Tawfik Hamid ponders jihad and the perils of euphemism.   

Yes, the word “jihad” has several, including some peaceful, meanings – but that doesn’t change the fact that most authoritative Islamic texts and systems of jurisprudence maintain that its primary meaning is “warfare to subjugate the world to Islam”… And it is simply a fact that jihad, as taught by Sunni Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence, is either a war to defend Muslims or to impose Islam on non-Muslims. It may be uncomfortable to admit these facts – and doing so may run certain risks. But it is true, and the costs of ignoring reality are far higher than the benefits of glossing over it.

Not that this has prevented Islam’s hagiographer-in-chief, Karen Armstrong, from glossing furiously, with claims that, “jihad… for most Muslims, has no connection with violence,” and, “until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam.” By whitewashing the concept of jihad and its fundamental importance in Islamic history, apologists, moderate believers – and those to whom they appeal – are tactically wrong-footed. Moderation so conceived is essentially a sleight-of-hand, and, however well-intended, is at odds with history and Muhammad’s own exhortations to violence. It isn’t enough to pretend that jihad was originated and understood as something fluffy and benign. (In May 1994, when Yasser Arafat called for a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” it wasn’t entirely obvious how such a thing might be achieved by an inner spiritual struggle with no physical connotations.)

Hamid continues,

Islamists are not waiting for “infidel” Americans to define jihad for them; they defined it themselves, a very long time ago. If Muslim leaders wish to insist that the word refers primarily to a peaceful struggle against the self, they have that option. Let them clearly and publicly denounce the current doctrine and establish a new one. That’s the answer – not redefining reality… The movie The Usual Suspects may have put it best: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” One of the most devious tactics used by the Islamists is scaring their enemy out of speaking the plain truth about this virulent strain of Islam, for fear it might alienate or offend millions of moderate Muslims. But this ensures that no one will directly confront their violent ideologies and the books that contain them.

Revisionists like Armstrong would have their readers believe that jihadist ideology is an aberration of Islam, disconnected from the religion’s history and origins. But jihad – understood as aggressive warfare to advance the spread of Islam – is not some modern invention of bin Laden, or Sayyid Qutb, or al-Wahhab. It’s the invention of Muhammad and his immediate successors, and has been sacralised and codified by centuries of Islamic law. This is jihad as it appears in many Islamic schoolbooks. Mainstream commentaries on the Qur’an, including those by Ibn Kathir, explain in detail what constitutes “provocation” and thus justifies jihad. Kathir, like many others, defines as provocation pretty much anything that hinders the spread of Islam or contradicts its message. Thus, the threshold is so low – and so unilateral – as to enable the aggressor to cast himself as victim. This historical line of thinking explains in part the passive-aggressive tone so common to Islamist rhetoric. 

This accumulation of precedent and theology, and the sacralising of expansionist supremacism, cannot be wished away as some malicious fabrication. It has to be challenged head-on and, if possible, reformed. The theology of the past needn’t define a religion’s future; but it’s hard to see how a more functional form of Islam can be coaxed into existence on an institutional scale without a searching critique of its founder and his behaviour. This is the intimate flaw of Islam; the source of so much dysfunction and extraordinary insecurity. The founder of a religion, his example and the means by which he urged others to propagate the faith are not insignificant details. They influence laws, a worldview and the broader tenor of what follows. And when atrocity and intolerance can be traced back directly to Muhammad’s own deeds and purported revelations, dissonance and dishonesty may be difficult to avoid.

Keith Windshuttle on adversarial culture.   

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Peter Risdon on the cruelty of Polly Toynbee.

One thing, and one thing only, keeps people trapped in the kind of poverty of mind where they don’t feed their children properly even when they could, and shit in their own stairwells. It’s a lack of ownership; a lack of self-reliance. It’s a lack of the very concept of self-reliance. It’s an idea that the mere thought that they should be self-reliant is immoral, evil, callous and cruel.

Elaine McArdle on men, women and work.

An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women – highly qualified for the work – stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else. One study of information technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. A certain amount of gender gap might be a natural artifact of a free society.

And, via Stephen Hicks, some heinous cultural imperialism. 

There are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined. 

It’s oppression, I tell you.

When called on to babysit, I’ve found it helpful, indeed necessary, to have a good supply of felt tips, paper and crayons. The crayons in particular evoke a certain nostalgia. Maybe it’s the pleasing feel of them, the spectrum of colours, or their distinctive, familiar smell.

Here are some things I didn’t know about them. 

In the last 98 years, more than 100 billion Crayola crayons have been made.

And,

The average child in the United States will wear down 730 crayons by his 10th birthday. Kids, ages 2-8, spend an average of 28 minutes each day colouring. Combined, children in the US spend 6.3 billion hours colouring annually.

And,

According to a Yale University study, the scent of Crayola crayons is among the 20 most recognisable to American adults. Coffee and peanut butter are 1 and 2.

An illustrated index of Crayola colours, in alphabetical and historical orders, can be found here. There is, of course, a Virtual Museum of Crayon Collecting, with a section devoted to Crayola products and a helpful essay on how to display your collection of crayon boxes. Some, like Pete Goldlust, prefer to carve their crayons.

See also: The Thrill of Pencils and The Thrill of Carpeting.

Writing on the Guardian’s eco-blog – titled, somewhat presumptuously, Ethical Living – Adharanand Finn touches on another great moral conundrum of our time. 

If you take a bicycle, one of the greenest forms of transport available, and put an electric motor on it, is it still green?

The answer, apparently, is yes.

In the battle to get commuters out of their cars, electric bikes are regularly cited as an eco-option, particularly for those who live too far away from work to cycle, or those with injuries or fitness problems, or those who are just too lazy to cycle. They also get rid of the excuse that you don’t cycle because you don’t want to arrive at work dripping with sweat. One enthusiast even suggested to me that the energy saved by not showering cancels out the energy used to power the bike, making it just as green as regular cycling.

A comforting thought for our cyclist’s friends and colleagues. Sadly, Mr Finn’s 13-mile test ride didn’t go terribly well.

After a while, however, as the motor began to lose its charge, the bike began to struggle. Hills needed pedalling up, and were almost as much effort as on a normal bike – the now feeble pull of the motor being virtually cancelled out by the added weight of the bike. I wouldn’t want to get caught out and about with a flat battery. By the end I was sweating.

Which brings us to the thorny matter of deodorant and the agonies of making the most Gaia-friendly choice. Thankfully, there are numerous eco-conscious personal hygiene products to fret over, including hemp seed oil and, perhaps surprisingly, bicarbonate of soda, which is applied either by hand or with a brush and can be bought by the kilo. However, the most remarkable product is almost certainly Dr Mist, which “flushes out toxins” while healing minor flesh wounds and is described by its makers as “a concept to respect human self-esteem.”

Mr Finn has previously wrestled with the cultivation of a green CV and such pressing moral questions as Are Ceramic Cups Really More Ethical Than Disposables?

As regular readers will know, the Guardian has long been a home to unpleasant political appetites and revolting apologia for murderous idealists of an approved political stripe. The most recent example, though by no means the most dramatic, comes from Peter Tatchell, who recalls, a little too fondly, his youthful romance with Maoism:

In response to the Australian media’s deranged and often racist anti-Chinese propaganda, a few of us organised a ‘Be Kind to Mao Month’, where we promoted the ‘good’ aspects of the red guards’ rebellion against what we saw as the privileged, arrogant and authoritarian communist elite in Beijing.

Over at the Joy of Curmudgeonry, Deogolwulf shares a few thoughts:

Now, I have little interest in what Mr Tatchell’s youthful sympathies were, or in what they are now, still less in what claims he might make for the purity of his intentions. Another political fantasist to add to the pile makes little difference. What interests me is how the ideal of communism has enjoyed so charmed a life in the West, eking out a fanciful existence in the heads of such men, wherein it has remained unsullied by the reality of its application or even of its theoretical expression…

But how is it that anyone can be so brazen as to claim compassion as the very basis of his politics, and yet not bother to find out whether those politics might actually be good for others? To advocate a scheme for the whole of society, and to have made little effort to find out what effects it might have, other than that it makes one feel warm inside, is not to show compassion for others, but rather to show passion for oneself. Here, ignorance may be a defence, though not of any claim to compassion.

Indeed. And there’s something almost surreal about one-time enthusiasts of a blueprint for violation and horror speaking of their former affiliations as if they were simply fashion gaffes or a taste for embarrassing pop music.

The whole thing.