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Survival Skills Title: 19 million Muslims for jihad ...and that's just in Indonesia 19 million Muslims for jihad ...and that's just in Indonesia By Michelle Malkin · October 15, 2006 10:00 PM First, read the latest headline: One in 10 Indonesia Muslims back violent jihad: poll The details: Around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims support jihad and justify bomb attacks on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali as defending the faith, a survey released on Sunday showed. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 220 million people, 85 percent of whom follow Islam, giving the Asian archipelago the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. "Jihad that has been understood partially and practiced with violence is justified by around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims," the Indonesian Survey Institute said in a statement. "They approved the bombings conducted ... in Bali with the excuse of defending Islam," it added, saying the percentage of such support "is very significant." While the vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims are relatively moderate, there has been an increasingly vocal militant minority and political pressure for more laws that are in line with hardline Muslim teachings. The poll surveyed a random sample of 1,092 Muslim men and women. Now, some quick math: 220 million Indonesians. 85 percent of them Muslim. 1 in 10 of those Muslims support suicide bombings to "defend their faith." (As Robert Spencer notes, "that's just those who are willing to tell a pollster something that they would know the government would not likely be happy to hear.") So, that's 19 million Muslims for violent jihad in "moderate" Indonesia alone. Another survey published over the summer underscores the myth of "moderate" Muslim Indonesia. The Washington Times editorialized: More than two-thirds of Indonesians favor the country's current secular system of law, according to a privately funded nationwide survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle, a pollster. If that seems like good news, read it this way: This means there are "only" about 82 million Indonesians who favor Shariah. Approximately 216 million out of Indonesia's approximately 246 million inhabitants, or nearly nine-tenths of the population, are Muslims. And while Indonesia's religious and cultural climate is justifiably regarded as moderate in comparison to much of the rest of the Muslim world -- and its government is a very useful ally against terrorism -- the numbers still leave plenty of room for concern. Just over two-thirds of respondents disapprove of the death penalty for those who renounce Islam, according to the survey, which was first reported by Rupert Murdoch's http://www.news.com.au. More than three-quarters of Indonesians disapprove of mandatory head scarves. Nearly two-thirds oppose stoning for adultery. More than 75 percent are against severing the hands of thieves. When the aggregate numbers of people are factored in, the study looks considerably more disturbing. If one-quarter of Indonesians favor cutting off the hands of thieves, it suggests that upwards of 60 million Indonesians favor the practice. If roughly 164 million Indonesians oppose stoning adulterers, it means that more than 80 million favor doing so. Add those jihadi-endorsing and sharia-embracing masses to these Muslims polled in Britain in July: 13% of British Muslims think that the four men who carried out the London Tube and bus bombings of July 7 2005 should be regarded as “martyrs” 7% agree that suicide attacks on civilians in the UK can be justified in some circumstances, rising to 16 per cent for a military target 16% of British Muslims say that while the attacks may have been wrong, the cause was right 16% would be “indifferent” if a family member decided to join al-Qaeda and two per cent would be proud And toss in these European Muslims polled by Pew in June: Small minority? Only if you use Dhimmi Math. *** As Mark Steyn emphasizes in his superb new book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (launches tomorrow), it's the demographics, stupid. While the West hyperventilated about overpopulation, the Muslim world got busy. In 1970, Steyn points out, developed nations had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world: 30 percent to 15 percent. By 2000, they were on par with about 20 percent. And things ain't looking up, fertility-rate-wise, for the non-Muslim population. Coupled with the decline of the modern social-democratic state and what he calls "civilizational exhaustion," those numbers spell trouble. Steyn: You don't have to subscribe to the view that every Muslim is a jihadist nutcake eager to hijack a 747 and head for the nearest tall building to acknolwedge that at the very minimum these population trends put a large question mark over the future. Linda Frum interviewed Steyn for the National Post and this q and a says it all for me (my daughter is six, too): LF: Your book is very gloomy. After I read it, I glanced over at my three-year-old daughter and was filled with fear for her future. MS: Well, I'm in this for the three year-olds. My youngest child is six now, but my little girl and your little girl, when they're our age, they will find a large number of places in what we think of as the free world, the developed world, far less congenial than we would. I mean, you and I would think nothing of hopping on a plane, going to London, Paris or Berlin. Those are going to be very uncomfortable places for a young, middle-aged Western woman circa 2020, 2030, and it's precisely because we've taken for granted this very unusual period in history. We take it for granted that it's a permanent state of affairs. It isn't. It requires incredible vigilance and incredible effort to preserve it. And, as Steyn writes in his book, it starts with a simple decision: Americans and other Westerners who want their families to enjoy the blessings of life in a free society should understand that the life we've led since 1945 in the Western world is very rare in human history. Our children are unlikely to enjoy anything so placid, and may well spend their adult years in an ugly and savage world unless we decide that who and what we are is worth defending. Nineteen million Muslims in Indonesia alone have made up their minds. Is it already too late for us? *** Hard thinking about hard solutions brings me back to Diana West's call for an anti-sharia agenda. Re-read the whole thing. See also some of the sobering comments of British Army General Sir Richard Dannatt (via Jihad Watch). *** Final note: You've heard the latest excuse for The Religion of Perpetual Outrage, right? Yep. Olympics Rage! Cue up that R.E.M. video.
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