Ivan Rioufol: Starting To Come Closer To Calling Things Rightly —

Here.

Rioufol is pleased with Valls’; speech, though it did not name — at this point it will have to be others to do it — Islam but only “radical Islam.” Nonetheless, others in the ruling party, and in the UMP too, have not mentioned a war being waged even by “radical Islam.” And even better was the word “Jihadism.” It’s a crazy term, for what is “Jihadism” save the desire to, or recognition of the duty incumbent upon all Muslims to, wage the “struggle” or Jihad in order to everywhere remove obstacles to the spread, and then eventually the dominance, of Islam. Rioufol is giving Valls credit for making a further step in the right direction, and he hopes, and suspects, that Valls knows what he is doing. In any case others will make the point: the Jihad is part of Islam, and it is Islam’s True Believers who will always exist, and will always make war on Infidels, and there is no way, either, to predict who will be a lukewarm or indifferent Muslim and then, for a thousand possible reasons, transform himself into a True Believer. And in any case, violent Jihad, the Jihad of terrorism, is only the most sensational form of Jihad, the one that gets attention. The slow steady encroachment upon the laws and customs and understandings and educational systems and physical security of non-Muslims is also Jihad, and has to be resisted at every step.

Rioufol, and the many good comments following, here.