Accommodation or resistance? A reply to Ron Radosh
Elsewhere at PJ Media, my friend Ron Radosh has posted a long and thoughtful “Message to Conservatives” on the question “Is Islam Really our Enemy?”
Now, you don’t nail up an open-letter, 39-Articles question like that — savor the force of the word “really” — unless you intend to pose what Latinists call a “num” question, i.e., a question that expects the answer “no.” “Is Johnny really such a bad person/paragon of virtue/excellent tennis player/etc.” Answer: “No, he isn’t.”
So it was only to be expected that Ron argues that the problem for the West is not Islam, not really. He also argues — and here we get the “message” part of his title — that conservatives, or at least some conservatives, don’t understand that. They, mistaken souls, think that Islam is the enemy. Ron’s post is an effort to show them the error of their ways.
By “them” I include myself, since I — along with Andrew McCarthy, David Horowitz, and a few others — are put forward as exemplary offenders, folks who go about “demonizing Islam” and hence impede genuine understanding of the problem and hence progress at battling terrorism.
I won’t try to compete with Ron in length. But since I believe there is some rhetorical slippage in Ron’s argument — he begins by saying one sort of thing, illustrates it with quite a different sort of thing, then concludes with a third sort of thing — I thought I should respond.
The first movement in Ron’s argument is that conservatives like me believe that Islam itself is the problem. There is an important sense in which this is true. See, for example, the piece I wrote called “Islam vs. the West: What you Need to Know.” In that column I cite, with approval, a piece by Andy McCarthy warning that “Islam is not merely a religious doctrine, but a comprehensive socio-economic and political system” whose tenets are fundamentally, essentially, inextricably at odds with Western, liberal, democratic, secular society. In another column, I elaborate on this point:
“It is part of the genius of the West — part of what distinguishes the West from the rest — that it has, almost from the beginning, tempered the binding claims of religion by acknowledging the legitimacy of secular institutions. This acknowledgment is not only a political decision, it is an existential dispensation, clearing a space for freedom and the claims of individual liberty. Islam, in principle and as a matter of historical fact, refuses to acknowledge any separate place for civil society or the exercise of individual liberty. Its byword is not ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ but rather submission of everything to the will of Allah. ‘Like the Communist Party in its Leninist construction,’ [the philosopher Roger] Scruton observes, ‘Islam aims to control the state without being a subject of the state.’ If you want to know what that looks like in practice, contemplate the behavior of the Taliban, the Iranian Mullahs, or the followers of al Qaeda and its offshoots.”
Bottom line: Ron is correct that I believe Islam, not just “radical Islam,” is the problem. It’s a position, incidentally, that has a long and distinguished pedigree. For example, in his book Judgments on History and Historians, Jacob Burckhardt, observed that
“All religions are exclusive, but Islam is quite notably so, and immediately it developed into a state which seemed to be all of a piece with the religion. The Koran is its spiritual and secular book of law. Its statutes embrace all areas of life…and remain set and rigid; the very narrow Arab mind imposes this nature on many nationalities and thus remolds them for all time (a profound, extensive spiritual bondage!) This is the power of Islam in itself. At the same time, the form of the world empire as well as of the states gradually detaching themselves from it cannot be anything but a despotic monarchy. The very reason and excuse for existence, the holy war, and the possible world conquest, do not brook any other form.
The strongest proof of real, extremely despotic power in Islam is the fact that it has been able to invalidate, in such large measure, the entire history (customs, religion, previous way of looking at things, earlier imagination) of the peoples converted to it.”
I’m reminded, by this depressingly clear argument against the ordinarily sage Ron Radosh — who seems to believe in the existence of a “moderate” Islam — of this morning’s near-universal headline:
“Obama Seeks the Elusive Prize _ Mideast Deal.”
As I told the readers (reader?) of my blog for inmates of retirement homes, a better, more informative, and more realistic version of the headline would be
“Hope for Change of the Unchangeable.”
Three cheers for Roger!!
Bravo! If we love and respect the people, we must demand that their religion be reformed along the lines you describe.
After reading Ron Radosh’s lengthy and heartfelt appeal early this morning, we are to be chastised for thinking anything so base as the idea that Islam itself has tenets at its core which promotes Muslim terrorism, Islamic supremacism, and genocidal hatred towards “infidels”. Never mind the fact that the entire Islamic world is retrograde and tyrannical, that it now produces wave after wave of murderers and terrorists, or that it is seeped in horrific corruption, horrific oppression. and has steadily annihilated once great cultures and civilizations it now bestrides.
We are lectured that there are plenty of moderate Muslims, contrary to our malevolent bigotry, that many moderates are now fighting the good fight, that elusive war between the Islamic extremists and moderate Islam. Sadly, very few of the authorities that Radosh mentions are even Muslim!
To support his thesis, Radosh cites the likes of Maureen Dowd(!), Peter Beinart(!), “Briam” Palmer (NYT?), Peter Wehner, Cathy Young(!), William Lee Miller, Lee Smith, Daniel Luban, and a few more infidels, all of whom assert that Islam is not the problem. He mentions a few “moderate Muslims, such as Irshad Manji and Steven “Sulieman” Schwartz, more on them in a bit. This list of infidel specimens can often be found arguing that those in the West who reject the premise of moderate Islam are as bad as any bin Laden.
Even Radosh delivers this straw man argument himself against those of us who assert that Islam’s immutable core is terroristic and genocidal :
“If they are [correct], I fear it means supporting an unwinnable proposition, that in effect, says that the interpretation of the Quran by Bin Laden and others is correct- that they truly represent the only real Islam, and those claiming to be moderates are heretics who also must be destroyed.” !
That is one nasty distortion. It’s also a ludicrous straw man argument. Robert Spencer convincingly argues that there may be Muslims who don’t subscribe to the myriad genocidal and hateful passages in the Koran, or otherwise ignore them, but the same Koran asserts that its words are the immutable unchanging diktats of Allah, and that anyone daring to ignore or alter them is guilty of apostasy, and condemned to death.
In short, the “extremists” have the support of the Koran and more than a thousand years of Muslim legal imprudence on their side, while the “moderates” don’t have much of a leg to stand on. So the extremists have both history and the Koran itself to justify their appetite for the lopping of heads, hands, and feet and hands from the opposite side, (Pun intended: see Sharia), the “moderates” are reduced to suggesting that “infidel” ignorance is dueling the extremism while leaching their gaping doctrinal deficiencies unaddressed. This echoes nicely the drivel by the list of infidels Radosh cites above.
It is revolting to read Radosh assert that we in the West who believe that bin Laden has Islamic scripture solidly on his side therefore support the idea that “moderates are heretics who also must be destroyed.”. It is a most heinous conflation to drag the innocent Westerners who staunchly oppose Islam into the Satanic catch-22 which “moderates” face from their viscous literal brethren. It is tragic that they are born in the maw of the Islamic beast – but don’t make those of us who reject the beast into the jaws of the beast. We are simply pointing out the deeply sinister basis of the evil that is Islam. Stop blaming the messenger, it’s not our fault that the moderates will always lose the argument because Islamic scripture doesn’t support them!
This brings me to the scant list of supposed Muslim moderates Radosh cites to support his view. Isn’t it time we stop clinging to this preposterous straw? “Sulieman” Schwartz is the most peculiar practitioner of Islam who has a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing Muslims. If we’re reduced in the West to relying on the syncretistic inerpretations of Islam put forward by a bizarre Jewish convert who refuses to use his Muslim name when addressing “infidels”, and an open Lesbian Muslim (Irshad Manji) who cannot even convince her mother that her singular interpretation of Islam is correct, then we are in deep DEEP trouble.
If the Radoshes of the world find this an “unwinnable proposition”, then it’s high time to stop blaming the messenger and set about figuring out a way to win that doesn’t require sparkle-pony fantasies about the enemy doctrine of Islam which has us in it’s sights. Muslims are here in their millions, not least because intellectuals like Radosh prefer to dithering and obfuscate while the Muslim Jihad against us continues to gain momentum and weaponry. One of the weapons they exploit is the fog of war exacerbated by the misguided bleeding hearts like Mr. Ron Radosh, et al.
Alas, that is a very accurate assessment, Morton Doodslag. It is very sad to see someone like Radosh, who has done such important work on communism, turning into a “useful idiot” himself on Islam. Maybe he felt he was left out of the discussion or something, but his knowledge of the subject is weak in the extreme.
Bravo, Morton.
If ya ever wanna write articles for a blog (admittedly, a small blog), visit mine and use the “contact” link to drop me a line. I’d be happy to discuss it with ya.
The physical evidence is overwhelming; where ever Islam gets a foothold, it will eventually dominate. North Africa only 6 ago had large pockets of Christian minorities. Nations like Tunesia and Algeria had hundreds of thousands of Catholics. Today, they have none. It was less than 200 years ago that Coptics made up 40% of the Egyptians. Today, what Coptics are left are terrorized, and/or sold into slavery. Forty years ago, Lebanon had a Marionite majority. Today, they make up less than 20% of the population. The story holds true for nations like India and Afghanistan; each had huge majorities of Hindi and Bhuddists. Today, India is fighting daily battles with its Muslim minorities, and the Bhuddists long ago left Afghanistan. In Nigeria and Thailand, Muslims continue thier relentless wars against the Chrsitian or Bhuddist majorities. Ditto for the Phillipines.
And let’s dispense with the BS concerning Europe. We all know that in 100 years Eurabia will be a reality. Islam tolerates no competing ways of life. And here in the USA we believe we are different. We are the fools.
You have it mostly correct. I firmly believe most muslims are peaceful and “moderate” and love to live in peace with thier neighbors. But, there’s always a “but”, they, like the rest of us are afraid of the crazy element of the religion they were born into that enforces dogma. Over a billion muslims; 1% moonbat nuts = enough murderers to spoil anybodies day. For instance, every thing is going well, every body is happy together living in peace. Then one day a guy rides up in his motorcycle and whispers “jihad” and the next thing you know all the Jews are gone from Hebron.
So, you are right, resistance not appeasement. But (there it is again) every once in a while you have to throw in #2, an all out war against Islam. Just to let everyone know, even the “moderates”, that there is a price, a “carrying cost” if you will for tolerating the crazies.
As I mentioned on Ron’s post, my best friend is a Muslim of Iranian descent. He is, in every aspect, a typical American male. He has never tried to kill me, nor convert me. He doesn’t even talk about religion.
With respect, not all Muslims believe Shariah to be divinely inspired. Even more Shariah compliant Shiites believe that the laws are at least open to interpretation. Rima Fakih, the first Muslim Miss USA, has come out against the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque, and can anybody really believe she’s a closet theocrat? The woman appeared in clothing that is not, shall we say, halal, and most radical Islamists would happily stone her to death.
Spare me the snide questions about where moderate Muslims have been hiding all these years, because many of them haven’t. Check out the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Granted, there has been reluctance from the moderates to speak up. Why? Fear. In any Islamic regime, before they kill the Jews, before they kill the Christians, before they kill the Sikhs and Hindus and Zoroastrians, they kill the moderates. They kill the people they perceive as apostates. The moderates, to put it bluntly, don’t want to die.
Is that cowardly? Perhaps. But it is also very human. Would you die to stop the rise of jihad? Good for you. How about your neighbors? Your family? Are you sure? Fear is a very powerful emotion.
We need to assure the moderates that they are safe in this country. We need to let them know that they can be Americans. In the end, the best way to tell a moderate from a radical is to observe the strength of their patriotism.
…
Given your two statements above, it seems clear to this logical thinker that the best way to “assure the moderates that they are safe in this country” is to resist the violent sort of Muslims… like, say, those that want to build a mosque where a building that was itself struck by one of the 9/11 planes once stood. There’s been lots of info posted here on PJM about the views of the imam leading this effort.
In short, your statements are arguing for a strong opposition to what you seem to be asking for accommodation of.
Perhaps you should re-think your arguments.
#7 “In any Islamic regime, before they kill the Jews, before they kill the Christians, before they kill the Sikhs and Hindus and Zoroastrians, they kill the moderates. They kill the people they perceive as apostates.”
Isn’t that the whole point? If the moderates are unable to tame the fanatics, which is the track record so far with no indication that it is going to change, Islam is radical and violent. They murder each other with abandon, why won’t they try to murder us?
“We need to assure the moderates that they are safe in this country. We need to let them know that they can be Americans. In the end, the best way to tell a moderate from a radical is to observe the strength of their patriotism.” Irrelevant, 99.9% of the world’s Muslims live elsewhere.
With all due respect (and I use that in the British meaning) to Mr. Radosh, I suspect an even deeper motivation underpinning all this talk of “peace love and understanding” was summed up best the other day at a small boutique blog called “The Dipso Chronicles” where the author writes:
“In this case it is the kind of soft thinking that I think is practiced by people who, in their quiet, personal, buried-deep-truly-honest parts, won’t admit even to themselves that their reason for supporting the building of the thing has nothing to do with freedoms or rights. Instead it has to do with the cowardly fact that they are afraid as Americans that if New York – and by extension America – refuses this mosque, Islam will retaliate. It is a reasonable thing to be afraid of, if you are the sort of soft thinker for whom being afraid of your enemy is reason enough to let him win. And mostly they fear this because they know, down in those silent, honest places, how hard they have worked to make America a weakened and vulnerable place, and now they are in danger of paying for it. So of course they must let the Mosque be built. The safety they have toiled to compromise depends on it. These are the kind of people who would have said, years ago, ‘Let the British stay, why don’t we? I’m sure they’ll see to it that we aren’t too uncomfortable.’ ”
Often times we forget that many apologists are simply afraid.
“Often times we forget that many apologists are simply afraid.”
Forget it? It’s always been my belief that most of the apologists for Islam do so out of fear.
Rabid feminists, or Gay activists, who are silent about Islam’s horrific treatment of women and gays? Even anti western attitudes doesn’t account for some of them praising Islam.
I find it interesting, how many of these apologists are public personalities. People whose names and face are well known.
Often well known around the world. People who oft times make their livings in the public square and are thus incapable of leaving it for any length of time.
Rebecca Schaeffer. Gianni Versace. John Lennon. They were killed by “simple” stalkers. Now imagine being the target of some Islamic Fundamentalist who would go to almost any lengths to kill their target. Even if they don’t fear for their own safety, there are always the people around them – family, friends, associates.
Most don’t, or can’t, live inside a “Secret Service” type bubble. So they kowtow, and hope that no one is willing to drive a car bomb through their front door.
There are disadvantages to having your face on millions of silver screens, world wide television or hundreds of thousands of book jackets.
In fact, I abominate all that.” If that is the answer — the real answer, not the lying one Muslims are enjoined to give when they are outnumbered in a given society — then I say, Three cheers! Welcome aboard. Feel free to build a mosque down the street from my church.
That’s not actually required by any of your argument preceding that statement.
We can assume that there exist “moderate Muslims”. We can even postulate that there exists “moderate Islam”. None of which requires us to welcome Muslims into our midst.
In fact we can postulate that all Muslims are the most wonderful people on the face of the Earth, and still reject the notion of them being welcomed into America or into our community. Contrary to what Ron Radosh may think, there is nothing in the idea of America which requires it to roll out the welcome mat for the entire world, excepting only those people proven to be “bad”.
In the matter of moderate Muslims, there are actually two mosques in the vicinity of Ground Zero. They are small and few non-Muslims are aware of their presence. The controversy has been created by the triumphalist design and promotion of this $100 million structure. Personally, I doubt they will ever get the money. Saudi sheiks do not throw their money out the window, although they might bet too much on baccarat in Monaco when they have had too much 20 year old scotch. This is just an attempt at self promotion by this imam and there are lots of useful idiots being outed at the same time.
Nicely put. The mosque is not the problem: the purported “community outreach” is the problem. We know what that means.
We need to assure the moderates that they are safe in this country. We need to let them know that they can be Americans.
Why exactly do we “need” to do these things?
“Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe – and America – might be Muslim today.”
John Julius Norwich – A Short History of Byzantium
=====================================================
Stating that Islam is not the enemy, that it’s only the radical Moslem factions that we have to worry about is like saying that cancer is not the problem since, after all, not all cancers kill.
Mr. Radosh should re-familiarize himself with J. Benda’s “La Trahison des Clercs”, Raymond Aron’s “The Opium of the Intellectuals, Mark Lilla’s “The Reckless Mind” and most recently and most apropos, Paul Berman’s “The Flight of the Intellectuals”.
That’s for starters.
All these describe in one way or the other the persistent and astonishing attraction that totalitarianism, brutality, and terror has had on some of the most brilliant minds of the 20th and now the 21st centuries.
Mr. Radosh appears to have fallen into this trap.
(If he can read Arabic, he should study Taha Hussein’s 1926 “On Pre-Islamic Poetry” في الشعر الجاهلي , a devastating critique of the entire pre- and early Islamic “tradition”, the Sunna – on which the Sharia is based – and the Koran).
For the last couple of years, I have become increasingly aghast at the apparent capitulation, appeasement, acceptance and even adulation that certain Western intellectuals have shown for “Islam”.
They simply don’t know what they’re doing because they don’t really understand or know Islam.
I personally believe that this subservience to the alien religion is based on fear. A fear of the unknown. I don’t see any other justification for this cowardly behavior.
The real danger of Islam is not that it would force us to believe in another “God” or that “head chopping” would become a ho-hum event, bad enough though these practices would be.
The real danger is that it would stifle in one fell swoop all free enquiry. In a phrase, it would spell the end of Western civilization and all it stands for.
Mankind will have become enslaved, pure and simple.
It is a most worrisome development and frankly, I’m not sure who’s listening or who cares. (“They” will care – eventually – but by then, it’ll be too late).
Rima Fakih, the first Muslim Miss USA, has come out against the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque, and can anybody really believe she’s a closet theocrat?
She is against the building of any Sunni mosque since she is not Sunni. Were it a Sahih mosque being built she would be in the vanguard of those encouraging more “understanding”.
We need to assure the moderates that they are safe in this country. We need to let them know that they can be Americans.
No, we don’t. All that does is ensure that moderate Muslims will continue to flee as radical Islam spreads until there is nowhere left to flee. We need to assure moderate Muslims that if they stay in their own Muslim nation and fight to reform Islam that we’re on their side and will aid them any way possible. As long as we’re the safty valve for the world we can’t expect to see the rough spots of world improve much.
Regards
Is Islam really the enemy? It is astonishing that an otherwise very intelligent individual could ask that question with a straight face. Islam has been telling the rest of the world in no uncertain terms that the rest of the world is the enemy for 1400 years and then acting accordingly when it has the power to do so. It is only the highest degree of head-in the-sand wishful thinking that could not see this. Some muslims may be outwardly friendly people but anyone with any degree of civilization would reject the barbaric teachings of The Seventh Century Madman. We in the West are wasting valuable time by continuing to debate the obvious rather than facing the truth: In the end it will be us or Islam. Unfortunately in this contest we have no choice or influence over who sets the rules. They have set the the most barbaric set of rules and they intend to play by them whether we do or not. What will it take for enough of us to wake up. There is not and never will be a moderate Islam.
Way to go, Roger Kimball. In far fewer words than the hyperventilating, hyper-verbose Radaosh, you have amply demonstrated that his rambling, uninformed, blinkered post was dangerous hogwash. He should either stick to what he knows—Communists in America—or spend the next 30 years bringing himself up to speed on the profound incompatibility of Islam with the core values of the West.
If he were really knowledgable about Islam, he could not possibly advocate taking such an appalling, Chamberlain-like position of sheer appeasement. Bravo, Kimball. Shame on Radosh.
IMHO, the single most formidable barrier to accepting a “moderate” muslim presence in our midst is the continuous slippage of formerly “so nice” muslims into radical and violent jihadists. It is obvious to all of us that it is completely impossible to know or forsee which formerly quiet, friendly, social individual muslim will turn into a murderer and advocate for radical islam. Add this little problem onto the specific permission that muslims have to lie in order to advance their religion and you have a recipe for deep distrust between non-muslims and all muslims. Sorry, but I can’t wrap my head around any method of evading this reality.
Dear Mr. Kimball,
Thanks for correcting the misspelling of my name for the initial two or three times that you reference me. However, for the subsequent and final two times that you reference me, you still have my name misspelled. Can you please fix this
You have my name spelled: “Guardino”. But in fact, my name is spelled: “GuardiAno”. You have omitted the “A”. Thus:
To GuardiAno’s second point…
He quotes with approval GuardiAno’s caution about “consigning America to a state of permanent war with the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.”
Thank you!
V/R
John Guardiano
Roger,
Your whole argument turns on the question of whether it is a LOGICAL POSSIBILITY to be a moderate, faithful Muslim, and you seem to think the answer is NO.
I suggest that you closely examine all the other major creeds of the world, and put the same question to yourself about their so-called followers. If you do so honestly, in varying degrees you will find the exact same answer that you have found about Muslims. But here’s the real problem: who defines the pious Jew? It appears that in your mind it is you who defines the pious Jew. Your job is to examine the sacred texts and then announce a verdict about what it means to be an adherent. So, you want to be a high priest of the texts — am I wrong?
There are many problems inherent in sacred texts, although you will not find a militaristic tradition in the Buddhist version of humanity’s attempts for spiritual nourishment. But these problems with the ancients can be overcome, as evidenced by the vast majority of Jews, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and even Buddhists who clearly don’t follow all the strange tenets laid down in their diverse religious code. The plethora of unambiguously harmful commands apparent to the extremists is simply not there for earnest seekers, because most people seek knowledge, even in sacred texts, by employing a humane capacity of reason. The majority of the religious who end up guiding and developing the mainstream of their faith traditions recognize that attempting to live literally by every word of the text is impossible. So they tend to seek a truly fundamental, sparse and simple law: Worship God and respect your fellows. Then they go on to act in ways that both reflect and refine the best parts of their traditions. They’re not looking for prompts to slaughter and mistreat, they’re looking for practical guides to live in a wholesome and happy way. Islam, like any other long-established and well-nourished religious faith, provides this amply.
But you seem to think that there is something exceptionally inhuman and unabsolvable about the Islamic texts. And yet this is clearly untrue, as nearly 1400 years of history and over a billion Muslims attest. Contrary to some popular opinions of the stupidest and most hateful variety, Islam cannot be an inherently destructive and oppressive death-cult or an isolationist refuge for the utter fringes. If it were, it would have died in some lunatic’s cave after a few generations. Islam is certainly, in actual reality, a powerfully instructive and globally successful human belief system whose so-called irreconcilable elements have been repeatedly shown to be reconcilable, functional, productive, tolerant and humane. That is the long Islamic tradition that actually rules the lives of living-breathing Muslim people, just your average normal people, following, according to their own mouths, the ancient tenets of Islam.
The ugliness is cultural baggage that will be managed with the right attitude. Or have you forgotten that just a few generations ago we had (and still have, right there in the text) clear-cut Biblical justifications for slavery, which were extensively and authoritatively quoted in the mainstream of our Christian cultural discourse?
If you want to have a say in the Islamic cultural discourse of the present day, why don’t you stop being helpful to extremists maniacs who read the texts the same way Gert Wilders seems to be reading them.
Emil,
A little bit of subject changing here? If the problem was simply the texts, we wouldn’t be having the discussion. Instead we have large numbers of individuals that would like to murder even larger numbers of other individuals. It doesn’t get much more clear than that. If THAT problem is textual in nature, the solution is not.
There seem to be two competing arguments going on at the same time, two oratorical ships passing in the night.
The first argument is that the “good” Muslims must be sheltered and absolved from blame for the acts, intentions and “beliefs” of the “bad” Muslims. Or not.
The second argument is that Islam actively preaches a brand of theopolitics, (the other recent discussions of theopolitics involved the James H. Cone’s Black Liberation theology, and Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam)…that invokes a hostility toward the West in general and toward Israel and the Jews in particular.
While an isolated issue or three might have some “crossover” relevance, the debates are wholly separate.
I like and respect Ron Radosh. I think he is a good and decent man and is deserving not only of our respect, but also praise and thanks for his brave stands on a number of issues.
But, he has fallen into a trap for the unwary here. As Roger points out, one may be a “moderate” member of the Islamic faith, much the way there can be “Jews for Jesus”, I suppose. I respect their right to exercise that particular notion of spirituality, but…it does seem to sort of define something different than what they are advertising.
Not to be flip, but Methodists for Mohammed or Baptists for Buddha, or Muslims who don’t follow the Koran…are practicing something that seems to be a contradiction in terms. It may be very kind-hearted, filled with human decency and respect for all of mankind, but to suggest that the followers of the “main” religion should be defined as part of the same group, does a disservice to both.
Each may be devout or pious at their own altar, so we are not measuring piety by combining them and taking a weighted average either.
Let’s call the “moderates” what they are and let’s call the adherents what they are. Different.
One might suggest that Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism stem from the same book. Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals etc. stem from the same book.
What has to be studied is how the “teachings” of each differ, the interpretations differ and the actions of the followers differ.
Strict adherents to the Koran have certain “teachings” about lying to infidels, creating mischief, honor killings, imposition of sharia law. One key question to ask is this: Is Sharia law compatible with the laws, culture, and mores of Western society?
If not, then someone practicing a “reform” brand of Islam that is “westernized” and eliminates the very foundational tenets of the Koran, is no more a Muslim than he/she is a Unitarian.
Ron is arguing that the “Muslim moderate” should be treated kindly. This is a wonderful notion. I agree. He then argues that therefore, ALL Muslims, therefore should be given the benefit of the doubt, in the event that we don’t shoot scatterguns and hit a moderate by mistake.
This is the trap.
The “first” debate ended when we said “live and let live…all those who come in peace and harmony”.
We were never aiming at the moderates or their spirituality in the first place.
This is not a “conservative” notion, by the way. For those of us who consider ourselves “moderates” as well…other “moderates” are “one of us”.
Now, on to the second debate. Can we oppose the tenets of a theopolitical system that invokes violence, hatred, the destruction of Israel, hatred of the Jews, lying, oppression of gays and women?
I suggest we HAVE TO oppose such a belief system and we would be cowards and hypocrites to do otherwise. Freedom to practice religion does NOT extend in the West to freedom to do violence to innocents or to kill my countrymen. It does NOT extend to overthrowing my government.
My opposition doesn’t “hit” any targets to whom those things don’t apply. And they should not be offended. The two debates don’t mix or blend.
Ron is a brilliant guy. He will understand. And respect this argument. He just got caught in a trap for the unwary. Now is the time to release him from that trap….and anyone else caught in it.
Roger is right. The problem is not just “radical Islam” but Islam. But every problem has a solution. The beginning of a solution to the problem of Islam would be to first outlaw Islam in the United States. Mount a massive re-education progam to teach U.S. citizens the evils and dangers of Islam. Next, identify and deport all Muslims already in the United States and refuse further entry to any and all Mulims. Cut all ties, diplomatic and economic, with Islamic nations. Threaten to cut ties with any nation that deals with Islamic countries. The virus of Islam must be contained, then destroyed.
Chuck,
The problem would be the text if a reasonable argument could be made that the text unambiguously commands heinous acts. In my opinion, no such argument can be made about Islam that is fully credible because of the historical reasons I already cited.
It has been repeatedly shown within Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other faith traditions that the apparently serious textual problems inherent in all of them can be overcome. These problems are for the most part a superficial glaze that affect the weak, those that I would argue are already susceptible to the suggestion that we should mistreat one another, and, hey, guess what? Look: it says it right there in the text. Slaughter them and their children, for it is God’s righteous will. They’re just looking to excuse their anti-social urges, which are probably more psychologically rooted than anything else. So I agree with you that the problem is not really textual.
Outsiders attacking the text of any religion are attacking the religion, and if that’s the case, they better be ready to receive the defeated ranks with a real plan for mass theological/cultural absorption, otherwise they have to battle for real, because: they just annihilated someone’s guide to living; spit on a viable and flourishing faith; dehumanized and demonized other people. People who are now glibly attacking Islam ought be be clear with themselves about what it is that they are actually doing: a full-on attempt to de-legitimize that faith and invite conversion. Are they really ready for the war?
But furthermore: conversion to what? Christianity? Not by the sound of it, although surely by the looks of it — although it’s the Crusader version as opposed to the Quaker or Jesuit. But by the sound of it, our present-day anti-Islamist blowhards are calling for a conversion to Western humanism. Well, that tradition tried to humanize Western religious thinking, and the attempt has borne fruit. Western thought has provided the tools to fight our own religious unreasonableness. But although these tools are universally applicable, they have to be used by credible agents within a specific tradition to mold that tradition effectively. Western Christianity had such credible agents: philosophers, theologians, co-religionists, co-inhabitants of the broad Western cultural space. Their levels of credibility varied according to each, but there was enough credibility for the effort to be productive, even for a leftist anti-theist warrior like Thomas Paine.
As far as Islam is concerned, overheated Western moralizers attacking Islam are not even close to being credible, not even slightly. They are not speaking to Islam at all, they are blanket-labeling, defining the enemy and rallying the troops.
As carriers of a Western tradition rooted in the Enlightenment values we claim to profess as opposed to the Crusader values we seem to exemplify, we must appeal to a shared humanity. We have the tools to do so. Putting our grandiosely articulated Western principles of toleration and virtuous reason into actual practice, we ought to provide an enlightened and welcoming space to nurture those within the broad Islamic tradition who are most willing and able to take the fight to the extremists and win, the same way that over many centuries we “civilized” a great majority of Christian extremists, abolished the practice of torturous punishment, founded democracies, established all sorts of personal rights and freedoms, separated religion and state, and so on. And mainstream Christian theology followed, evolved, and eventually agreed to nearly everything which our old-school “mullahs,” our politician-priests once fought so viciously.
Reason calls us to reject any argument that Islam is incapable of accommodating tolerance and progress as we understand it in the West. Fervently believing it and vocally shouting it does not make it true, it only makes the ignorance louder. And by the way, it also arguably true that we have enough seeds to effectively communicate with an Islamic tradition even without the help of Muslim intermediaries. This too gets drowned out by blowhards who either forgot or never learned or willfully ignore how much of Aristotle was recovered to us only because it was being kept alive, earnestly studied and absorbed for centuries by the medieval scholars from Baghdad to Cordoba. And is Islam not an Abrahamic faith? In truth, attempting the really interesting argument that Islam actually qualifies as part of the multitude of traditions that make up our so-called Western Civilization would be much less absurd and much more historically coherent than some other stuff floating around and pretending to be knowledge.
At the risk of some one invoking ______’s law, the argument of the current generation of appeasers is very similar to those who were in favor of appeasing National Socialist Germany (that is Nazi Germany for the historically illiterate.
There were in fact lots of moderate members of the Nazi Party. People who were nice, honest, and didn’t really agree with Hitler, but went along anyway.
In the situation that we are currently facing, the lack of protests by so called Moderate Muslims against terrorism, the imposition of Sharia, etc, and the in fact support for most of those things by a majority of Muslims
indicates to me a serious and growing problem.
Eventually, even the most myopic will realize that a line in the sand must be drawn, and the longer we wait, the more costly it will be. I am childless, but I fear for the younger generation, especially the females.
Think about it: it is good to be Muslim and male.
Excellent point, Jack. A line in the sand must be drawn, and we must not wait. Just as every man, woman, and child in Imperial Japan were the enemy, so today is every Muslim our sworn enemy. The necessity of using the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is unquestionable. Look clearly at Iran and the necessity to do so again becomes obvious.
It stands to reason that there is no form of “moderate” islam (i.e. submission to the will of “the prophet”) except in the abstract. And therefore that the concept or construction of a “moderate” (by our standards) form of “islam” is wholly a fabrication that originates entirely from western thought and standards.
Muslims do not contemplate “moderate” forms of “islam”. Variations of islam come with names such as “salafi”, “sufi”, “sunni”, “shia” etc, and are thought of as apostasies by each of the other sects. Members of these varioius sects of “islam” don’t disparage the other form by virtue of the others “moderate” form of “islam”, but as apostasies, i.e. practicing the faith or law wrong.
So “moderate” “islam” is an artificial and foreign mode of thought and construction where regards “islam”. And, as such, will only come into being (aside form it’s nebulous abstract existence) as a result of the influence of foreign, and I might well add, western anathema. “Anathema” according to how orthodox “islam” sees it. iow, it will have to be created by the West. A long shot indeed.
And with the western leftist fetish for the worst of “islams” offenders, those like Rauf who engage in Fitna (mischief) and deception, e.g. telling those in the west of his “bridge building” credentials (served in the jargon of “multivultural “diversity” kum buy yah….) and all the way to the many militarized forms such as Hezbollah, Yasar Arabphat, it makes the prospect of the emergence of a(ny) “moderate” “islam” well nigh impossible.
Realizing there is no “moderate” Islam but only blood-thirsty radical Islam, it seems crystal clear that the only true and final solution is containment followed by systematic elimination. Islam must be understood as a virulent disease and treated as such.