Wednesday
(0)The Khaleej Times is reporting that the Danish consul to Dubai has said:
The massive protests in the Muslim world against the Danish cartoons have helped Denmark, as also Europe, have a better understanding of, and respect for, Islam
Well that is both quite correct and completely false, but of course a diplomat is someone whose job it is to lie for his country. It has indeed given millions of Europeans a better understanding of Islam... and thereby led them to an utter lack of respect for it. Now every time I hear someone saying "Islam is one of the world's great religions", I tend to get very rude rather quickly.
The diplomat was quite sound on the core issue however.
The Danish diplomat made it clear that, however, 'We will not change our constitution (to exert controls over the media)'.
And that is why this site has a 'support Denmark: no burqa on free speech' graphic in the sidebar. Hold the line.
Update: It would appear that Imran Khan is now officially a moron:
I don't think the message has got through that for us it's far more painful than perhaps even the Holocaust for the Jews. Any caricature or any ridicule or any humiliation of the holy prophet is far more painful for the Muslims
These cartoons are more 'painful' that the mass extermination of six million Jews? And this from a much acclaimed 'moderate'? Yes indeed, I think a great many people's understanding of Islam is improving pretty much by the day.
I commented on this article below, but you pipped me at the post, so to speak. Of course, we assume the Danish envoy, given who the prime minister of Denmark is, was lying for his country, yet this appeasement, even as a lie, worries me.
The attitude that occasioned these Islamic offences and hysteria around the world need to be nipped in the bud; not massaged. These appeasements by everyone from the NY Times to The Times and the Telegraph and politicians on the Continong and in the Anglosphere, are empowering the Islamoloonies with a sense of righteous grievance.
The tone should be condemnation and no quarter given.
It's not a matter of debate or negotiation. The organised and apparently inflamed Islamics did not have a point. They were in the wrong. There can be no negotiation and discussion. The onus is on the Muslims to understand that their laws are not universal and they must come to terms with that. The West has absolutely nothing to come to terms with and nothing to apologise for.
Posted by Verity at March 1, 2006 10:57 PM
I'm developing a strong despect for islam, not respect.
Ten years ago I was in Malaysia and got the impression that islam was compatible with a modern society. Wrong impression, as I can see now.
Posted by Pavel at March 1, 2006 11:00 PM
Perry,
I do feel that you fall into the trap of viewing 'Islam' as one entity, just as certain extreme elements would wish it to be (represented by themselves as the true, self appointed voice, of course).
However, I have several Muslim friends who regard the actions of some of those who claim to represent Islam with as much disgust as you or I, including the whole outcry over cartoons and Denmark. In fact, my Muslim friends have a general outlook on life little different from most people in this country.
So there is not one Islamic view. Extremists of whatever hue always try to claim some sort of authority based on god, marxism, fascism, etc. - take your pick - and impose it on others. Sadly, they will always find gullible followers.
Posted by HJHJ at March 1, 2006 11:03 PM
HJHJ - Sorry, but they're not "extremists". You may have very intelligent friends and colleagues who are Muslim and who find this distasteful, but it is they who are the minority - not the protesters and wailers and ranters. Sadly, Islam = mass hysteria and mass delusion.
Scratch a Muslim - not that I ever have - and you will find the veneer chips off very easily and they revert to proclaiming there is one universal law: theirs. It's very a very primitive attitude.
Posted by Verity at March 1, 2006 11:46 PM
Yes they are extremists. Most Muslims aren't tlike that. But it isn't the "overwhelming majority" beloved of his high Tonyness. A very large minority of muslims in the UK have very unpleasant ideas. According to a Times ppoll 42% expressed belief in assorted Jewish conspiracy theories. Our old friends at Al Jazzera run those as though they were absolute truth.
Whatever, now it's time for a skit:
Yes, I could have been an Ayatollah but I never had the Arabic, never had the Arabic for the Ayatollahing. I just never had sufficient of it to get through the rigorous ayatollahing exams. They're noted for their rigour. People came staggering out saying "By Allah, what a rigorous exam" - and so I became a jihadi instead. A suicide jihadi. I managed to get through the jihading exams - they're not very rigorous. They only ask one question. They say "Do you want to be a martyr?", and I got 75% for that.
Apologies to the immortal Pete and Dud.
Posted by Nick M at March 2, 2006 12:03 AM
Gasp! Don't you have any respect for the muslim race?
Yeah, they're a um... race, now. Just a heads up, people are going to think you are racist for not immediatly granting tons of respect to barbaric murderers based on their non-whiteness.
BTW: hate criminal.
Posted by Josh at March 2, 2006 12:05 AM
Nick M - That was funny.
Josh - for allah's sake, learn to spell! It's respeck.
I'd love to hear a gangsta rappa doing Mo ... god, that would be funny!
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 12:15 AM
I do recall people asking in wonderment....they still sometimes do......why the Germans didn't deal with Hitler before it became too late.
My opinion is that the term "moderate Muslim" is an oxymoron. Recent polls would suggest the truth of this.
I would be interested to know the attitudes of HJHJ's Muslim friends who, I am sure, tut-tutted politely for him when the twin towers (and some 3000 folk) came tumbling down. What are they doing to prevent the impending catastrophe? No prizes for the correct answer.
Posted by permanent expat at March 2, 2006 12:24 AM
Thanks folks!
Maybe I should post my poetry. I'm not sure if that constitutes a threat or not.
Oh well, the muse must not be silenced...
Mohammed - An Epic Romance.
Mohammed was a guy with a beard,
whose thoughts were rather weird.
He didn't like wine,
Or the eating of swine.
With a towel round his head,
He took a nine year old to bed.
And the citizens of Mecca,
Didn't like where he'd stuck his pecker.
So, with scimitar in hand,
He formed an angry band.
Who massacred Jews*,
And then he brought Good News.
His follows still lived in the sand,
And that ain't too grand.
So they went on a spree,
From Spain to Trinkamalee.
But at the battle of Tours,
Their performance was poor.
And to be Frank, Charles Martel,
Just knew fighting too well.
But with God on their side,
His followers retreated for the long ride.
Their Prophet by then, Allah had took.
Disheaterned, No! - he'd left 'em a book!
Back to square one, fight them once more,
It's long been a bore...
With much suffering and gore.
But now our leaders tell us to respect 'em,
Though we'd much rather dissect 'em.
*And Pagans, Apostates, Eastern Orthodox, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Greek Orthodox, Copts, Catholics, Agnostics, Darwinists, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Athiests, Danes, British, Spanish, Russians, Israelis, Americans, Me, You...
In the original the starred list is longer and diminishes in point size with each term.
Why can't that bugger Motion come up with stuff as good as this?
Posted by Nick M at March 2, 2006 12:32 AM
permanent expat - anyone who has lived in an Islamic country knows the truth of your statement: Moderate Muslim is an oxymoron. There are charming, worldly Muslims - some of them will even take a drink - but push comes to shove and they are fundamentalists under the camouflage. Imran Khan is the perfect example of the "moderate Muslim". The bonkers is large. We must not negotiate with it.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 12:44 AM
I do feel that you fall into the trap of viewing 'Islam' as one entity, just as certain extreme elements would wish it to be (represented by themselves as the true, self appointed voice, of course).
I used to believe there was a large moderate body of Mulsim opinion until quite recently (as many of my articles will attest) but I do not think that theory has stood the test of the Jyllands-Posten incident.
My guess is that the only way 'Islam' can be moderate is for it to be come more secular, like the nominally Christian mainstream in Europe... Indeed that was my first hand experience of Bosnians Muslims in Sarajevo and Mostar in the 1990's, they got drunk with me and their ladies wore short shirts, and they were only 'Muslim' in the way most British people are 'Christians', in other words, they were not very religious at all.
Until I see evidence that there really are a significent number of secularised 'Muslims' merging into the mainstream and speaking out against the excesses of the more intolerant factions, I am stuck with the unhappy notion that Islam really is damn as close to inimical to enlightenment values as communism or fascism. I looked in vain for some large heartfelt, non-stage managed "not in our name" protests by Muslims regarding the Jyllands-Posten matter... no disrespect inrended to the valiant few Msulims who did indeed stand up for free speech. The unpalitable fact seems to be that the people who really do speak for Islam are not at all tolerant when actually faced with the hard questions.
I can only conclude that the identity politics and welfare statism of past years has finally managed to create in one community what they wanted all along with all ethnic communities but failed to do with now increasingly assimulated Africans, Hindu Indians and Chinese communities.
I have respect for many Muslim people... I have none whatsoever for Islam.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 2, 2006 01:21 AM
HJHJ writes:
"I do feel that you fall into the trap of viewing 'Islam' as one entity, just as certain extreme elements would wish it to be (represented by themselves as the true, self appointed voice, of course)"
Come off it, HJHJ. If there is a substantial body of anti-fundamentalist Islamic opinion in this country, it should let itself be known.
I'm sick to death of being told that a silent majority of 'reasonable' Moslem opinion exists in the UK. I want some evidence.
How about marches in defence of freedom of speech? Against Iran's nuclear strategy?
In the absence of such, I'll continue to believe we have breached our own walls and dragged in a Trojan horse.
Posted by GCooper at March 2, 2006 02:06 AM
Islam has been an ignorant, angry threat to the West as we have moved forward through these last 1400 years. They are nasty, vicious primitives who kidnap innocent people and video themselves sawing through their necks for their later viewing pleasure - probably while spooning up a tub of (Western - Hagen Daz). The NY Times does not seem to have a problem with this manifestation of Islamic faith.
Never mind the NY Times et al and Yale accepting as a student (on a student visa - WTF?) the former ambassador of the Taliban, these individuals are still the enemies of civilisation and progress. Fourteen hundred years later and they haven't invented anything but a suicide vest (may they use it in the privacy of their own homes - pieces be upon them).
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 02:06 AM
Within the living memory of my parents generation, and to a lesser extent, mine, have occurred the following lunacies:
a multi-cultured empire composed of deeply religious people was taken over by an ideology of militant aetheism and economic determinism which resulted in the murder of dozens of millions of people;
a highly developed culture, both artistically and scientifically, plunged into a nightmare of racial supremacy and belligerent nationalism resulting in a fanatical militarism which caused the deaths of over 100 million people;
an ancient, highly insular culture became so entranced with a mythical messianic mission based on its own self conception of racial supremacy and divinely inspired cultural superiority that it launched a fanatical war of conquest against several major world societies which led to its utter defeat, the shattering of most of its cultural illusions, and the deaths of millions;
an ancient and highly sophisticated culture, with philosophical and social traditions going back across several millenia, decided to enter the modern age by adopting a totalitarian ideology of economic determinism and class warfare that resulted in the deaths of uncounted millions under the rule of a leader held to be all knowing and infalliable;
and so on and so on.
I am not defending this current crop of lunatics operating under the banner of Islam. I am trying to point out that many of the cultural flaws and ideological errors we point out as being part of the Islamic fundamentalists worst characteristics are nothing new at all, but very much in the abysmal traditions of a great deal of human history.
It is the open, cosmopolitan, secular, non-ideologically-driven culture of the Anglosphere that is the anomaly.
This current conflict is but another in a series of confrontations between rational, scientific, Enlightenment-based culturally diverse societies and the authoritarian/totalitarian priest/king absolutist societies that traditionally held sway in human affairs.
The mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle have joined forces once again to challenge those who believe that rational inquiry and productive effort are the fundamental principles of a truly human society.
The question is: Whose believers will generate the required courage of their convictions to see the clash through to a victorious end?
Posted by veryretired at March 2, 2006 02:25 AM
I too have actually met the much sought after "moderate muslim" It is my experience that they quite cleverly keep a low profile, precisely because of the historical record of western fecklessness vis-a-vis the vaunted liberties of western societies. Note that in majority muslim countries, the buggers could only muster a few thousand protesters out of cities with populations in the millions, over the "satanic cartoons". As my acquaintances have pointed out, each time an Islamist thug makes a threat and cowardly western elites cave, they lose heart. At present, much hope is vested in G.W. Bush, but there is fear as to what comes next. It was pointed out to me, rather pointedly, that when the west puts a line in the sand and then retreats at the slightest provacation,
(Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia) and now the craven rantings of the American left to bugger out of Iraq, that thousands of people then die who took the chance to align themselves and their families with the west.
I believe we will see more moderate muslims when the west starts to play hard with the Islamist thugs and not let dirty oil money by off our politicos and media elites.
Posted by Uain at March 2, 2006 02:37 AM
Uain - STFU.
I believe we will see more moderate muslims when the west starts to play hard with the Islamist thugs and not let dirty oil money by off our politicos and media elites.
Uain - there are no moderate Muslims. Let's get ourselves accustomed to this concept. It's Allah Or Nuthin' At Allah ... (Mark Steyn would have done that a thousand times better, but it needs to be said.)
There are no compromises in this fight.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 02:55 AM
Uain - on rereading your post, I may have misjudged you and if I did, I apologise.
This battle is urgent, because they have already succeeded in getting the collaborators in the MSM over to their cause.
Were gathered on the battlefield! Where is the Shakespearean king to call us to arms?
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 03:23 AM
Verity, I don't think that you have Steyn's position quite right. The difference is important.
One example of a frequent theme in his writing:
"I believe that. I've met plenty of "moderate Muslims" in Jordan and Iraq and the Gulf states. But, as a reader wrote to me a year or two back, in Europe and North America they aren't so much "moderate Muslims" as quiescent Muslims. The few who do speak out wind up living in hiding or under 24-hour armed guard, like Dutch MP Ayaab Hirsi Ali."
Posted by James of England at March 2, 2006 04:07 AM
Verity
I am coming to believe that there are two kinds of Muslim. The Jihadis and their ilk rioting and ranting in the street over things like the cartoons. The other kind is the "moderate, we are part of the West" Muslims.
The difference is that the first kind wants Islam to control the world tomorrow, the second kind is more patient, more polished, more willing to let the first kind get killed in the process. At the end of the day they want the same thing, the difference is in the method.
Posted by John Steele at March 2, 2006 04:12 AM
Verity writes (on another thread)
everyone's favourite heroine Hirsi Ali but also Manjit Irshad the Toronto gal who hasn't deserted the faith, but speaks out against Islam in its current form. They are both so fine.
Quite right!
The point is that there clearly are people who still call themselves Muslims who agree with the concepts of individual freedom, free expression, secular law etc. and strongly oppose those who would use Islam to impose stone-age, misogynistic tyranny on the world.
Many of those people have first hand reasons to fear Islamo-fascism and have fled to the West to save their lives. They are our allies. They are our fifth column. We need them to speak up. Trying to portray all Muslims as extremists will just make them keep their heads down.
Posted by ResidentAlien at March 2, 2006 04:13 AM
The Belmont Club has the text of a manifesto published in the same Danish paper as the Mohammed cartoons, signed by 12 rather diverse people, including Hirsi Ali.
The comments are drivel, but that site has been taken over by a small group of circle-jerkers. The article is interesting.
Posted by veryretired at March 2, 2006 04:34 AM
No, resident alien - "The point is that there clearly are people who still call themselves Muslims ..." There clearly are not: Hirsi Ali is an apostate. She is under a threat of death and is surrounded by secret service 24 hours a day. She is incredibly brave.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 04:44 AM
For the life of me I cannot understand writers who talk about the "clash of civilizations." What the hell has happened to their senses of perspective & what is the other "civilization"(?) but a (very large) horde of dangerously unreconstructed mediaeval lemmings who riot & kill at the drop of a turban, egged on by self-appointed clerics commited to gratuitous violence which is inculcated in lobotomised teenagers in the Madrassas, funded generously by the House of Saud There have always been civilizations, good, ugly & mostly fleeting but no way do I see Islam among the players
"Very retired" reminds us that in recent history, a large portion of which I have also experienced, bad things happened; it was fortuitous that "The West" was able to see the Cold War, for example, as a struggle that simply couldn't be allowed to go pear-shaped despite the unpopularity of the job in hand. The limp-wristed cold war dissidents owe it to some very corageous folk who saved us from having to learn Russian as a first language. Flower Power didn't prevail apart from begetting a generation of multiculti PC fascists who have better moustaches than their mothers ever did.
The last century was probably as awful as any period in history. We were fortunate in being able to prevail because, among other factors, we had been touched a tad by "Enlightenment"
This time round, kiddies, it's a mite different. In 1939 we did not have a large embittered immigrant German population marching for recognition & the return of their colonies. with banners intimating that the only good Engländer is a dead one.(they did all that sort of thing in Nürnberg)
As a previous commenter pointed out we have been gleefully dragging in Trojan Horses by the millions...& there's seemingly no let-up. Add to that the competition with rabbits for the turf in the ghettoes.
The great majority of these sullen humourless, uneducated, ignorant & brainwashed individuals are here with enormous extended families (half of which suffers appaling denigration & oppression from the macho males in the group. There is little or no integration & those with a tendency to small independence, can look forward to an H2SO4 facewash or worse...........or, if a girl, sent back home...Oh yes, it is STILL their home, from wherever they come, to marry an octogenerian fourth cousin, twice removed.
This, kiddies, is definitely not a part of our way of life.
And don't say that we haven't been warned....times without number. My God, how you hated the messengers! "What an awful man!" "The man's a trouble maker!" (huh) etc.
Like the messengers or not. The imporrtant thing is the message...........which you heared......and trashed.
I hope you can remember what it was. There's not much time.
Posted by permanent expat at March 2, 2006 04:51 AM
Tim Blair notes:
MO SENSITIVITY
The forbidden cartoons of Mohammadness have been published more widely in Muslim countries than in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada combined. In Malaysia alone, three newspapers ran images – compared to just two newspapers in Australia.
Not a single major US daily went near them.
-------
If the images of mo hurts them so much then A. Iran shouldn't be selling pics/key chains and B. they should have never been published in the muslim world.
Posted by Sandy P. at March 2, 2006 06:17 AM
I'm not sure expat has caught what I was pitching. There is no point in demonizing everyone who accepts Islam as a religion. They are not all "lemmings" or monsters or heartless killers.
It is a tendency that I struggle against constantly, as I am impatient with apologists, mad bombers, hysterical mullahs, and conniving political types (which is just about all of them as far as I can tell).
There are several hundred million hindus who don't think the way I do, several hundred million Chinese, several hundred million (fill in the blank). The world is never going to be a big picnic where we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, old Coke commercials notwithstanding.
The danger is, and always has been, within ourselves, i.e., can we grasp what is going on and formulate a sufficient response without falling into some type of maniacal hatred that subverts everything we would like to be.
One of the glories, and burdens, of our culture is the neverending self-examination, criticism, and search for a truly moral position. Part of the difficulty is the various moral errors we have allowed to gain so much influence in what constitutes the "conventional wisdom".
This whole thing with the Islamic fanatics is like one of those old Dracula sequels where the vampire was killed in the last show, so the new plot has to find some way to resurrect him, or his son, or his third cousin twice removed, so that the creepy suspense can continue.
We're always surprized when some vicious, murderous obscenity of an ideology pops up and starts causing trouble. We keep driving stakes through their hearts and burying them, only to wake up in the middle of the night and discover something else has started kicking at the door trying to get in.
I sometimes think the worst danger is not our adversaries, but the weariness that comes from having to keep generating the energy to get back in the ring and go another ten rounds with some new variation of the same old BS that we thought we had knocked out in the last bout.
I devoutly pray that my children, and their children, have a deeper understanding of, and committment to, the fragility of liberty than my generation has shown. I doubt this is the last match we will be called upon to play.
Posted by veryretired at March 2, 2006 06:31 AM
Verity,
You should probably join Hizb ut Tahrir or one of the other salafist cults. Your current view of Islam is so similar to theirs: "There are no moderate Muslims because anyone who is moderate is not a Muslim."
You've also maintained in these columns that there are no moderate Muslims because those who say moderate things are in fact lying in order to deceive and conquer the west. Which is it?
Perry,
While the words reported by Khaleej Times report are plainly an absurd interpretation--and with any Gulf publication one needs to look out for further reinterpretation in the reporting--it ain't true that European understanding of Islam is improved by all this, because there was next to no Islamic content to the controversy.
What Europeans ought to have gleaned from this is a clearer picture of the savagery of some Islamic mobs, and the way Middle Eastern and South Asian politicians play on them. The Danish public might have got the simplistic message "all Muslims are bastards". But accepting the idea that changed (whether lowered or raised) opinion of Muslims constitutes better information about Islam is surely buying into Khaleej Times's fictional worldview.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 06:50 AM
PS - I thought it was already well established that Imram is an idiot. His charm, good-looks and wealth have allowed him to get away with spouting nonsense for years. If Graham Gooch took to making geopolitical pronouncements, nobody would take the slightest bit of notice, and many would suggest he stick to what he's good at.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 06:58 AM
Last week in the Gulf News, the Middle East's biggest selling English language daily, we had a chap calling for:
A civilised reply by educated Arabs and Muslims to offensive Danish cartoons.
Read a bit further(Link), and you'll see what passes for a civilised reply out here.
This is the same newspaper whose poll returned over 60% believing violence to be justified in response to the cartoons.
Verity is right, moderate Muslims are very much a minority, especially in the Middle East. That said, the reactions to the cartoons by Muslims in the Middle East blogosphere were very reasonable, and makes me wonder if being computer literate, and by extension better informed, can help some people moderate their views.
Posted by Tim Newman at March 2, 2006 07:11 AM
I think alot of the current hatred of Islam misses the point.
The problem isn't with Islam in particular but rather with religion in the general. All organised religions when they feel the cold breeze of rational thought threatening their existance lash out with brutal and ruthless barbarity. As some have mentioned above Christianity has had its fair share of holy wars. Bitter experience has led us in the west to contain religion's baser instincts with secularism. But those impulses are never far from the surface...death threats against the makers of Jerry Springer the Opera and the routine murder in USA of nurses and doctors in abortion clinics are testament to that.
Therefore talk of clash of civilisations if misleading. If there really is to be a clash let it be those who reject the idea that a god determines what is right and wrong and who lives and dies against those who feel they cannot make those decisions for themselves.
Posted by dunderheid at March 2, 2006 10:09 AM
The problem isn't with Islam in particular but rather with religion in the general.
Sure, we have our nutters too but they are just an ambient problem but when Mormons start crashing airliners into buildings, I will start worrying about them too. 'Religion' is not the issue, rationality is and Godless socialists and regulatory statists are every bit as irrational as religious fundamentalists.
Therefore talk of clash of civilisations if misleading. If there really is to be a clash let it be those who reject the idea that a god determines what is right and wrong and who lives and dies against those who feel they cannot make those decisions for themselves.
We have only recently defeated Communism and still have more than enough internal woes with regulatory statism (sort of fascism-lite with smile-face armbands) to see this as a crusade against religion generally. We are simply facing the latest totalitarian world view and it happens to be an Islamic one.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 2, 2006 10:31 AM
'Sadly, Islam = mass hysteria and mass delusion'. Perhap the same could be said of this country in the week following the death of Diana? Or of all religions and ideologies? Verity consistently portrays Islam as being uniquely wicked. It is true that no-one can hurt you unless you choose to be hurt and many muslims choose to be hurt by what we in the west see as trifling issues. This is a major problem. But the Jewish community gets upset when Livingstone says some off colour (though certainly not racist) comments to a journalist, scousers get upset when the Sun alleges criminality at Hillsborough, Austrians get upset when David Irving comes up with his usual tripe. Over-sensitivity isn't solely Islamic and needs to be confronted everywhere. The danger is we''ll all be legislated into silence. Focussing solely on muslims leaves us (rightly, in my view) open to double standards and likely to encourage more opprobrium from islamists.
Posted by MickeyDuff at March 2, 2006 10:44 AM
Yeah but Mickey you don't see Scousers, the Jewish community or the Austrians running around burning embassies, beheading people or calling for mass exterminations in response to such perceived slights. Nor was there any such behaviour upon the death of Diana.
From Islam though you do however see exactly that, on a global scale in response to a bunch of piddling cartoons - think about that, some piddling cartoons for goodness sake.
To identify that is not a double standard at all - it's merely a statement of fact. Facts of course being something Islamic apologists seem to utterly refuse to recognise.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 11:10 AM
But Mickey, how many people got murdered when Diana died? And why does Livingston's offensive remark to someone become less offensive because it was not 'racist'? Is 'racist' the only standard that matters now? And when scousers get upset when Hillsborough is described as a hive of scum and villany (as indeed it is), how many embassies got burned down and how many death threats got issued?
I think the 'sensitivity' to Islam might have something to do with flying airliners into building and suicide bombers in London and signs carried through the streets of capital threatening to behead people in Britain who disrespect Mohammed. Just a guess mind you.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 2, 2006 11:14 AM
Point taken chaps. But my most recent muslim experience was defending a muslim shopkeeper from a gang of aggressive white yobbos. He was entirely blameless by the way, a model small businessman in my view. The white kids were a disgrace. Should he now be saying 'Christians are hateful scum?' I think not.
Posted by MickeyDuff at March 2, 2006 11:45 AM
The difference is we (ie pretty much our entire society) condemn the behaviour of those white bullies, the vast majority of Muslims either support the Islamic voilence or at best remain resolutely silent about it.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 11:54 AM
Point taken chaps. But my most recent muslim experience ...
To quote PJ O'Rourke, that's a fallacy of relevence. Or in simple English, so fucking what?
Posted by Pete_London at March 2, 2006 12:17 PM
My point is that labelling people as 'us' and 'them' leads down a dangerous path. We are seeing a lot of dreadful acts of intolerance form muslims currently - and the tendency from some on this thread is to blame all muslims for it as if they are uniquely wicked. It is not on the same scale by any means, but I see the intimidatory tactics of animal rights campaigners or anti-globalisation protesters as bearing some similarities And I doubt whether the majority of them are muslims.
Posted by MickeyDuff at March 2, 2006 01:40 PM
Intimidatory tactics - you're kidding. WTF do you call beheading people, burning Embassies and threatening every infidel? Lovey Dovey new age love?
Jeeeeeesus.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 01:49 PM
It is strange how people who rail against state collectivism, are themselves so willing to condemn people collectively, as if the people concerned don't have individual wills, when talking about Muslims.
I think of people as individuals, individually responsible for their actions and I have little time for those that offer religion as a reason for justification of indefensible actions. This also means that there is no reason why my muslim friends should feel any more obligation than anyone else, just because of their religion, to condem the extreme views of other people who are also muslims.
As for he percentage of Muslims that Verity or others feel are extremist. What the hell does this matter? If figures show that (and I've made the figure up) 70% of black men have performed a crime in the last year, does this mean that we should lock them all up automatically on the basis that, statistically, they are probably guilty? No. It wouldn't matter if 99% have performed crimes, it doesn't make the other 1% any more guilty than anyone else.
Posted by HJHJ at March 2, 2006 01:54 PM
I was wondering when the immensely civilised and all-knowing Guy Herbert would drop in with lofty words of counsel. He writes that I say: "There are no moderate Muslims because anyone who is moderate is not a Muslim." I'd like you to point out those words with my signature appended.
He says, referring to me: "You've also maintained in these columns that there are no moderate Muslims because those who say moderate things are in fact lying in order to deceive and conquer the west." This is correct. Not to "conquer" the West, but to deceive, most certainly. I have explained taqqiya and kitman several times and they are all taught it. Without exception.
How many Islamic countries have you lived in, by the way, Guy? Your self-righteousness is foolish, because almost every word in your post broadcasts your ignorance.
Sandy P - Two of the newspapers that ran the images, one of them in Sarawak, have had their publication supsended by the government for several weeks. The New Straits Times was forced to issue a grovelling, large print, front page "apology" in order to be allowed to continue publishing. This was in moderate, civilised Malaysia.
Mickey Duff - I usually don't respond to the moral equivalency gang, and others above have responded to you anyway, but the Jewish community in London grumbled about Livingstone but did not, so far as I have read, kidnap people, hold them hostage in fear of their lives for weeks or months and then hack their heads of for the video camera. Scousers, so far as has been reported, have not been to a suicide bomber training camp in Afghanistan with a view to learning how to blow up Hillsborough stadium while it is packed with people. The Austrians aren't mad enough with David Irving for thousands to rampage through the streets on their way to torch some embassies.
You defended a Muslim shopkeeper and have decided that a bunch of uneducated, unruly, drunken louts are the equivalent of hundreds of millions of people who want you dead or living under their thumb and worshipping their god - or else. What Pete_London says.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 01:56 PM
HJHJ writes: "this matter? If figures show that (and I've made the figure up) 70% of black men have performed a crime in the last year, does this mean that we should lock them all up automatically on the basis that, statistically, they are probably guilty? No."
Why does the moral equivalency gang always bring up black men as an example of the foolishness of the rest of us, as though black men are the worst possible thing they can think of for an example?
Your analogy is ignorant and is offensive to black people, who are not planning on taking over the world. Muslims are. When imams and ayotallahs and mullahs and the rest of them state that the world will become Dar-es-Salaam by persuasion or at the point of a sword, but it will become Dar-es-Salaam because that is the will of allah, do you think they're kidding? Having a bit of a larf? They say it and say it and say it and preach it and preach it and preach it and people like Guy Herbert and HJHJ and all the others wave their hands dismissively at those of us who take them at their word - given the evidence.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 02:21 PM
But my most recent muslim experience was defending a muslim shopkeeper from a gang of aggressive white yobbos.
Nice bit of moral equivalence. What we are concerned with is Muslims threatening to kill those that offend them. Polls of Muslims in the UK show that a large amount of Muslims agree with these aims.
You are talking about a bunch of white yobbos attacking a shop owner...their race/relgion is irrelevant and I would bet his is as well.
There is a difference between the two...a big one.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at March 2, 2006 02:30 PM
Stop the Dhimmitude! These cowering responses by the West just serve to embolden the Islamofascists. In their thinking, it proves them right and encourages their ambitions to conquer the infidel.
We need to understand dhimmi and avoid it.
--Bush would not have apologized to Muslim sentivities for using the word "crusade" in his speech right after 9/11.
--Every newspaper would have run the cartoons, proudly, standing up for free speech and a free press with courage.
--Muslims who break the West's laws in the West would be prosecuted. As I see it, these rioters, building burners, Jewkillers, life-threateners are getting off scot free.
--In areas where such anti-West illegal behavior is common, why not treat it as a resident enemy and subject to Patriot Act-like scrutiny? Lord knows the rest of us are putting up with all kinds of crap.
We need an enterprising graphic artist to design a logo/theme for the anti-dhimmi movement. The word dhimmi with a red circle-slash? Ideas?
Posted by kentuckyliz at March 2, 2006 02:40 PM
Here is an astute piece in Tech Central Station explaining the mistake made by people like Guy Herbert who think these are isolated instances and not part of a whole Why some people don't believe there's a threat ">(Link)
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 02:45 PM
Kentuckyliz is correct.
The people rampaging through the streets of London a mere seven months after their cohorts perpetrated the mass murder and maiming on London Transport - all of them third generation - should have been arrested for threatening behaviour, tried and banged up. Abu Hamza should have been tried for treason and hanged.
If the West will not defend its citizenries and its values, there are wolves prowling and slinking around on the periphery with bright, opportunistic eyes ...
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 03:02 PM
Debating the number of 'moderate' Muslims is a rather futile exercise. If the measure of how tolerable any adherent of some ideology may be is the degree to which that individual 'moderates' that ideology is surely the most complete condemnation of the ideology. Or is this tautology gone mad?
Posted by MadMalcMcMad at March 2, 2006 03:10 PM
Very Retired: I don't think I was missing the very vald points you made, just, maybe, some of the detail.
HJHJ: Regarding folk as individuals is all well & good & is, moreover, laudably correct. I don't know if you were around when "Unternehmen Seelöwe" was pending but I can assure you that I wasn't mulling over the probable humanity of Gefreiter Schmidt. Hundreds of thousands of fanatical brainwashed Teutons bent on killing us played a larger part in my personal & very scared assessment of the situation.
I agree with Mark Steyn in that those who we deem to be moderate Muslims are, in truth, merely quiescent and, being intelligent, will allow the Jihadists to do the spadework prior to accessing power if the operation is successful.
Mickey Duff: I had been long gone from The Septic Isle when pictures of the Diana hysteria hit my TV screen. I am still speechless.........and deeply, deeply ashamed.
In my comments on this crucial topic I have sought to sound the tocsin among those who do not wish to hear it....who appease, grovel in their cowardly PC diapers....who offer the well-worn excuses for inaction & who, shame on them, call themselves a moral majority. Some commenters get a bit carried away and who can blame them under the circumstances, but better that than the erudite acquiescence to PC which one sometimes reads here. A better man than most of us wrote that " The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." For goodness' sake, if it looks like an elephant, smells like an elephant, feels like an elephant & behaves like an elephant...it's an elephant, dammit. Wake up!
Posted by permanent expat at March 2, 2006 03:19 PM
Sorry that should have read "then that is surely the...." Doh!
Posted by MadMalcMcMad at March 2, 2006 03:19 PM
That quote is the most ridiculous thing I've read in weeks. There is no way that a cartoon could ever be more painful than the death of even one innocent person...much less 6 million people!
Posted by Corona Sherona at March 2, 2006 03:25 PM
Precisely Corona - and it is absolutely disgraceful that it is not being challenged extremely loudly and stridently in the MSM.
And HJHJ Muslims on the whole do not exhibit any individual thought and do not behave with any individual responsibility for their actions. Once again I offer up the mob behaviour we have seen all around the world in recent times. Literally millions behaving with absolutely no individual thought or responsibility.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 03:59 PM
Verity, I can't get your Tech Central link to work. Would you repeat it?
Posted by Midwesterner at March 2, 2006 04:04 PM
Midwesterner - I am cackhanded with links. Here it it without trying to be fancy: (Link) This works because I've just tested it. This is a thoughtful, intelligent article.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 04:11 PM
Verity,
"There are no moderate Muslims because anyone who is moderate is not a Muslim." I'd like you to point out those words with my signature appended.
I said those were your views, and it is a paraphrase. But not an inaccurate one, most of the time.
Here you are above, at 11:46pm:
Scratch a Muslim - not that I ever have - and you will find the veneer chips off very easily and they revert to proclaiming there is one universal law: theirs. It's very a very primitive attitude.
at 12:44pm:
push comes to shove and they are fundamentalists under the camouflage.
at 02:55am:
Uain - there are no moderate Muslims. Let's get ourselves accustomed to this concept. It's Allah Or Nuthin' At Allah ...
at 1:56pm:
...they are all taught it. Without exception.
and at 2:21pm
Your analogy is ignorant and is offensive to black people, who are not planning on taking over the world. Muslims are.
That's just on this thread.
Why you mock me for being 'all-knowing' I don't purport to know what every person among hundreds of millions is like. My case is that they are in all likelihood not all the same. If that agnosticism is ignorance then I plead guilty.
That the few Muslims I know well, and the dozen or so I know slightly have entirely different educational backgrounds and outlooks on life is of course irrelevant since I haven't lived in a Muslim country, which would be in every respect just like every other Muslim country (as are all the Christian ones I've never lived in either).
That I choose to take my reading of Islamic concepts from Muslim expositories and from a range of academic works and travelogues, rather than from the shining path of ineffable wisdom leading back to Daniel Pipes; that I have had a wholly unsystematic approach in the 20-odd years I've taken notice of Islam, because I am not concerned to make it an underpinning of my worldview; that I take different Muslims at their word when they contradict each other, and that I am inclined always to regard the noisiest among them as the emptiest vessels, are assuredly both signs and causes of my uncertainty in coming to an unshakeable conclusion about the unity and purpose of all people who belong a worldwide, thirteen-hundred year-old bundle of tradition with no central authority in it. Of course I'm ignorant.
But I hope that I'm not arrantly or crassly assured in my ignorance as to suggest the world is simple. To claim that what is claimed by others does not follow, or is not borne out by the facts, is the sort of claim one is entitled to make from ignorance.
David,
...the Austrians running around burning embassies, beheading people or calling for mass exterminations...
Not for 60 years or so, anyway. I have seen a couple of Jewish writers calling for mass extermination of Palestinians quite recently, but I wouldn't say that because they did that 'the Jews' collectively had.
I'm with Perry here:
I am stuck with the unhappy notion that Islam really is damn as close to inimical to enlightenment values as communism or fascism.
And I have been of that opinion for a long while. But like Perry and HJHJ, I don't step from that to opinions about individual Muslims, or particular Muslim societies. I'll judge them on their actual conduct. (I have scratched a Muslim; and they bleed.) Both Muslims personally and predominantly Muslim societies are capable of pluralism - however inconsistent that may be with a literalist theology.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 04:35 PM
Guy, yes, you know some Muslims in the West. At a bet, you don't know any from the self-created ghettoes, clung to because they have no intention of assimilating. They came to conquer. We didn't know this at the time, although letting in vast swathes of an alien culture with an alien and barbaric god was a mistake.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 04:41 PM
I dont see too much evidence of pluralist Islamic societies.
As for the Austrians of 60 years ago.... I'm talking not of the past I'm talking of today.
If you want to examine the past lets start condeming the Romans perhaps for their savagery or perhaps the ancient Egyptians.
No, today we see WIDESPREAD (not isolated) attacks on embassies, murdering / torturing / beheading of unbelievers, systematic pack raping of western girls, calls for slaughtering entire populations etc etc etc etc etc etc. Much of this coming from within those Islamic societies and all of it coming from Muslims.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 04:46 PM
Both Sweden and Oz have had a huge surge in rapes and pack rapes. As in several hundred per cent. All by immigrant Muslims.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 04:53 PM
An analogy for those who are persuaded by the line that there are few moderate Muslims because we seldom hear from them:-
If you attend to public discourse emanating from the US in the media or in academia, you'd think the vast majority of Americans were screaming lefties and most of the rest fundamentalist religious conservatives. In truth there's a lot of religiosity by European standards, but it is seldom extreme, obtrusive or aggressive; and campus and Hollywood radicals are largely undetectable outside campuses and Hollywood.
Why don't the moderate Americans speak out? Because they are busy getting on with their lives. Why should we expect them to stop doing so in order to speak out for our convenience?
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 04:54 PM
I lived in the US for several years and I never once met a religious fundamentalist. This is a lie put about by the vicious British left.
Sorry, Guy, but moderate Americans certainly do speak out. I don't know whether you've ever been to the US, but if you have, you heard at least a few radio call-in shows - there are thousands of them throughout the country - and the callers are in the main, rational, conservative thinkers. Do not go by the increasingly marginalised mainstream media. American conservativeds most assuredly do speak out all the time, and many of them very articulately.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 05:14 PM
Verity,
At a bet, you don't know any from the self-created ghettoes, clung to because they have no intention of assimilating.
And you do? Or is this another prolepsis?
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 05:15 PM
Well, whadya know!
Waffle waffle waffle ad nauseam...."I am prepared to..."
" Nice chaps I know"..."Individuals deserve....."
Look guys, it meets all the criteria to suggest that is an elephant.....and that's what it is. Oh yes.....it wants to kill you. Jesus H. Christ....WAKE UP.
Posted by permanent expat at March 2, 2006 05:15 PM
Well Guy in Veritys defence I have. I happened to live for some years in a little place called Cronulla in Australia and have had the misfortune to come face to face with the demonspawn that live in the self-created ghettos of South Western Sydney.
I saw them at first hand when they came and terrorised the beachgoers. For years the locals have had to deal with their poison.
I would bet London to a brick you won't have met or had anything to do with such scum, otherwise you wouldn't be peddling such deluded claptrap.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 05:22 PM
Verity,
That, on America, is my very point. (Though I have met a handful of religious fundamentalists in NC.) External views and appearances, even the US at large in the world as a bullying superpower, tell you little about the moderate peaceable Americans who are evident in America. You have to go there to hear about them.
Yet America is one of the most open societies on earth. It doesn't have a dictatorial state manipulating mobs on camera for reasons of foreign and domestic policy. It is easy to speak out for moderation there, but not interesting for foreigners to report.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 05:25 PM
Good allah! - no!
Guy - there may be some genuinely Westernised Muslims, but they are very, very few and far between. Manjit Irshad is one. And ... uh ... And Manjit calls herself a refusenik and is working to change Islam from within. That she is so famous testifies to how rare she is.
Obviously, having lived in a Muslim country, I have met charming Muslims. Elegant, sophisticated, don't drink themselves but will stand their round. Etc etc etc.
And when push comes to shove, they will agree with the rioters and flag burners and embassy torchers because the cartoons "insulted Islam". They cannot get beyond this, Guy. It doesn't matter that we in the West are not ruled by their laws, they still hector us because depicting Mohammad is "forbidden".
They seriously cannot understand that it is not forbidden to us. This is because they believe that the entire world is ruled by their allah. So of course, it's forbidden to us as well. Even the most sophisticated believe the world must acknowledge this. The world must become Dar-es-Salaam. We ignore, or fail to understand this glaring fact at our peril.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 05:26 PM
MickeyDuff
"Point taken chaps. But my most recent muslim experience was defending a muslim shopkeeper from a gang of aggressive white yobbos. He was entirely blameless by the way, a model small businessman in my view. The white kids were a disgrace. Should he now be saying 'Christians are hateful scum?' I think not."
Were the white kids screaming "in the name of God"? Were the white kids told to go forth and kill for God by the local vicar?
Context makes all the difference in the world.
Posted by John Steele at March 2, 2006 05:27 PM
Yet again Guy you are putting up straw man arguments. There may well be many divergent viewpoints in America, indeed I suspect you won't get too many people disagreeing with you on that. That does not prove that there is a similar divergence in the Islamic world.
There is by contrast however, not a complete silence eminating from America in response to thousands of Americans torching foreign embassies, killing foreigners for simply being foreigners, threatening to slay everybody outside America etc etc etc. The main reason for that is of course because Americans, unlike Muslims are not doing those despicable things.
And before you start drawing some absurd parallel with the Iraq war we'll simply note that there is a strong and outspoken anti Iraq war voice in America - so again we see a quite clear contrast to whats happening in the Muslim world.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 05:33 PM
David,
I've no doubt of the existence of vile gangsters living in and controlling ghettoes (London is full of little pockets); nor that there are traits in many Muslim cultures that encourage gangs of youths. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan shows what can happen when gangs of ill educated boys get a cultural boost. But the same happens with non-Muslim groups with macho creeds. Visit any garrison town on any continent if you doubt it.
But how does that make it deluded to suggest that (1) not everyone who might be marked 'Muslim' is like that, and/or (2) there is no inevitable trend to intercommunal violence. The existence of the mafia does not make my Italian-American lawyer acquaintance unclubbable.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 05:41 PM
No all I'm suggesting is that there is never any voice of dissent from the Muslim community in any country towards this sort of behaviour.
Therefore my conclusion is that there is no vast swaith of moderate Muslims who disagree with it.
They are damned by their global silence.
Posted by David at March 2, 2006 05:51 PM
No; it is not a straw man. Though the response to it is.
I am not trying to misrepresent your argument to knock it down, but rather trying to get you to see that it is absurd by presenting a parallel with which I hoped you would agree, viz:
There are many moderate Americans not represented by overseas stereotypes, and it is unreasonable either to claim that there are no moderate Americans because the world's news media doesn't show them, or to demand that any who do exist tear themselves away from pursuing quiet, moderate, lives in order to speak out with such force that the world can hear them.
Likewise moderate Muslims.
I am not trying to prove anything about America or to compare the conduct of the American population with the Syrian.
Posted by guy herbert at March 2, 2006 05:56 PM
but I see the intimidatory tactics of animal rights campaigners or anti-globalisation protesters as bearing some similarities And I doubt whether the majority of them are muslims.
Very true, but then a check through Samizdata's rather large archive will show we are quite happy to put the boot in to animal rights activists and anti-globos as well. I do not regard radical Islam as the one and only (or even biggest) threat to liberty, I am just sure that it is indeed a significant threat.
There are moderate muslims, some of whom are quite heroic ones in fact, but I no longer believe that moderate are either a majority of muslims or that the silent majority are not sympathisers with the more vocal extremists.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 2, 2006 06:17 PM
Mickey Duff: I had been long gone from The Septic Isle when pictures of the Diana hysteria hit my TV screen. I am still speechless.........and deeply, deeply ashamed.For crying out loud -- ashamed? What on earth happened in England when Diana died? Lots of people cried? I showed up in London at the end of August and there were some flowers lying about. If anyone was harmed it did not make the news in the US (not that's the best defense, but still, I did have net access). Unless I missed something huge (and I do not discount this possibility), English people did not run around trampling other English people to death in mobs or setting fire to random Chilean embassies. Why is this even being drawn into the comparison? I'm not trying to attack anyone here -- I am sincerely baffled.
Posted by crl at March 2, 2006 06:22 PM
Guy - the Mafia is not Islam. I despair. That someone comes from Italy doesn't mean they're connected to the mob or has the faintest feeling about it except revulsion. If you come from Saudi Arabia, you are an Muslim and your entire life is in the service of allah and allah wants everyone to obey his tinpot laws. If you come from the nation of Islam as they call it, as they don't recognise national borders, you believe that everyone was born a Muslim. Everyone. Everywhere. You deserted Islam, you wicked thing, so you don't count as a human anymore, so it's OK to murder you by any means at hand. If you convert or, as they call it, "revert", you regain your human status and the respect of lovely Muslims everywhere.
Guy, you are singularly uninformed about this religion and your normally well-anchored points are, on this matter, completely all at sea.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 06:24 PM
PS - I agree with Perry. There are indeed some heroic and brave Muslims, but they are in an infinitely tiny minority against their 1.2bn co-religionists.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 06:26 PM
Here in the United States we had large demonstrations on both sides of the question of going to war in Irag; we have protestors on both sides of the abortion debate - and they are quick to condemn extremist tactics from both sides as well.
When Pat Robertson makes some idiotic comment the condemnations ring out loud and often from his co-religionists as well as from others.
Now, the world has just endured an Islamic tantrum over some drawings. Were there Islamic counter protests against the violence and calls for limiting free speech? Did they actually draw any significant number of people in comparison to the anti-cartoon thugs?
And when was the last time there was an Islamic march against suicide bombing? How about a protest march against beheading some foreign aid worker for kicks?
I too believed in the possibility of moderate Islam - in fact I still do. But post-cartoon wars, I no longer believe moderate Islam is relevant. They have chosen to sit down; they have chosen to let others speak for them; they have chosen to give tacit support to the beheaders and jihadis - so I don't care about them and I don't acknowledge them as a factor in the discussion.
Posted by Bombadil at March 2, 2006 07:52 PM
Agreed, Bombadil. And there aren't as many of them as some people here fondly believe. We are speaking about people who have been brainwashed within an inch of their lives, since birth. They cannot, cannot, cannot conceive of any alternate view. They simply do not understand it and their brains have such an steel fence around them that they are unable, literally unable, to entertain the notion.
They think the cartoons were intentionally provocative. (It wouldn't matter if they were; but they weren't.) They cannot conceive of freedom of expression. It's not that they disagree with freedom of expression. They do not believe it exists. Allah has forbidden it, so it does not exist. So there was a plot against Islam evidenced by their publication.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 08:06 PM
Let's be clear about one thing, it doesn't take universal agreement about Islam, from within, for it to be a problem.
As a general rule, most notions about something fall into 1/3rds (for example it's estimated that 1/3 of the colonists were in favor of revolution, 1/3rd were against it, and 1/3rd were fairly neutral). All it takes is a radicalized 1/3rd to find their ways into the corridors of power and flesh out the "Brownshirts", and a neutral 1/3rd keeping their heads down low, and voila, you've got an aggressive State looking do ill upon others, that is unless you've got an opposing 1/3rd remainder so digusted with how things are that they will risk civil war.
So I've never been one to condemn all Muslims in one feel swoop. But the recipe seems to be in place for several aggressive Muslim States that have no more ~1/3rd truly cracked.
Posted by toolkien at March 2, 2006 08:38 PM
Actually I am quite ready to accept that only 1/3 of Muslims are "radicalized".
So what? It could be 1/10 or 1/100 as long as the rest keep their mouths shut.
Islam = the things that Islam does. Its constituent parts only matter to me insofar as they have influence on the outcome of events. Right now the radicals are driving the Islamic bus - which makes it a radical bus. As long as the moderates sit in the back with their thumbs up their asses it is going to remain a radical bus, and neither you nor I nor the west in general are obligated to see the bus as a collection of seats rather than a single vehicle trying to run us over.
Posted by Bombadil at March 2, 2006 09:43 PM
Bombadil - You have bought into this myth of "radical Islam". All of Islam is radical. We are not talking about Christianity or Hinduism, where there are some people more fundamentalist than others. Islam is a fundamental religion. There is no moderate Islam.
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 10:04 PM
I agree (roughly) with Toolkien. All it takes is for a good man to do nothing. That said, I think there is a very large number of muslims who are not actively involved but broadly support the likes of Bin Laden. They're more concerned with day-to-day life than overthrowing Zionists/Crusaders but they agree with the actions of suicide bombers et al. These are the people who's minds we must either change (or, if it comes to it, destroy). I am reminded here of Martin Luther King. He always held the moderate whites who were in favour of an "injust peace" rather than the potential turmoil of achieving equality more in his sights than the Klansmen, who he regarded as pretty much beyond redemption.
That said. Can we make the "Arab Street" understand us? With every day I doubt it ever more. If we could prevail upon them by force of arms, or force of argument, this war would be half-won already. I think it's gonna have to be force of arms.
Aren't people pissed off with trying to "build a bridge between cultures" (on one side I don't see anything I would call "culture" anyway)? There is a limit, surely, to what we can put up with.
We can never negotiate because they won't even kick off with anything even vaguely worth discussing. We should never discuss because of 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Beslan... I could go on and on. I won't. Is there anyone on this blog who hasn't wondered quite what they'd do to the Hamas leader if they were alone in a room with a well-sharpened HB pencil? They hate us because we have succeded where they have failed. We hate them because of their nihilistic depravity. What's to talk about?
Posted by Nick M at March 2, 2006 10:06 PM
Verity:
I think Islam could be moderate if its adherents chose to interpret it that way. Or rather, I think a peaceful religion whose prescriptive tenets were rooted in the Koran could be possible, so long as those religionists agreed that the Koran was not to be interpreted literally, nor considered to be the unblemished, unchanging direct word of god.
The above would unfortunately not be a fair description of modern Islam.
Again, I don't care if there are 5 moderate Muslims in the world or 500 million; I only care about the net effect. Right now there are Islamic mobs burning down buildings and planning my murder in support of their hateful creed, while their peaceful fellows (in whatever number) silently stump in and out of the mosque, drop their contributions into the Hamas collection bin, and keep their mouths shut. Result: from my point of view, Islam is radical. QED.
Posted by Bombadil at March 2, 2006 10:18 PM
Moderates don't demonstrate. That's why you don't hear them. Doesn't matter whether they're Moslems, Christians, atheists or rock-worshippers.
When did you last see the Chingford branch of Middle Class Professionals for Reasonableness out demonstrating?
EG
Posted by Euan Gray at March 2, 2006 10:20 PM
Nick M says: These are the people who's minds we must either change
Do you have the faintest, tiniest, scintilla of a flea's eyelash what you are talking about?
Posted by Verity at March 2, 2006 10:29 PM
Euan: you are defining the term moderate to mean "he who doesn't voice his opinion."
With that definition it is true that only radicals would be heard.
But (to use a previous example) in the US we had demonstrations both for and against the war in Iraq. We had quite mild peace marches and mild "support the troops" gatherings as well as things sponsored by MoveOn and the Klan.
Similar statements can be made about abortion, free speech, etc.
Are you claiming all those voices are by definition radical? If so, your classification is so broad as to be of little use.
Where is the Islamic equivalent of this ? Or this ? Or this ? Or this ?
Notice the common thread? No calls for beheadings, no burning buildings, no suicide bombings. And when (so very very rarely) there is violence, it is immediately condemned by all sides.
When I say radical, I mean: calling for the death and destruction of those who disagree with you; using violence not as one end to your means, but as the primary end to your means; believing that your cause is so just that anything is justified to achieve it.
That is radicalism. You can come back with some horseshit about how BusHitler is just the same - why, didn't some Korans in Guantanamo get torn covers? but that is crap. If we (meaning the west) made it our policy to pursue our ends with the same indifference to the lives of others that the jihadis display, there would not be any of them left, nor much of anybody left at all in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan.
Posted by Bombadil at March 2, 2006 10:54 PM
Are you claiming all those voices are by definition radical?
No, but although you can get peaceful demonstrations on both sides of the argument, you don't often get people marching under a banner of "No Strong Opinion Either Way," and that's the category most people fall into about most things.
Moderate doesn't simply mean non-violent. It means middle-of-the-road, don't have a view strong enough to go marching about it, got more important things to do, marching doesn't pay the rent, kind of thing.
I know and have lived & worked with a few Moslems in both Moslem and non-Moslem countries. Most of them aren't particularly radical. They have their faith, they believe it, and yes they are indeed taught that people are "naturally" Moslem. But they aren't generally bent on taking over the world, pace certain commenters' increasingly strident and frankly bizarre interpretations. Insh'allah perhaps it will happen, or perhaps not, seems to be their view of it.
They're human beings just like the rest of us. They aren't some sinister band of brainwashed Khomenei-clone kill-droids programmed to destroy everything. If Islam takes over the world, of coure they'll go along with it - just as millions of others would go along with it if liberal democracy took over the world, or millions of yet others if Christianity did. That's a long way from actively supporting violence.
The thing that really annoys me about the anti-Islamism one reads so much of is that there is little difference in style (and, I suspect, substance) between that and the portrayal of the Jews in the early 20th century. Scratch a Moslem and he's a radical underneath, scratch a Jew and he's a Zionist conspirator underneath, all Moslems are radicals, all Jews are Zionists. And so very tediously on. I find this most disquieting.
Unfortunately, the impetus to hate the other is a deep-rooted part of the human psyche, given that humans are social creatures. Tribalism and chauvinism come distressingly easily to us, but I think we should strive to overcome that - many hereabouts clearly do, but many others plainly don't, can't or won't.
EG
Posted by Euan Gray at March 2, 2006 11:22 PM
Verity you keep saying there is no such thing as moderate Islam or moderate Muslims. But your own words.....
Manjit Irshad the Toronto gal who hasn't deserted the faith, but speaks out against Islam in its current form
contradict you.
Posted by ResidentAlien at March 2, 2006 11:26 PM
They're human beings just like the rest of us
So were the people who allowed Hitler and Stalin's rises to power, oh so very human. What a foolish windbag you are.
Posted by Albion at March 2, 2006 11:32 PM
I see, so all Germans are Nazis and all Russians are Communists, and they're all bent on world domination?
What leaders say and what people think aren't necessarily the same.
EG
Posted by Euan Gray at March 2, 2006 11:34 PM