Islam has bloody borders, as the late Samuel Huntington famously said. Kenya is one of those border areas: although not a Muslim country (an estimated 8%-10% of the population is Muslim), it is subject to sporadic outbreaks of jihad-related violence.
Last year’s Westgate Mall massacre was the jihad attack that brought the situation in Kenya into public awareness. But Muslims were massacring Kenyan infidels before Westgate, and they have continued since then.
Although Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks in Kenya, the Kenyan president maintains that local Kenyan mujahideen were responsible. If you get your news from the Beeb, however, you won’t hear even a whisper about JIM.
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this BBC news report:
The Washington Post is not so coy. Below are excerpts from a detailed article about the jihad being waged against non-Muslims in coastal Kenya:
Kenya president blames locals for deadly attacks
NAIROBI, Kenya — The killers in the Kenyan village singled out non-Muslims, shooting them point-blank or slitting their throats, just like the previous night in an adjacent hamlet. A Somali extremist group claimed responsibility but Kenya’s president on Tuesday blamed local political networks for the 60 deaths.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a national address, said evidence indicates that the motive for the killing spree was to evict a community of people in order to grab the land along the coast near the Somali border. He said al-Shabab, a Somali group linked to al-Qaida, was not behind it.
But analysts expressed doubt. Matt Bryden, the former head of the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia, said al-Shabab has never claimed credit for an attack it didn’t carry out.
“It has all the hallmarks of an al-Shabab attack, said Bryden, now the head of Sahan Research. “Secondly, there’s been no sign of a Kenyan group carrying out an attack on this scale or with these tactics.”
In a nearby village, residents stood on top of burned-out vehicles and erected barricades of burning tires to blockade the road in protest against the recent killings and what they claimed was the government’s failure to provide them with enough security. Some residents abandoned another village with their belongings on their heads while armed security forces marched in single file along narrow paths leading through the dense swamp and forest, searching for the killers.
Al-Shabab said Monday that such attacks would continue “as you continue to invade our lands and oppress innocent Muslims.” Al-Shabab gunmen attacked an upscale mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last September, killing at least 67 people in reprisal for Kenya sending its troops to Somalia.
The second night of deadly attacks against a Christian community on Kenya’s north coast seemed designed to try to inflame Christian-Muslim tensions in Kenya, religious and political leaders said.Bearded Muslim leaders conferring inside Nairobi’s largest mosque, a grand white facade nestled among the capital’s high rises, condemned what they called savage acts and ghastly killings and said there was no justification for them.
They warned of a potential sectarian rift.
“The continued violence risks tearing the country apart,” they said, continuing later: “We need to be cognizant of the fact that some of these attacks are aimed at planning seeds of discord and animosity among Kenyans and divide the country along ethnic and religious lines.”
Kenyatta labeled the perpetrators of the attacks as reckless hate-mongers who create intolerance and fanaticism.
“Al-Shabab said Monday that such attacks would continue “as you continue to invade our lands and oppress innocent Muslims.””
I must have missed that Kenyan invasion and occupation of Somalia! Or is it some other Muslim country being referred to?
On further contemplation I now get what Al-Shabab is referring to: Kenyan villagers deserve to be slaughtered because they are infidels and other infidels, white and living in Europe and America, are doing the said “invading” and “oppressing”.
Actually Julius, the Kenyan military has been heavily involved in driving Al-Shabab from much of Somalia. Quite right too, but the terrorists don’t see it that way.
President Kenyatta has overlooked the fact that the first attack in Mpeketoni occurred while people were watching the World Cup. There was another attack last night in northern Nigeria targeting a World Cup screening event.
And the twin blasts in Kampala on 11 July 2010 as people watched the World Cup final, killing 74 and injuring a further 70. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility.
Kenyatta is lying in the same way Cameron lied after the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby and the BBC continues to do on a daily basis.
When I read about trouble in Kenya, I recall a very small but telling incident from several years ago. I happened to be in the home of a nice “moderate” Muslim on a Friday (long story …) when several other Muslims began arriving for a prayer meeting. (The host was a very gentle, cultivated man who could quote French poetry and Shakespeare.)
One of the polite young men was telling another about his travel plans, and he specifically mentioned wanting to visit Kenya. He said nothing of his reasons, and he certainly didn’t appear to be of Kenyan ancestry, but the eager spark in his eyes and the knowing sort of nonverbal response from the other guy left me with an uneasy feeling, as though they both knew the reason and it needn’t be said (certainly not in front of people they may have pegged as infidels). I’ve always wondered if he was going to Kenya to check on the progress of the jihad.
There is no moderate islam. There are no moderate muslims. Either you are a muslim or you are not.
Notice I put “moderate” in quotation marks. But while there may be “no moderate islam,” I don’t think it’s accurate to claim there are no “moderates” who happened to be born into Islam and try to make the best of it.
That Muslim-born host had a British-style education and an obvious appreciation for Western literature; he lamented the decline of theater in modern culture. He had an American (Muslim-convert) wife who dressed indistinguishably from the average non-Muslim woman. He would have long conversations with people he knew to be non-Muslim, making no attempt to push Islam on them. He was born Muslim and (apparently) chose to be a humanely spiritual man within that context.
I’m as critical of Islam per se as anyone, but “there are no moderate Muslims” has become an overly glib cliche. There are a billion-plus people on earth who have been handed their Muslim identity at birth. They are not all evil, and for most of them it’s inconceivable that all their relatives, going back generations, are/were evil for having been born into that same creed. I can well understand that some people would aim to cultivate a genuinely ethical life without abandoning the foundation of their cultural identity. Thus they become “moderate Muslims.” (Nevertheless, I will always be wary of them.)
Addendum: That Muslim man and his wife went out of their way to do a kindness for me, and they were quite aware I was not a Muslim.
The ME Quarterly ran a longitudinal study of American mosques, co-authored by David Yerushalmi and someone else, which showed that 20% of our mosques are NOT radicalized. I’m glad to hear the benign numbers are that high.
I don’t have the link to hand, but if you search using DY’s name and American mosques, or perhaps the ME Quarterly (if I have the title right) you should be able to see that study. Fascinating because they used specific behavioral components. It was NOT subjective. I remember one of the check-off list was the degree to which a given mosque strictly segregated men and women during prayer. Another was how straight the lines of worshippers were as they knelt on their mats. Or on which hand the imam wore his watch…
Regarding the question of ‘moderate’ Muslims:
1. To call someone a ‘moderate’ Muslim, there would need to be a definition of what constitutes a ‘moderate’ Muslim which can be UNIVERSALLY applied – a definition which seems to be conspicuously absent. Note that, even ‘moderate’ Muslims fund the work of immoderate Muslims via consuming halal foods – in addition to donations to local mosques (of which 80% support immoderate Islam).
2. ‘Moderate’ Muslims appear to easily combust into immoderate Muslims.
3. ‘Moderate’ Muslims often raise immoderate Muslim children.
4. ‘Moderate’ Muslims provide cover for immoderate Muslims via a good cop/bad cop dynamic where ‘moderate’ Muslims use the violence of immoderate Muslims as an ever-present implied threat that ‘smart’ Westerners should accede to the demands of ‘moderate’ Muslims which are generally the SAME as the demands of immoderate Muslims (i.e., The West should adopt Muslim culture including holidays, dress, diet, schools, Sharia courts, etc.). Hat tip to Hesperado.
5. It is IMPOSSIBLE for Westerners to discern which Muslims are ‘moderate’ at any point OR which Muslims will combust into immoderate Muslims at a future point OR which Muslims will raise immoderate Muslim children.
6. If you accept ‘moderate’ Muslims, do you also accept ‘moderate’ Nazis, ‘moderate’ Communists, and ‘moderate’ Satanists?
7. If you accept ‘moderate’ mosques, do you accept ‘moderate’ Chinese and Russian military bases within the USA? Do you accept ‘moderate’ Chinese and Russian nuclear submarines stationed in USA coastal waters? The Chinese and Russian militaries use advanced weapons to threaten whereas the Muslims use human weapons to threaten via immigration, reproduction, and immoderation. Different methods, same goal.