We’ve commented before on the curious fondness so many of our URQ brothers and sisters have for living in a state of tremulous fear. Maybe they’re just adrenaline addicts; maybe they need a bit more actual challenge in their lives. But whatever the reason, they seem to take great delight in imagining themselves to be in constant, personal danger from an evil international conspiracy of Islamist bad guys.
Now, there’s no doubt that there are Islamist bad guys out there in the world, and some of wish us ill. But their capacity to do so is minimal, in part because of enormously heightened internal security across North America, and in part because these movements are largely isolated, poor, disorganized, and under increasing attack from international security agencies.
All life is about risk. We’re at greater risk of dying in a car crash or a lightning strike than by terrorist action. And yet a large percentage of our URQ friends (who presumably step into their cars every day without a tremor) are routinely reduced to a quivering mush by the prospect of their imminent demise in some form or another of “Jihad”. The most fearful seem to be the folks whose websites bristle with screaming eagles and guns and tough names, like kids dressing up as soldiers, apparently unaware that they’re doing precisely what the terrorists want them to do - they’re living in terror. And they get right surly if you suggest to them that perhaps they might be over-inflating the risk a bit.
How do they sustain this ridiculous level of unjustified fear? Well, in part, by affixing the JIHAD label to just about everything bad that could conceivably happen.
The term itself, in Islam, can be used to describe “striving to live a moral and virtuous life”, “spreading and defending Islam”, “fighting injustice and oppression”, and several other things. In fearful URQ-speak, however, it means WAR on ME, conjuring up waves of fiery-eyed, scimitar-brandishing terrorists sweeping down Main Street, Canada on Arabian stallions, impaling women, children, and leftists.
Now, one would think that the relative absence of such activity might tend to diminish the level of fear. Not so. In order to keep the Fear Factor peaking, our friends have done what any good marketing type will do, and introduced new Jihad product lines.
My favourite is the “The Personal Jihad”. This is what happens when a Muslim of any type goes postal, for any reason at all. Omeed Aziz Popal, a guy with a history of mental illness and a recent depression, drove like a maniac through the streets of San Francisco, hitting people. However, his car came to a stop within a half a block of a Jewish community centre. AHA! It was a PERSONAL JIHAD! Lock up your wives and daughters!
But why stop there? Why limit the fear? Heck, there are all kinds of opportunities for working yourself into a great anti-Muslim orgy of terror without the inconvenience of actually getting killed.
And guess what - they don’t actually have to involve Muslims at all! I present for your consideration JIHAD BY ASSOCIATION. When chronically depressed engineering student and bomb fetishist Joel Henry Hinrichs III blew himself up, it was breathlessly proclaimed a JIHAD by the Consperosphere (he had a Pakistani roommate, you know! And let us not forget Mark Lepine, the murderer who killed fourteen women at the Ecole Polytechnique. Yeah, he was baptized and raised Catholic. But his dad, who abandoned the family when Lepine was a kid, was Muslim. Let’s call it GENETIC JIHAD!
May I propose we all be vigilant for instances of VERBAL JIHAD, instances of rudeness from taxi drivers or convenience store clerks who look suspiciously dusky hued and have funny accents?
Or FASHION JIHAD, the vicious assault perpetrated on our society by folks who wear Muslim garb not to our liking? The sky’s the limit.
And speaking of the sky…hey, how about METEOROLOGICAL JIHAD? Every notice that they NEVER have hurricanes in Saudi Arabia? Think that’s a coincidence?
With the right attitude and enough imagination, friends, you can stay terrified for life.
You, Balb, are even now engaged in digijihad at this very moment.
Digijihad can be defined by the use of modern communications techonology like the internet as part of a broader attack on western values in an effort to erode and destroy the very underpinnings of our society.