Writing a syndicated op-ed a month after 9/11, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that the terrorist attacks did not disprove his theory that history had come to a kind of end.

There was, he said, no realistic alternative to the spread of democracy and free markets across the world, even though modernity has a western cultural bias. Turning to the Muslim world, however, he added: “But there does seem to be something about Islam, or, at least, the fundamentalist versions of Islam that have been dominant in recent years, that makes Muslim societies particularly resistant to modernity.”

He still concluded that radical Islam was no match for western modernity in the popularity stakes, which is why he titled his article ‘The west has won’.

There may be more people today, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, than there were in 2001, who doubt that Fukuyama got it right. ISIS (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq has been acknowledged as a more dangerous enemy to US power than Al-Qaeda ever was. The democratic movements of the Arab Spring have been everywhere halted.

It might not be due to ‘something about Islam’, though. The prospects for democracy appear bleaker around the world. The authoritarian regimes of Russia and China are cooperating more closely in international affairs. In the west itself, democratic rights are being eroded, in some places faster than others, in the name of national security.

Apart from all this, it’s unclear whether free markets, based entirely on the privatisation of all public goods, can save us from the global environmental crisis.

So, the jury is still out, for a leisurely lunch, as far as Fukuyama’s most famous idea is concerned. But the minor idea – ‘there’s something about Islam’ – has been a much more successful meme.

In fairness, Fukuyama is only one of a broad stream of US conservatives who have popularised it. The meme predates 9/11 and has various incarnations. Given the anniversary and the horrific news from Libya, Syria and Iraq, it’s replicating furiously.

But what’s the meme’s relationship to the truth? Let’s look at two of its major popular versions.

First, there is the complete untruth: a false statement picked up and repeated endlessly by commentators (often, US conservatives) and web sources until it begins to have the force of truth.

Most prominent is the claim that no Islamic authorities have condemned the barbarities committed by ISIS. Thirteen years ago, the accusation was that no Islamic authorities condemned the9/11 attacks.

The point is to show that, even if the terror in Islam’s name is committed by a violent fringe, it has the collusion of a much larger silent group, perhaps evena majority.

But the claim was false in 2001 and it’s false now. Back then, the list – yes, someone bothered to compile it – of the various personages condemning the attacks filled several pages; in some cases, Quranic and Sharia-based reasons for were given forthe condemnation.

Today, Islamic authorities and leaders around the world have condemned the crimes committed by ISIS; not just the savagery against fellow Muslims but also those against Christians.

The leaders include the secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which represents 57 countries, the International Union of Muslim Scholars and the top clerics of Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (the latter declaring the members of Al-Qaeda and ISIS to be apostates and the “number one enemy of Islam”).

Somewhat lower on the rungs of Islamic authority, Malta’s Imam Mohammed al-Sadi has also condemned ISIS (and, earlier, also al-Qaeda).

It doesn’t seem to matter, though. One can still read online comments posted beneath ISIS news items that no one’s heard a peep yet from al-Sadi and that he hasn’t done enough to distance himself.

Democratic rights are being eroded in the name of national security

Such people will probably not be satisfied until they receive, in the post, together with the supermarket discount offers, a declaration on coloured glossy paper from the imam. And maybe not even then.

Because it’s not the truth that matters but the prejudice. If a barmy evangelist preacher burns copies of the Quran in the southern US, no one demands that the Pope, or even the conference of US bishops, Catholic or Protestant, distance themselves from him.

Nor are they required to put clear blue water between themselves and that twig of US Christianity that believes that the State of Israel should be supported so that it can trigger the apocalypse and, thus, hasten the Second Coming.

If Muslims had to follow the logic of the meme – and some alas do – they would be alarmed at the number of US conservative pundits, urging more military engagement against the Muslim world, who also preen themselves on their Christian credentials.

The second variant of the meme is based on half-baked news. To be more precise, news events that are not followed up to take in the whole story. ‘News’ about the inability of Muslims to become loyal members of European societies generally fall into this genre.

Take the example of Luton, England. Some years ago it became a byword for Islamic extremism, having seen street demonstrations by Muslim radicals calling for the introduction of the Sharia, with the leaders explicitly rejecting any loyalty to UK law.

The news is true but the picture is hardly complete. Stacey Dooley, a Luton girl born and bred, was shocked to hear what was happening to her hometown, which she had left some years earlier in a completely different state.

She returned to make a documentary, interviewing the radicals, ordinary members of the Muslim community and other friends of hers, including the leader of the English Defence League, founded as part of the backlash.

Dooley was scandalised by what she heard said during a radical Muslim demonstration. But, as she herself testified, the demonstration that was hogging the media limelight attracted fewer than 100 people, men and women, of Luton’s 30,000-strong Muslim community.

In making the documentary (now available on YouTube), she also came across an NGO, founded and run by Muslims, to educate the youth whose profile made them vulnerable to the seductions of radical Islam. The threat was treated the way other NGOs treat vulnerability to drugs or a life of crime.

What her documentary didn’t pick up, since it happened later, was how the Muslim radicals were driven off their street corner by a section of Luton’s Muslim community itself, which, in its vast majority, has no quarrel with British law and order.

And this is only one example. None of the notorious news stories usually cited as demonstrations of Islam’s fundamental incompatibility with European culture – usually events in Holland, France, or Denmark – stand up to close scrutiny of the full chain of events.

But, surely, mustn’t there be something about Islam, with all the wars breaking out in its lands? There’s certainly something about the greater Middle East.

It’s the recipient of the largest flow of western military arms. And it’s impossible to understand what’s going on there without taking into account US and European involvement, including support for regimes that suppress democratic movements.

Maybe, after all, there is indeed something special about Islam. It has a spellbinding capacity to make otherwise rational Europeans forget all they know about the workings of states and empires, politics and interests, double standards and informed comment.

ranierfsadni@europe.com

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