Why is it that only a tiny minority of Muslims in the Western world take up terrorism?

I wrote a post on the topic above recently.  In reply, a  fellow psychologist has also addressed his mind to the question.  See below:

I think many more Muslims are involved in Jihad than is visible. All things are part of spectrums between extremes, and aggression and Jihad are too. The bulk of Muslims support the few active Jihadis in ways ranging from conscious active support through passive support to the most unconscious subtle encouragement of it.

I think Islam is to Jihad what HIV is to AIDS. One arises from the other, inevitably and automatically, as the fulfilment of its nature. Beliefs are the drivers of individuals and nations. Islam is driven by its beliefs in its scriptures.

Depending on the individual and their place in the collective, the attitudes, thoughts and behaviour resultant from those beliefs may be active or passive, conscious or barely conscious, but is still of the same beliefs, and is made active and conscious in its circumstances, order, or in its turn.

Not every HIV virus is involved in actively destroying the infected body as AIDS, but they are all at least passively involved. I don’t think Islam is a cancer in the body of the west, it is more like a virus, although it eventually makes Islamic no-go zones that are like tumours, its main behaviour is more as a virus waging its war on the body of the West rather than as a cancer as some say Islam is.

Every individual virus by its existence in the infected body is supporting those viruses that are actively attacking the body, because each unit of the virus in its own way is part of the spectrum of activity from most unconscious/subtle activity to most conscious/active. Naturally those virus units most active are the least numerous, but they are being produced and replaced by the lesser active reservoir of viruses from which they come, and which must have greater number.

I think the only solution is to cause Islam to turn against itself. Its leaders must reform it, must make Jihad an individual effort against oneself, against one’s own bad habits and lesser aspects, or against one’s own internal infidels, rather than a group effort against us external infidels. That is the only change that will keep roughly in keeping with the Koran, for that book is always going to drive them.

So far no Islamic leaders are voluntarily stepping up to the plate to do that job, though some like Ayaan Hirsi Ali seem to be preparing the ground. What happens in individuals is reflected in the collective, so, such a movement of individual internal jihad within islam will reflect itself in a division across collective Islam, possibly a greater intra islamic divide or a war which may or may not be fully external/hot.

Their leaders may need severe prompting to do this, and so applying extreme external pressure, even to threaten their survival, may be required. So I agree nuclear bombs may have to be part of the solution as destroying one city after another may indeed be the motivation necessary to turn Islam against itself and bring forward the Islamic leaders it needs to lead it in a reforming direction.

Other pressures may be needed too, or better suited – containment, famine, starvation, disease? But something powerful and clearly death dealing will probably have to be used to motivate them.

They are not smart like the Japanese. Generally, the Japanese's intelligence is stronger than his emotions, his ability to restrain himself is at least as strong as his ability to let loose. The average Japanese can reason, can foresee, and has an internal locus of control.

Muslims/Arabs lack these qualities and abilities. They are generally of low intelligence, their emotions and impulses are stronger than their intelligence and ability to restrain and redirect themselves. Their locus of control is not within their own faculty of conscious choice, of which they are unaware, but is outside of themselves, and they actually believe it is and cannot see it any other way, which is why the males believe their sexual control depends on how females dress, and why they blame others for everything they feel and do.

Whereas the Japanese substantially changed within one generation’s lifespan, I think the Muslims/Arabs are unlikely to do that. The Japanedse were concentrated in their islands and that made change easier.

Muslims are dispersed around the world and millions are across Europe. That could make changing their attitude more difficult and take long time. Civil strife, even civil wars, in western countries between Muslim and non-Muslims could be part of the picture.

Also, and significantly, Leftists of influence in the media, politics, academia, in community work fields,... are currently using Muslims as pawns, as foot soldiers to do their dirty work by proxy, subtly and cunningly encouraging and manipulating Muslims towards their worst, bring out in them their propensity towards resentment and envy, and subsequent hostility towards the West, which extreme leftists want to see fall.

The Japanese didn’t have Leftists smarter than themselves manipulating them and trying to undermine their change for the better. Any persuading force applied by the West upon Islam to prompt its change is going to have to come from a West that has largely silenced its Left or is unaffected by its Left – perhaps a temporary excursion to the Right, even by the Left, which the Left could easily do. Of course all this is surmising. Something different altogether might occur.