A counterjihadist collides with his evil twin.
They say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. Scientists, when they’re not calculating the amount of chocolate someone can safely eat a day, claim that everyone has six doppelgangers somewhere around the world. And some even have their own evil twins.
Mine was living in Australia all along.
I had spent the time since the attacks of September 11 writing about the dangers of Islamic terrorism. But somewhere in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, another Daniel Greenfield had decided to convert to Islam. One thing led to another and before anyone knew it, he had become a fan of ISIS and was arrested with police alleging he’d been planning an attack.
While one Daniel Greenfield had been investigating an Islamic terror plot, another Daniel Greenfield, some 7,500 miles away, was having his Islamic terror plot broken up.
The Aussie ISIS version of Daniel Greenfield is younger and balder than yours truly. When arrested, he was wearing Nike sweatpants, and the Daniel Greenfield you’re reading now would be as likely to wear anything with the Nike logo as he would be to convert to Islam and join ISIS.
Nevertheless, when Australian media and bloggers began doing rapid web searches for Islamic terrorism and Daniel Greenfield, they came up with the ten thousand articles, posts, tweets, and videos that I had been assembling since back when Australia still had freedom of speech.
The confusion was understandable. One of us was an Islam critic and the other an Islamic terrorist. Both of us, according to official dogma, had misunderstood the entirely peaceful theology of Mohammed, and therefore journalists felt free to contact me, eager to help me tell “my side of the story” about why I had plotted a terrorist attack against law enforcement.
This came as a surprise to me because the only terrorist attack I had been plotting was against a garbage can that refused to work. Adding to the confusion was that I had never been to Australia and it was two in the morning. I don’t know about you, but I’m not at my best at two in the morning and if there were anything that might incline me to plot a terrorist attack, it would be being woken at two in the morning to be accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia.
None of this stopped clickbait sites from embedding my tweets and articles in stories about the other Daniel Greenfield. It seemed to have escaped their attention that those tweets and articles about ISIS were not in favor of the Islamic terrorist group. Even assuming that no one in Australia knows who John Kerry is (an ignorance which can only inspire a profound envy), how exactly does an article titled, “Arrest Kerry for Collusion With Islamic Terror States” lead one to the conclusion that its author thinks that Islamic terror states are a very good thing.
While this Daniel Greenfield had never met his Islamic doppelganger, I could tell journalists inquiring that I knew all about him because his story is almost tiresomely familiar.
Daniel Greenfield, the one with all the ISIS materials and the knives, converted to Islam, came to the attention of the local authorities, and was diverted into a “deradicalization” program which true to form accomplished nothing except to possibly make him even more bent on violence.
For the last 5 years or so, Greenfield or Al-Greenfield allegedly continued to cheer for ISIS instead of Sydney FC. The police arrested him on Christmas Eve, an unusual time, but one that raises the possibility that he had been planning an imminent attack to coincide with Christmas celebrations. That sort of thing is favored by Islamic terrorists operating in Christian countries.
Local reports (the ones that don’t confuse me and him) allege that Daniel Greenfield claimed to be a member of ISIS. That would mean that he swore a Bayat, an oath of fealty, to whoever is still alive in the ISIS leadership. If he got in early enough on the ground floor, he might have even managed to swear an oath to Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a nerdy bearded cosplaying serial rapist, who blew himself up while trying to escape a dog named after retired talk show host Conan O’Brien. (Conan, the dog was alright, Conan O’Brien’s career has been better)
But it all goes to show that, like Conan and Conan O’Brien, or Daniel Greenfield and Daniel Greenfield, we all have unexpected doppelgangers out there. Some better than us and others worse than us. Some have things to teach us while others tell us what we already know.
The tale of the two Daniel Greenfields is a story of the doppler effect of Islamic terrorism passing around the world, transcending oceans and national boundaries, rallying some to oppose it and others to join in it. While I warned about the danger of Islamic terrorism, the other Daniel Greenfield allegedly promoted beheading and suicide bombing videos on social media.
These lost twins remind us not to take the choices that made us who we are for granted.
Perhaps life itself requires balance, so that for every Daniel Greenfield who opposes ISIS, another Daniel Greenfield must join it. Or, more likely, such things are meaningless coincidences. But meaningless or meaningful, the ISIS Greenfield did succeed in carrying out at least one successful terrorist attack, felt not so much in Australia, but in America.
Search for terrorism and my name, and his name will be the likeliest to come up. Over a decade and a half of writing about Islamic terrorism is all too easy to eclipse with one failed terror plot. The familiar moral of the story is that it’s difficult to create, but all too easy to destroy. As Daniel Greenfield, the one who joined ISIS and wears Nike sweatpants, works his way through the system, our names will be tangled together in the twisted infrastructure of the internet.
Apologists like to say that Islamic terrorists are driven to their crimes and while I generally tend to dismiss such asinine excuses, in this case there may be something to it. Imagine that you convert, yet whenever anyone at your mosque searches for your name, they come up with the less than pleasant remarks about Islam written by your American doppleganger.
Naturally they suspect you of being an un-Islamic plant, a spy, and an undercover operative.
How else can you possibly prove them wrong except by joining ISIS and then showing your sincere commitment by promoting the terror group and then plotting a terrorist attack.
If my doppelganger across the ocean accomplished nothing else, he distinguished his position on Islam from mine. No one is likely to confuse the two of us now, he must have thought. Instead the winds of confusion are blowing the other way with Daniel Greenfield being identified with a man whom the Sydney Morning Herald dubs the “aspiring jihadist Daniel Greenfield.”
Now when an Australian accent next wakes me up at two in the morning to ask about my involvement in a terror plot, at least I’ll have some dim inkling of what he’s talking about.
Before I hang up on him anyway.
mortimer says
Great article here by Greenfield (the one who isn’t a jihadi). He correctly points out that … “the story is tiresomely familiar.”
Jihadists are in fact all playing from the same playbook of the 164 jihad verses in the Koran, the kafir-hatred in the hadiths and the decrees in Sharia law requiring ALL Muslims to participate in some way in jihad-terrorism, financial jihad, legislative jihad or the jihad of the cradle.
Greenfield gets up. Most Western journalists DON’T GET IT, because they are too lazy to do the research into the Islamic primary source texts.
mortimer says
Yikes … correction … ‘GREENFIELD GETS IT’ (not ‘gets up’ … which he does in the middle of the night to talk with Ozzie journos).
Hoi Polloi says
The unfortunate truth of this type of situation is that lies stick while truth takes effort and time to win out. Thank God we have an eternity of that. I wish you the best in using this situation to make your work shine and spread, in contrast with that of the sea of “journalists” we’re all being subjected to.
revereridesagain says
Congratulations, Daniel. Hopefully you probably won’t be repeatedly mistaken for this fool by lazy and ideologically corrupted “journalists” as Robert Spencer is for the vile Richard Spencer!
Why was this guy’s face blurred out in the photo? He’s wearing a MASK, for crying out loud.
But is anyone really surprised by anything that occurs in Australia these days? Including such acts of incompetence, laziness, and stupidity by the “journalist” establishment. In the future may every Aussie slave-of-Allah jihad wannabe who looks up his hero with your name encounter your erudite and deadly accurate skewerings of the ideology that inspired his plottings and be further inspired to reject it all. Preferably before his imam can get around to doing that name check.
Meanwhile, I will meditate upon the likelihood that I am someone’s doppelganger and hope she knows how lucky she is because I’ve done enough dumb@$$ things in life to cover both of us.
Infidel says
Daniel
Honestly, you ought to interview your namesake ?
Btw, happy new year!
nicholas tesdorf says
Daniel Greenfield explains Daniel Greenfield’s motivations perfectly unlike the Main Stream Media. What would be sensational would be to have Daniel Greenfield interview the other Daniel Greenfield.
tim gallagher says
That’s an alarming report because of the astounding level of stupidity which some journalists must have. Well, maybe it’s not a surprise. I mean it wouldn’t take much to make the distinction between this maggot of a would be Muslim terrorist in Australia and the thoroughly decent fighter against Islam on the other side of the world. I live in Australia and I was a little surprised when I heard the name of this ISIS member when he was arrested because I did expect that he would have an Arab name. Just another evil creature who has converted to islam, no doubt because it perfectly fitted his evil mentality. Such scum don’t seem to become Christians or Buddhists because those religions will tell them to behave peacefully.
shoehorn says
The Sydney Morning Herald’s best (and last conservative) journalist, Miranda Devine, left 10 years or so ago. The SMH is now a leftist rag with journalism standards not much better than the tax-funded ABC.
tim gallagher says
Spot on, shoehorn. The very left wing people that I know get their news from the ABC and from the Sydney Morning Herald. the more conservative people, including me, wouldn’t go near the ABC or the Herald for any information.
gravenimage says
When Daniel Greenfield Joined ISIS
……………
As Robert Spencer has already noted, not *that* Daniel Greenfield! Must be a shock seeing that name. Of course, the “evil twin” is probably calling himself something like “Jihad abu al-Astiralia” at this point…
somehistory says
Very nice work, Mr. Greenfield.
I would never address a terrorist as “Mr.” so you know I can tell the two of your apart. 🙂
Perhaps the calls to you will result in your important work gaining more coverage. You explain your topics so very well. Many more should become regular readers of your articles.
Thank you.
BTW: my new…very pretty…granddaughter made her debut yesterday.
Infidel says
Somehistory
Congratulations on your granddaughter ??. In many cases, her birthday will fall on holidays
And a very happy new year!
somehistory says
Thank you very much, Infidel. I got to see her today and she’s a beauty.
A happy one for you too….
gravenimage says
Somehistory, congratulations on your new granddaughter! What a lovely way to usher in the new year!
somehistory says
thank you very much, g.
Yes, babies are so special and make everything better.
gravenimage says
🙂
Hoi Polloi says
Congratulations and Best Wishes. Babies are wonderful.
somehistory says
thank you so much, Hoi Polloi/ Your statement is so true!