This blog along with a number of other commentators have written before about the issue of converts to Islam and their propensity for actual or planned religiously inspired violence. This is a phenomena that I do not recall or cannot find evidence of being associated with converts to any other faith. It is only rarely or ever that you find those who convert to Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism being caught out wanting to carry out acts of violence in the name of their new religions. It is unfortunately, all too common an occurrence among those who choose Islam as their religious path.
This difference between the levels of violence among those who choose Islam and those who choose other more peaceful faiths can partially be explained by the nature of Islam itself, which is a violent and supremacist ideology and the fact that ideologies of violence attract violent people. The encouragement to violence which is found in Islamic scripture and in Islamic culture becomes the spiritual home of choice for those with either a record for or a propensity for violence. Violent people find that their proclivities are more in tune with Islam than they would be in Christianity or Judaism or any other generally peaceful belief system.
The latest presumed convert to Islam to be identified as a potential violent threat has been uncovered in Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States. According to a report in Breitbart a man claiming to be a Muslim but born with a non Muslim name, which suggests he is a convert, was arrested in order to prevent him carrying out a bomb attack on a US Independence Day parade. Demetrius Nathanial Pitts came to the attention of the security services in the United States after making statements online backing Al Qaida, expressing approval for Islamic punishments such as amputations and talking about giving toy cars packed with explosives to the children of American service personnel. Pitts ended up being brought into contact with undercover FBI agent because of these previous statements and it is whilst in conversation with the agent that Pitts expressed a desire to attack Fourth of July parades in Cincinnati and in Philadelphia.
If the story that is being relayed by Breitbart is correct, then Pitts could have ended carrying out a most terrible atrocity in the name of the violent ideology of Islam. It’s equally possible that Pitts could be a mere fantasist but the FBI could not be sure about that. Pitts had had a record for making violent statements and had an ‘extensive’ history of real world violence, the combination of which is probably what brought him to the attention of the authorities in the first place.
This case, along with the other similar cases worldwide of converts to Islam who turn to violence, should be the wake up call that we all need as to the true nature of Islam. Genuinely peaceful religions, of which there are many, do not have anything like the number of new members expressing the desire to murder those outside of their faith than is found in those who choose Islam.
Because of this propensity for new Muslims to be violent or espouse violence, it is eminently sensible that civilised peoples are suspicious of those who choose Islam as a religious path. We should treat those who choose Islam as a religious path with caution and with a similar level of opprobrium as we would treat those who choose Stalinism or Hitlerism as a political path.
