The wahhabis definitely have facts on their side by and large.
Yes, but the same could be said of people like Rabbi Meir Kahane and Randall Terry, and many that came centuries before them, but the fundamentalist bigots of Christianity and Judaism couldn't stop the gradual progressive reform of their religions overall, nor could they prevent the eventual secularization of Christendom and Jewry. And we all know they tried and at many points in history seemed like they might succeed-- even today fundamentalist Christians in America are attempting to turn back the clock and have organizational and cultural successes from time to time, and do so by genuinely appealing to scripture, but they can't put a stop to social evolution as hard as they try.
My guess is it will be the same for the Wahabbis and other fundamentalist Muslims. From the mid to late 19th century until the mid to late 1970s, the trend in the Muslim and Arab world was towards increasing secularization (with some exceptions like Afghanistan). The Iranian Revolution and the Soviet-Afghan War caused a regression that continues today, but I believe in the grand scheme of things it is temporary. The Muslim and Arab world turned to radical Islam when it perceived that more secular movements like Arab Nationalism, pan-Arabism, Baathism, and Arab Socialism, which started out with much promise, ended up doing very little to improve people's lives. Eventually, Muslims will see the fundamentalists cannot keep their promises either, and have little to offer besides misery, oppression and bloodshed. Consider that the main victims of fundamentalist Muslim terror are Muslim themselves-- that such a movement will continue to receive mass support from the very communities they are killing people in seems unlikely. Eventually there will be enough people in the "rank-and-file" of Islam who see these fuckers for what they are to turn the tide.
I believe the pendulum may even swing back in our lifetimes. The Iranian Revolution was a watershed event in the Islamic fundamentalist movement, and look at what's happening there. Nothing's gonna change overnight and the shift back towards progress will likely not be as swift and dramatic as the shift towards reaction, but keep in mind that the reactionaries always end up in the dustbin of history sooner or later, because, well, they're reactionaries-- they have nothing new to offer and have difficulty adapting to changing cultural and social trends. Sure, new reactionaries will always pop up to demand a shift back to the old order, but not before irreversible progress has been made. The US has plenty of nasty social reactionaries that are well-organized and have some popular credibility, but where are the politicians arguing to return to the institution of Black chattel slavery or racial segregation? In the history books and fringe organizations with little popular credibility, that's where.
Don't get me wrong, those who would take us back to the Dark Ages are a scary bunch indeed and sometimes enjoy more popular support in even "advanced" countries than most people here would be comfortable with (and, of course, the situation is even worse in the Third World and Muslim countries), so even the prospect of a temporary victory by such slime (which has been all too common in the Muslim world over the last several decades) is truly a terrifying thought, and these fuckers should be fought to the end. But their end will come and irreversible progress will be made even as new reactionaries arise to challenge further progress. Even the mighty House of Saud will fall someday and their Kingdom relegated to the history books as some horrible, primitive anachronism that somehow survived longer into the modern world than it should have.
And we'll all hold hands, sing Kum-Ba-Yah, share a Coke, eat an endless amount of pulled-pork sandwiches without ever getting fat, all be gorgeous, have a big orgy where no one gets jealous, live forever without aging, injury or illness, see all of our dead friends again and live in an endless Ecstasy high.
But seriously, it won't always be this bad in the Muslim world. Islam will reform eventually, Islamic society will become more secular, and we might even live long enough to see the beginning of that. It could be starting now in Tehran.
Topic: FinallyFree: Meltdown at FFI