Gregory Davis is also the producer of the feature documentary Islam: What the West Needs to Know -- which has just been released on DVD. (The above link, incidentally, features a discussion between Walid Shoebat, author of Why I Left Jihad. The Root of Terrorism and the Return of Radical Islam. Serge Trifkovic, author of Defeating Jihad, and Robert Spencer, author of Islam Unveiled, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, and Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't).
The following excerpt comes from a FrontPageMagazine.com interview with Gregory Davis. Jamie Glazov conducted the interview.
FP: Gregory Davis, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Davis: Thank you for having me.
FP: So tell us a bit about this documentary.
Davis: The documentary originally came out in 2006 but is now in wider release on DVD. There have been several documentaries done on the subject of terrorism, but none so far that examine the sources of Islamic violence within Islam itself. For the most part, there has been a great effort to keep violence done in the name of Islam and Islam itself separate. In contrast, our movie examines the doctrines and history of Islam with the aim of discovering the roots of Islamic violence and intolerance. We focus on the canonical Islamic texts -- the Koran, hadiths ("reports" of Muhammad's life), and the Sira (or Life of the Prophet Muhammad) -- and how Islam has operated through history. We then move on to the role Islam is currently playing in conflicts around the globe -- from Nigeria, to Sudan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Thailand, etc. -- as well as international terrorism, and what the future is likely to hold.
FP: Why do you think there is so much that the West actually doesn’t know about Islam? Why the impulse to
deceive oneself?
Davis: I think that there are several reasons. The first is a natural if unwarrantable reluctance to face the very uncomfortable reality that there is an entire civilization seeking our subjugation under nothing less than a totalitarian system of government, i.e., Islamic (Sharia) law.
When faced with National Socialism and Communism, the West demonstrated a similar unwillingness to face up to very grim realities. The continued emphasis on a "new world order" in which violence and warfare will be swept into the dustbin of history makes it that much more difficult for people to realize that, far from a coming era of perpetual peace and happiness, we are facing a future of conflict and civilizational struggle.
The second reason I believe is the persistence of the multicultural myth that all peoples, religions, and civilizations are morally equivalent. Despite its manifest absurdity, this idea nonetheless continues to taint just about every public discussion on Islam and throttles any kind of objective analysis of the origins of Islamic violence.
Thanks to multiculturalism, every theory except the obvious one -- that Islamic violence has roots in Islam -- is advanced: that the jihadists are acting out of "frustration" due to "poverty," "disenfranchisement," etc. Such theories are belied by such jihadists as the 7/7 bombers in London, who were native Britons, and the more recent British doctors, who seemed to have plenty to live for in Western society.
And then there is of course someone like Osama bin Laden, a multimillionaire many times over, a father, poet, and animal-lover, who nonetheless is willing to throw it all away in order to follow in the footsteps of Muhammad. The unhappy truth is that the jihadists are, to a great extent, acting from genuine, deeply-held religious conviction.
Invariably, the jihadists are serious, pious Muslims, many of whom recently rediscovered the tenets of their faith. It is an uncomfortable fact for a tolerant society such as ours to acknowledge that sincere religious belief can pose an imminent danger to a society's physical safety. We would be better off discarding "religion" as a term and instead focus on the very real distinctions between religions and their implications. (more)