by Arkadijus Vinokuras

It’s at least 13. ISIS, the Islamic State. In 2003 it was a small, insignificant cult, but today it occupies a territory larger than the United Kingdom, rules over six million people and has an army of about 100,000 soldiers. What is ISIS’s religion? Islam. And what is the religion of the other terrorist organizations Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram and Shehab? Again, Islam.

All of these organizations taken as a whole have another 100,000 armed soldiers. Hamas rules about two million residents of Gaza. Hezbollah has become part of Lebanese society, a state within a state. Iran, a theocracy with sixty-six million residents and about one million soldiers, is the primary supporter of terrorism in the Near East. What is Iran’s religion? Islam. Not to mention the other Arab states.

All these groups have fostered hate against the West and democratic principles of relations with the mother’s milk, so to speak. More accurately, led by the hand by religious fanatics from birth until a “beautiful” death with explosives about the body. Here, advocates blinded by paper humanitarianism, do not start accusing me of Islamophobia.

Or explain that 1.5 billion Muslims have nothing in common with aggressive Islam. They have nothing in common, but for some reason they aren’t taking to the streets to protest aggressive Islam. At least not in locations where it’s allowed to take to the streets. But those sorts of streets, it seems, are already very rare.

I won’t get involved in theological considerations on the topic of “is Islam really peaceful or not.” That’s just like trying to determine whether Christianity was peaceful from its moment of inception. The fact is that every single Christian who murdered Muslims, Jews, pagans and American Indians considered themselves a peaceful religion and a true Christian. Even when Catholics murdered Protestants and Protestants Catholics. This is what’s happening today in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Africa.

Each of these murderous organizations claims they are the truest adherents of Islam, the real Islam, which even allows them to murder other Muslims, although the Koran seems to forbid this. Except in certain circumstances, of course. Which is plain to see. The very newest blood-curdling attack was the massacre in Paris. The good news is that the ISIS state has finally crossed the line crossed long ago (by murdering twelve Charlie Hebdo journalists and four French Jews in Paris without any consequences), and NATO should finally put their existence to an end. For Europe and NATO not to do this would be the very stupidest path to suicide.

So what is happening now in the Near East is what happened in Europe from our Middle Ages and Renaissance period. Who is the true Muslim, declaring it so with a bullet to head of all who think otherwise. And besides the true and untrue Muslims, the common aggressive enemy of Islam is the West. While the defenders of “true” and “peaceful” Islam try to tell us terrorism has no religion, it’s obvious that not only does it, but that it is supported by millions of Muslim voluntarily or through compulsion.

There is no difference. When Nazi Germany attacked its neighbors, no one paid any attention to who was a Nazi and who wasn’t. Entire German cities with hundreds of thousands of residents were destroyed. Can we all this massacre of Germans terrorism? Of course. But at the same time the facts show that millions of Germans supported Naziism. And those millions worked for the Nazi war machine and for the preservation of their regime. Just as today almost 90 percent of Russians support the criminal Putin regime. If he went crazy and attacked a NATO country, no one would be asking which Russian was to blame and which not.

The facts show the brains of children are washed from the cradle in the name of Islam, and these, with brains washed full of hate for others, identify themselves as the true Muslims. And these aren’t small groups, but a critical mass posing a serious threat to those around them. One cannot close one’s eyes to the fact that for a decade now Europe has tolerated proponents of violent Islam, the Islamic clerics, who have encouraged hatred of our society and of democratic European culture. Today about 4,000 young people born in Europe fight in the ISIS ranks.

From all other countries there are about 24,000 volunteers. Tell them they aren’t Muslims. They’ll shoot you, in the worst case.

Who am I to decide which Muslim is a true Muslim and which is not when they themselves clearly can’t determine that? Is the true Muslim the one in a suburb of Stockholm, Paris or London who keeps “his” women shut up in the family between four walls? Or he who allows “his” women to walk on the street only if she wears a black bag over her head, but who does not call for the murder of Christians? Or the one who is prepared to kill who often kills his own property, his own daughter because she left the house to take a walk with a non-Muslim? Our irresponsible political multiculturalism has done us all an empty favor, including Muslims, Christians and secular European society.

It was because of that, most likely, that, according to famous British thinker Kenan Malik, ethnic and religious immigrant groups were placed in their own drawers and left to their own devices to play according to their own rules, isolating them from modern society.

I would add that not only were they isolated, but that secular European society consented to play according to their authoritarian, patriarchal, aggressive internal religious game rules supposedly out of respect for their cultural identity. I want to stress I am not talking about cultural cosmopolitanism in the true sense of the phrase which enriches any society. Especially those which consider themselves “clean” of influence by other cultures. For that reason I am in favor of Lithuanian aid to the families of Syrian refugees (but not to pretend refugees and adventurists).

Talk that terrorism has no religion is false. It does. And it doesn’t matter which type of religionist justifies terrorism. The objective truth that religion plays an essential role in justifying terrorism cannot be denied in any way.

When a critical mass of adherents to one religion stand entire societies on their heads, occupy territories and propagate fundamentalist religious values which inflame mobs of thousands, to claim that terror has no religion is near-sighted. And it doesn’t matter at all anymore to them whether the religion is distorted or not. That is violent Islam today. One must, of course, comprehend the political and social roots of dissatisfaction with their quality of life of millions of Muslims living in dictatorships, but the fact remains.

There are now only three surgical methods to try to control the situation. First, the destruction of ISIS’s religious and political power and military force. There is no other way. You can be as fanatic as you like, but mass death will truly discourage a good portion of ISIS followers in Europe. Desertion is happening now. Second, an educational “holy” war by moderate Muslims and clerics against violent Islam in their communities. Invite them to the streets, sports arenas and mosques throughout Europe to demonstrate the clear position of the majority and opposition to Islamicists as well as respect for democratic values. This is a prerequisite in Europe at least. And third, it is high time our EU politicians stop supporting political multiculturalism.

And also to stop accusing to the point of absurdity one political figure or country. Swedish foreign minister Margot Walström, for example, reacting to the massacre in Paris, said for some reason that “Palestinians especially, lacking any other solution, choose violence.” Does she perhaps think the massacre in Paris was the work of Palestinian terrorists? In other words, she indirectly implicated Israel and Jews in the Paris massacre.

My reply to the Swedish foreign minister is unpleasant, but here it is: Europe exterminated the Jews who had contributed in all ways to European culture for centuries. Now it has Muslim fanaticism, hatred and a bullet in the head for its endless pragmatism and spineless political multiculturalism.

So Islam, which in the hands of terrorists has become a tool for spreading public hate of others, is now attempting to fill the black hole left in Europe after the Holocaust. We need to open our eyes and, without losing our humanity or respect for humanity, understand that we must resolutely defend our Western democratic values.

In sum. Condolences and our sympathies to the French who died in Paris and to their families. Our sympathies to France. Je suis un Français! And, what a shame, and although it is too late, I say that I am a Kenyan. What does the one have to do with the other? In April of this year Shehab Somali terrorists attacked Garissa University College in Kenya, and brutally murdered 147 students only because they were Christians. The media carried the news but I saw no condolences on the social media. And I was silent. And 30 million European Muslims were silent. And more than a billion Christians were silent. Why?

Translated from the Lithuanian original.