Alinsky, Islam And Radical Rules

by Nonie Darwish

Much has been said about Saul Alinsky, but no one noticed the similarities between his ‘”rules for radicals” and Islamic values and law (Sharia). Alinsky’s rules were written to Western radicals and that is why his rules, which encourage revolution and deception, never went as far as the radicalism in Islamic law. The two ideologies, however, are ‘kindred spirits’ with similar tactics and goals regarding how society should interact, structured and divided, especially in regards to the topic of attaining power and wealth creation.

Both Islamic and Alinsky’s rules view power and wealth not as something to be created and developed within an individual or a group but to be seized in a hostile take over from others who are perceived as ‘enemies.’ Followers of these two seemingly different ideologies are encouraged to view their own power to be in the hands and control of others and lack of power as due to someone else having taken it away from them. Like a ball, power is to be forcefully snatched from other team member.

Both Islam and Alinsky view the world as ‘friends’ and ‘foes’, ‘us’ and ‘them’ or the ‘have-nots’ and the ‘haves’. They both believe the end justifies the means, use shaming and stifle free speech and they especially avoid an honest debate. Both Alinsky and Islam demonize those they disagree with instead of treating them as an honest opposition. Both regard hating the opposition as honorable and have no problem spreading misinformation and trickery to achieve their goals.

Both practice fake sympathy towards groups they use as victims to seize power. In the case of Islam, Muslims have fake sympathy towards Palestinians whom they want to continue the ‘struggle’ even if it’s at the expense of their own destruction as a healthy society. In the case of Alinsky followers, their fake sympathy is towards inner city blacks and other minorities. They claim they want to help and lift them up, but instead they have turned the inner cities into an unlivable war zone.

Such hostile political and social environment between groups makes it essential to create an external antagonist (common enemy) to achieve unity, to be the glue that holds the ‘us’ together against ‘them’. Unity of Muslims against the enemies of Allah is similar to the unity of inner city poor under their ‘race bait leaders’. Islamic rage and leftist rage are similar in that both are derived from envy and hatred rather than a sincere wish to uplift the needy and succeed.

Sharia highly regulates seizure of power from infidels who must never rule over themselves and especially over Muslims. The common enemy in Islam is called Infidel or “Allah’s enemy” and Allah’s enemies are non-Muslims and also Muslims who do not conform to sharia law and refuse to enforce it on others. One example is when a Muslim treats Jews and Christians equal to Muslims and objects to Islamic laws that command their treatment as second class citizen. Such a Muslim by name only must never be in power.

Both Alinsky and Sharia law demonize those who disagree with them, and use ridicule as tactic. Arab culture is known for its use ridicule, pride and shame as tools of control at all levels, from child rearing to the highest office in the land. Followers of Alinsky and Islam constantly spread lies, fear and ridicule of the perceived enemy. This is one of Alinsky’s rules: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Conservative Blacks or those who have a different opinion are called ‘uncle Tom’ and often face extreme discrimination and abuse by their own community.

Neither Islamic nor Alinsky’s teachings focus on achieving power and wealth through creating it or producing goods and/or services that are needed in the market place nor does it advocate building power through self-reliance, discipline and self-control. Alinsky focuses on seizing power through non-stop agitation, boycotts, shaming, rent-a-mob, labor strikes and use of deceptive and dramatic stunts and threats.

Alinsky and his followers often speak of revolution and civil unrest against the establishment. That is similar, but not as extreme as Islamic culture where the solution to any problem is revolution, counter-revolution, assassination, coup d’tat or intifada.

From the inception of Islam, the way to wealth creation and power were to be achieved through conquest and force (jihad) to seize power from enemies. Muhammad rewarded Muslim fighters with wealth “spoils of war” seized from the Infidels after they were killed: “Allah guarantees that He will admit the ‘mujahid’ in His cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safety with rewards and war booty” (Bukhari 4:52:46). The last ten years in Muhammad’s life were nothing but a series of battles and attacks on others to expand his power and acquire wealth—goods, land, homes, and slaves—from his enemies.

Muhammad utilized the poor Arabs of Medina as fighters whom he lured with promises of power and wealth. He destroyed, burnt, enslaved and beheaded his way to wealth through seizing it from his victims, whom he called “kafirs.”

Prominent Egyptian sheikh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni gave a recorded lecture on how Muslims’ financial difficulties are due to the fact that they have abandoned jihad, meaning seizing wealth from others. Wealth through conquest according to his teachings is the most honorable economic model of success. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, all the wealth in Kuwait, that could be removed, was taken by the Iraqi soldiers. That was sharia-approved behavior.

Alinsky’s model of success does not openly call on killing the opposition as Islam, but is still more similar than different. One of Alinsky’s predatory rules is: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” to “Keep the pressure on” and to use threat, fear and terror: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself” he said. The life of an Alinsky follower must be devoted 24/7 to hating and ‘lying in wait’ to seize power from the opposition. In other words, Alinsky advocates dehumanizing the enemy, who is a member of one’s larger community. He advocates use of all necessary weapons, to enjoy tactics of ridicule and shaming, to get your enemy to live up to different rules, treat it differently from your own group, use trickery and keep constant pressure to extract your power. That is Hell, a destructive and sick place to be, but Alinsky seems not to mind it at all.

It was not difficult for anti-Semitic Muslims to get Western Leftists to join them in “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” against Israel. In fact Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is nothing new when it comes to Arab tactics against their enemies and has been Arab League Policy against Israel for around 70 years now.

Just as Muslim leaders who don’t abide by sharia are called ‘infidels’ who should be forcefully removed from office, Western leaders who don’t abide by Leftist Alinsky rules are called ‘racists, Hitler or Mussolini’ who deserve to be impeached or remove from office. That is the situation in America today after decades of Alinsky rules applied by Leftists.

In 1970, Time magazine wrote, “It is not too much to argue that American democracy is being altered by Alinsky’s ideas.” And altered it was for 60 years where generations of Americans adopted Alinsky’s rules for radicals. Alinsky has been the model that today’s Democrat Party has modeled its policies and principles upon. Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, as well as inner city minority leaders, have applied Saul Alinsky’s tactics and strategy for almost six decades, but with nothing or little to show for.

Both Islam and Alinsky don’t seem to mind at all the emergence of a divided and antagonistic society; the constant in-your-face agitation, distrust, deception and even rebellion and revolutions. The social and political turmoil resulting from such antagonistic environment, where one group is pitted against another to seize power, could never result in the stability and prosperity for anyone. Both Alinsky’s and Islamic radical rules have failed to create prosperous, cohesive and peaceful societies.

Neither Islam nor Alinsky thought of the unintended consequences of a society that practices tribalism and that divides itself into groups of ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ and where the solution to everything is a strike, schemes against the rich, raising taxes, rebellion, threat and abuse of the legal system. Such fractured societies will never be prosperous and will eventually bring down any prosperous nation. America’s inner cities who applied Alinsky’s rules of constant agitation, blackmail and civil unrest have become worse than many third world countries especially in their crime rate. They are crying for help but the people who claim to represent them are not listening.

Comparing Alinsky’s rules to Islamic law is something liberals need to ponder on and examine whether the tribalism and divisiveness have accomplished their dreams or a nightmare.

First published in the Geller Report.

Nonie Darwish, Author “Wholly Different; Why I Chose Biblical Values Over Islamic Values”