Islam is incompatible with modern technology.
The massacre in Paris this week of French staffers at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, perpetrated by armed, masked Islamist cowards, is simply the latest in a long string of events that underscore this sad reality. To make the connection, though, we must examine the nature of technology itself.
This column, “Technocracy,” examines the intersection of technology, culture and individual rights. Modern technology spans all of the modern conveniences we use, yes, and can involve anything from the smartphones and tablets that now dominate our lives to the medical technology that extends them to the overpriced automobiles we drive and the handguns in our waistbands. But much more salient to any discussion of technology in the modern age are the ways in which technology is taken for granted, the myriad answers to the questions “how” and “why” modern invention influences or shapes our sociopolitical and cultural interactions – often unnoticed, insidious and pervasive.
If there is an overwhelming connecting theme to technology’s influence on culture today, it is immediacy. Connected as we are to each other (even as, arguably, the detachment afforded by countless relationships conducted solely or predominantly through screens connected by networks of networks is greater than ever), our ability to propagate our opinions and influence each other is staggering. Every celebrity who uses the micro-blogging site Twitter is only 140 characters away from effectively ending his or her career. Anyone who uses Facebook is an ill-conceived photo post away from losing his or her job. We can make friends in seconds with people from all over the world … and offend them with our opinions just as quickly.
It is a running and oft-repeated joke: If you met someone from 100 years in the past, what could you tell them that would most amaze them? The punchline is some variation of the following: “I carry in my pocket a device capable of accessing, almost instantaneously, the sum total of all of humanity’s knowledge and art. I use it to look at pictures of cats.”
We have all seen someone fly into a rage when confronted with an opinion they did not like. These outbursts cause sudden and immediate ends to friendships online, roil families whose members share Facebook connections and emphasize the reality that you must have a thick skin and at least a moderate amount of patience if you wish to interact with other people through social media. If you are too brittle to cope with dissent, if you cannot abide any opinions with which you disagree, if your reaction to any and all opposing views is to spew irrational hatred, you shouldn’t be “on the Internet” (terminology that is rapidly aging, and not gracefully, as we take for granted an always-on link between ourselves and a worldwide grid of Internet access).
This brings us to Islam, a religion we have been told at nauseating length is peaceful and beautiful. We are told this by people apologizing for the ceaseless parade of mass murders perpetrated by adherents to Islam. We are told this by people defending totalitarian Muslim theocracies in which human rights are all but nonexistent. We are told this by people who think there is no moral difference between religious wars conducted centuries ago and Muslims today cutting off people’s heads in streaming Internet videos.
Islam is not compatible with the modern world. Islam is a death cult, a socio-political control scheme masquerading as a religion whose only spirituality is conquest and whose only public expression seems to be murder (or forbearance therefrom). As the saying goes, a radical Muslim wants to kill you – and a moderate Muslim wants a radical Muslim to kill you. We are told, over and over again, that the hundreds of thousands of Muslims out there who either actively support or individually commit acts of terror are not typical of the religion. Yet Muslim voices are invariably lacking vigor when it comes to denouncing these acts. Usually, we are fed some variation of, “Well, we of course would never condone murder, but you shouldn’t have provoked them.”
The immediacy of modern technology is the exchange of ideas at the speed of thought. It is to be confronted by, saturated with, perhaps even overwhelmed within a sea of human opinion. That is the “social” in “social media.” It lies at the heart of modern interconnectivity. Without people, there is no social media. Without connections to other people, there is no reason for the Internet. Modern technology is the expression of our cultural union, with and without our consent. Small wonder it is, then, that so many of your friends complain about and threaten to leave various social media platforms … only to be sucked back in by the relationships offered therein.
But Muslims will murder you for your opinions.
London-based Islamist Anjem Choudary, who is “a Muslim who believes that Islam is something we must believe in (Tawheed), live by (Shariah) and struggle and sacrifice for (by way of Daw’ah and Jihad),” wrote, almost before the bodies at Charlie Hebdo were cold, that “Freedom of expression does not extend to insulting the Prophets of Allah, whatever your views on the events in Paris today!” He closed his tweet with the hashtag #ParisShooting, you know, so none of you filthy infidels would miss it, “whatever your views” on Muslims’ mass murder of nonbelievers might be.
Choudary is just one Muslim, but he is a brilliant example of what is wrong with the religion as a whole. Muslims cannot agree to disagree. They cannot abide dissent. They refuse the exchange of information, culturally and socially. Oppose them and they will kill you. Accuse them of being intolerant and they will kill you. Complain that they are violent and they will kill you.
Islam is incompatible with modern technology because Islam is incompatible with the Western world. The two cannot, nor will they ever, peacefully coexist. How many more people shall we allow them to murder before we, their infidel victims, acknowledge their war on us?
Media wishing to interview Phil Elmore, please contact [email protected].
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