fundamentalist Islamic radicals. Although proof cannot be found in this world, science provides an answer. Karl Popper said that successful predictions are the gold standard of science. One of the key philosophers of the Muslim Brother visited 1949 Colorado and saw a people on the road to degeneracy. How does his assessment look seventy years later?
“Sayyid Qutb in America”
By John Calvert in the ISIM Review.
A publication of the International Institute for the Study of Islam.
“The impact of western culture on Islam was clearly foreseen by Sayyid Qutb, Egyptian intellectual and Islamist (1906 – 1966), when studying in 1949 at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, Colorado. Established as a utopian community in 1870 {the Union Colony}, the city proudly maintained in the 1940’s the moral rigour, temperance, and civil-mindedness that were the hallmarks of its founding fathers. Greeley’s highly touted civic virtue, however, made very little impression on Qutb. In his mind, the inhabitants of Greeley, far from representing a kinder and gentler population of Americans, carried within themselves the same moral flaws of materialism and degeneracy that were characteristic of Occidental civilization in general.
“He recounted how he once attended a church dance and was scandalized by the occasion’s ‘seductive atmosphere’. …Qutb’s American writings are laced with such anecdotes, which reveal a strong concern with moral issues, especially concerning matters of sexuality. …”
From Qutb’s The America I Have Seen (1951)
“The American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs – and she shows all this and does not hide it. She knows it lies in clothes: in bright colors that awaken primal sensations, and in designs that reveal the temptations of the body – and in American girls these are sometimes live, screaming temptations! Then she adds to all this the fetching laugh, the naked looks, and the bold moves, and she does not ignore this for one moment or forget it! …
“One night I was in a church in Greeley, Colorado, I was a member in its club as I was a member in a number of church clubs in every area that I had lived in, for this is an important facet of American society, deserving close study from the inside. After the religious service in the church ended, boys and girls from among the members began taking part in chants, while others prayed, and we proceeded through a side door onto the dance floor that was connected to the prayer hall by a door, and the Father jumped to his desk and every boy took the hand of a giri, including those who were chanting.
The dance floor was lit with red and yellow and blue lights, and with a few white lamps. And they danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire …
“America has a principal role in this world, in the realm of practical matters and scientific research, and in the field of organization, improvement, production, and management. All that requires mind power and muscle are where American genius shines, and all that requires spirit and emotion are where American naivete and primitiveness become apparent.
“For humanity to be able to benefit from American genius they must add great strength to the American strength. But humanity makes the gravest of errors and risks losing its account of morals, if it makes America its example in feelings and manners. All this does not mean that Americans are a nation devoid of virtue, or else, what would have enabled them to live? Rather, it means that America’s virtues are the virtues of production and organization, and not those of human and social.” {Emphasis added.}
Sayyid Qutb went home and became an enormously influential Islamic fundamentalist, and a senior officers in the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1966, he was found guilty and hung for involvement in the assassination of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Was he wrong about the West’s morality? Flash forward 70 years. Our news overflows with stories like those in the recent massive expose by the Australian Broadcasting Company. Like the “16-year-old girl {who} was so badly injured attempting group anal sex she now needs a colostomy bag.” Plus the amazing number of stories about female teachers (mostly hot young ones) having sex with students (often 14-15 years old). Such as these recent ones: here, here, and here. Plus this long list from recent years. Everyone has their own favorite stories about our degeneracy, because there are so many. This is a key aspect of Weimerica.
We sliding down the slippery slope. The Left always has a new project for social change. Gay marriage then encouragement of transgenders and now – cuckoldry. With more projects to come after that becomes normalized. What will America and the West look like a generation from now?
- “My wife wants to have a baby but says it won’t be mine.” — Letter to “Ask Ellie” in the Toronto Star.
- “Modern love: When a Boyfriend Joins the Marriage” by Sherry Richert Belul in the “Style” section of the New York Times — “They agreed she could have sex on the side as long as he didn’t have to know about it.”
- “Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says” by Ian Kerner in the “Health and Parenting” section at CNN.
- “It’s time to reconsider polygamy” by Mark Goldfeder, an op-ed at CNN — “Polygamy is back in the headlines.”
Perhaps this is what Qutb saw as our future when looking at that church dance in 1949. He worked to protect Islamic societies from contamination by the West. If he looks down upon us from Paradise, what would he say?
A broader vision of the West seen through Islamic eyes
More from “Sayyid Qutb in America”. See how he saw America and the West – and how he used these insights after returning to Egypt.
“It would be easy to dismiss Qutb’s characterizations of American society as simplistic and even cartoonish. Yet for all of its caricatures and gross generalizations, his discourse on the United States bore a degree of logic, for beneath the exaggerations and historical reductionisms lay a number of truths that discomfited Qutb and other Egyptians. …
“As the British philosopher Terry Eagleton has said …‘However retrograde and objectionable [these might be] they are not pure illusion. They encapsulate, in however reductive, hyperbolic a form, some substantial facts.’ {From Ideology: An Introduction
“Following Eagleton, we may regard Qutb’s discourse on America as providing opposition-minded Egyptians with a motivating mythology for their struggle against {Western} political and cultural forces. …For, Eagleton continues, ‘men and women engaged in such conflicts do not live by theory alone …it is not in defense of the doctrine of base and superstructure that men and women are prepared to embrace hardship and persecution in the course of political struggle.’ They require collective symbols that encapsulate and define their social being.
“Qutb appears to have recognized this fact, if only intuitively, in fashioning portrayals of America that facilitated the setting of community boundaries. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for his later, radical Islamist equation …”
For more detail see Brynjar Lia’s Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri
Why do we care?
First, insights of outsiders can help us better understand our society. As we polarize into bickering tribes, loyal more to tribal truths than a complex and often disappointing reality, outsiders’ insights can shock us into a clearer vision of ourselves. Great things might come of that.
Second, the clash of civilizations is the real post-9/11 conflict. Following the thinking of Sayyid Qutb, some jihadists see jihad asghar (a lesser jihad, jihad of the sword) and jihad akbar (a greater jihad, jihad of the spirit). Western military history shows something similar, where the moral high ground has often been decisive – as it was in both the American Revolution and the Civil War. Understanding and empathy, not bombs and drones, are the keys to victory in our Long War.
Other posts in this series
- How America can survive – even prosper – in the 21st century: a defensive strategy.
- Why we lose wars so often. How we can win in the future.
- Handicapping the clash of civilizations: bet on the West to win big.
- Why the West loses so many wars, and how we can learn to win.
Also see William Lind’s “Strategic Defense Initiative”! For an explanation of what we’re doing now, see What is America’s geopolitical strategy? Spoiler: it’s quite mad.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Islam, and especially these about the long war …
- The Fight for Islamic Hearts and Minds.
- A look at al Qaeda, the long war — and us.
- How I learned to stop worrying and love Fourth Generation War. We can win at this game.
- We are the attackers in the Clash of Civilizations. We’re winning.
Let’s avoid repeating these mad wars …
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