As long as the authoritarian social order in the Western World was intact (prior to around 1960), the Muslim world in the Mideast remained at peace with itself and lived harmoniously with the Non-Muslim world.
The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 brought this to an end as the godless ideology of communism encountered the devoutly religious, strictly authoritarian Muslim world. American leaders entered into a quasi military alliance with Muslim Afghan leaders, like Osama bin Laden, who was believed at the time to be friendly toward America, for the purpose of ridding the country of the Soviets. America’s invasion of Iraq with the objective of eliminating the tyrant, Saddam Hussein, was another military operation that exacerbated social unrest of Mideast countries.
However, more fundamental than these military incursions was the cultural invasion by Western anti-authoritarian life and the impact that it had on people’s lives in the Mideast. Today’s “anything goes” Western society functions as a chronic, emotional irritant to the sexually repressed people of the Muslim population. To make matters worse, people in the West are clueless about the effect that their unconstrained, “free” ways of living have on repressed cultures worldwide. Therefore, without an understanding of the reasons for the transformation of Western society it is impossible to know what is currently happening in the Mideast and why the cultural clash between the two worlds had to happen.
In the West, the shift of the socio-political spectrum to the left resulted in the breakdown of social order and it’s traditional ways of living, particularly in the loosening of its sexual mores. This leftward shift gradually spread and triggered social unrest globally.
The majority of people in the Muslim World belong characterologically in varying degrees to the far right of center. Therefore, the permissive, anti-authoritarian attitudes of Western people on the political left was more intolerable, provocative and shocking to the Muslim people than it was even to other conservative Westerners.
The anti-authoritarian transformation also had a powerful destabilizing effect on the politics of Islamic nations. In some countries (Egypt and Libya), thanks to the Arab Spring, rigid authoritarian governments were toppled domino-like only to be replaced by new regimes of the same kind or worse, while in others (Syria and Iran) the states that had been created during the authoritarian, Colonial period were reorganized largely according to totalitarian lines.
The widespread undoing of Muslim societies in the Mideast brought a flood of Arab immigrants into Europe and America many of whom came from broken homes. The social turmoil and anxiety in Western countries resulting from this forced migration was not simply “the consequence of a civilization’s failure to overcome or accommodate the forces of modernity.”
The key to knowing what happened including the problem of Islamic terrorism is to first have an understanding of the participant’s specific socio-political character structures.
Leftist provocateurs in European countries inflamed a highly volatile situation by insulting Muslim immigrants and the Islamic way of life. In reaction to the threat from the left, Muslims responded in ways that are characteristic for people who are on the political right – viscerally. The intensity of this reaction depended on the degree to which Muslims were located to the right of the socio-political spectrum. The Conservative Muslims to the immediate right of center adjusted and lived quietly in segregated communities according to their ethnic ways. Further to the right, the reactionary Muslims were more anxious and disturbed by what they saw happening around them. Having found their place in the stricter ways of Islam, they struggled to rigidly maintain their traditional ways. Sensing the non-Muslim people as a threat to their way of life, they isolated themselves in an effort to fortify their defenses. Many responded with covert hatred toward Westerners. Their reactionary structure led them to passively or actively gravitate toward supporting Islamic extremists.
For the Islamic fascist on the extreme right, secular law of the Islamic State is inseparable from the religious Islamic law. The Islamic fascist’s feelings of hatred are intensified by the perception of Western social weakness and degeneration. According to their ideology, the Muslim World is in a state of perpetual war with infidels world-wide. As a first step in their grand scheme, the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) which has been renamed “the Islamic State” want to consolidate their control of the Sunni part of Iraq. They are demanding that jihadist groups world-wide adopt (ISIS)’s hard line and join together in a global war against the infidels.
The ultimate goal of the Islamic Fascist is to destroy all democratic institutions and to unify the Muslim people under one caliphate headed by a political and religious leader who is the successor to Mohammed himself. If this caliphate were ever to become a reality, the lives of Muslim people would be under the total control of this Fascist leader.
On a global scale, the Islamic Fascist on the political extreme right in the Muslim world and the pseudo-liberal/communist on the extreme left in the Western world have as their common goal the destruction of human life. Both are emotional plague characters at the limits of the socio-political spectrum. Although they share the same goal they operate differently. Western leaders on the left sow their hatred based seeds of destruction covertly and act subversively. They debilitate America’s military power and passively undermine it’s stature as the leader of the free world. Their goal is to weaken America internally and, at the same time, to support totalitarian regimes hostile to America politically through diplomatic activity. Islamic Fascist leaders on the right are aggressive and impatient. Their impulsive actions are often detrimental to achieving their goal.
The following table summarizes the far-reaching cultural differences and the basis for the ideological clash between the Western and the Islamic worlds:
Western World Islamic World
Rigidly Anti-authoritarian Rigidly Authoritarian
Emancipation of Women Subjugation of Women
Mainstream to the far Left of Center Mainstream to the far right of Center
Sexual Unsatisfaction Sexual Repression
Welcomes Unrestraint Resists Change
Individual Glorified Over the State Islam Glorified over the Individual
Intellectual Armor Predominates Muscular Armor Predominates
Agrarian/industrial Economy Tribal/Agrarian Economy
Emotional Plague from the Left Emotional Plague from the Right
Neither Left Nor Right
The Emotional Plague
Charles Konia, M.D. 