An article in today’s Washington Post – “A More Islamic Islam” – perhaps reveals more of her true intentions than its author – Geneive Abdo – intended. The article purports to be an analysis of the recent Secular Islam Summit. Its third paragraph contains such a whopper at first you can’t even believe she’s serious:
The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority.
What? Western media and governments pay more attention to a few secularists than they do to CAIR? ((8,120,000 Google links here) What planet has this woman been living on? [Doesn't the WaPo edit these things?-ed. They don't want trouble with CAIR.]
But the Big Lie is the least interesting thing about her column. Because the truth in it is more significant and scarier. Abdo concludes:
In Europe and the United States, where Muslims have maximum exposure to Western culture, they are increasingly embracing Islamic values. In Britain, a growing number of Muslims advocate creating a court system based upon Islamic principles.
What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western.
Instead of championing the loud voices of the secular minority who are capturing media attention with their conferences, manifestos and memoirs, the United States would be wise instead to pay more attention to the far less loquacious majority.
But what does that “less loquacious majority” want? Abdo has just told us they are returning in droves to their traditional values as in: “In Britain, a growing number of Muslims advocate creating a court system based upon Islamic principles.”
Where I come from that’s against the law. This country was founded on the separation of church and state. If you don’t like that, you should live elsewhere. Abdo’s views, the honest ones, seem mired in inconsistency. She wants us to follow this supposedly silent (CAIR?) Islamic majority, which seems to acquiesce in what is essentially religious fascism. Those secularists whom she abhors are demanding serious reform. Abdo is evidently afraid to confront what they are saying on the level of ideas, so resorts to calling them names. No surprise there. It would be amusing to see her debate the history of Islam with (say) Salman Rushdie. Also, it would be sad.
Does the post just keep these strange brains in jars in the basement so that they can be plugged in at any time?
I wish I could say I was surprised that the Post editors would let a lie like that pass, but of course I am not.
Their motivations: bias, laziness and ignorance – not necessarily in that order.
Abdo seems to have held many positions as a journalist and visiting scholar, yet her autobiography is hard to come by. I tried googling and failed to turn up much beyond her book Mecca and Main Street. However, she seems to be both a bit of a feminist reformer and a Muslim who wishes to see Islam triumphant. She also plays the victim card, but that is so universal as to be unremarkable. Anyway, what she wishes to happen is not necessarily what *is* happening, so to judge the state of Islam in the US I suspect we have to look elsewhere.
Perhaps she has been brainwashed by the mutliculturalist worldview. A worldview that once again embraces relativism. No thought, philosophy, music, art, literature, societal accomplishment and, yes, religion too, is superior to another.
This is patently false in my opinion.
One of the perverse consequences of muticulturalism is that it keeps people (whether is by race, language, etc.) in their place – wherever that may be. This makes it harder for people who want to assimilate to do so and achieve based upon merit and hardwork.
The crutches given to people often prevent them from learning to walk.
The Europeans are failing by allowing Muslims to take over schools and the curriculum and now perhaps the law.
It needs to be if you come here, you must live by our rules or leave.
As far as her comment about moderate secular Islam receiving all the new coverage, she must have a lot of static on her set.
You seem not to have registered the penultimate paragraph, which seems very much like a burqaed threat.
I take it back. But underscore it, please, for people like me who’ve had too many Guinness.
Global Warming and muslim moderates in a race to the finish.
“burqaed threat”
Deeelishus.
Hmm, let’s see-
“In Saudi Arabia and Iran, where Christians and Zoroastrians have maximum exposure to Islamic culture, they are increasingly embracing Christian and Zoroastrian values. In Saudi Arabia, a growing number of Christians advocate creating a court system based upon JudeoChristian principles.
What all this means is that Islamic hopes for full integration by Christians and Zoroastrians in the East are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Christian and Zoroastrian world will be much more Christian and Zoroastrian than Islamic.”
What would the reaction be to such a statement published in Iran and Saudi Arabia? Well, I doubt that such an article would ever make it to print there. And if (by oversight of the editors) it were to be published in the WaPo, NYT, or the Gaurdian, it would be decried as a fundamenalist Christian rant, a perfect example of why we should supress the majority religion (only) in the West.
Islam needs to realize that the world is not a diode. Current runs both ways.
What Abdo leaves unsaid is that freedom is at incontrovertible odds with hardline Islamic totalitarianism, represented by countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran. There is no concept of freedom of speech in these regimes; nor any real freedom of religion. Abdo, in other words, cheerleads for totalitarianism.
Abdo also deigns to ignore the utter failures of Arab governments that have embraced hardline ideologies; failures represented by war, censorship, mass imprisonments, sanctioned political murders, and slavery.
Abdo also fails to mention that model bastion of governmental efficiency, the Taliban. Or other venues where the application of sharia law has resulted in stonings of adulterous women, floggings and executions of homosexuals, suppression of speech and debate, and complete bans on Christianity and Judaism.
Of course, Abdo fails to mention any other religions and how they might coexist with her sharia states.
Basically, she is lobbying for war between the West and Sharia states. That’s all I can figure.
What kind of made-up name is “Abdo”. Please. Is this one of those womeon writing from under a tent?
Now I’m confused. I thought we were being told that only a small portion of muslims supported radical Islam. Since we have documentation on several CAIR leaders linking them to at least radical fundraising if not outright terrorist sympathies, are we to believe Geneive Abdo that CAIR truly represents the vast silent majority?
Gotta love that silent majority, they think whatever you want them to think and never cross you up.
Getting out the salt on this one.
“Global Warming and muslim moderates in a race to the finish.”
Pardon but I would associate the global warming crowd closer with the islamists.
One would have the world end by flood and the other by fire. The both need to be confronted.
Mr. Simon writes:
“Abdo’s views, the honest ones, seem mired in inconsistency.”
That’s rich, coming from the C.E.O of a web site that is rigging it’s ‘Straw Poll’ results.
Where is congressman Ron Paul’s name Mr. Simon?
Might I suggest you ‘get your own house in order’, before making comments on other peoples inconsistencies?
Brian I’m positive Roger can speak for himself, but if I may indulge.
If Roger were to include every Hillary, Dick and Harry with enough disposable income to write a check, the poll would soon take on some of the aspects of a caricature.
As I understand it (I could be wrong) to be included at PJ’s candidates must register above zero in the MSM pools.
You called it “Stockholm syndrome,” Roger. Maybe it’s a distinction without a difference, but my first thought on reading the article was “voluntary dhimmitude.”
One question for “Brian Johnson”,
“What is your view on the topic at hand?”
You don’t like the host’s view, fine, counter with your own. Instead you attack Mr. Simon, implying he has no credibility and integrity. You want to convince other people about your own credibility and/or integrity, may I suggest write your own blog? Readers like me then will have a chance to “shop around and compare”.
The article seems to me to be like:
Someone in 1932 writing that Americans and Brits are paying too much attention and respect to “inauthentic” Germans like social democrats and traditional conservatives, and not enough attention to the “authentic” Germans in the Nazi Party.