November 15, 2004
A BILLION DEMONS
Misunderstanding Islam (Dheera Sujan, Radio Netherlands, November 12th, 2004)
"The main problem that the Dutch community has with its Muslim citizens is that they're visible by the colour of their skin, or the way they dress," he says. "Our famous Dutch tolerance is limited to the inside – you can be anything you want, in regards to religion or sexual preference, but do it inside. But now we're confronted on the streets with people who look different and we're finding that very difficult to cope with."Some say that this so-called clash of civilizations is based on the West's ignorance of Islam. Dr Berger disagrees. "There's plenty of knowledge available on Islam . . . go to any bookstore and you'll see books on Islam, on theology, on women, [then you'll see a section on] Muslim women being beaten up – and that's our image, that's our knowledge. We're very selective." [...]
Iranian-born Shusha Guppy has lived in London for most of her adult life. However in recent years, she feels more and more under pressure to defend her religion. "There are one and a quarter billion Muslims in the world but the idea that people have of Islam is the Saudi – only four million people but because of this appalling doctrine of Wahhabism spread by petrodollars, the idea is that that's what Islam is and that's what Sharia law is."
The practice and implementation of sharia - traditional Islamic law - has become, in the minds of many westerners, synonymous with inhumane and savage acts such as amputations and stonings. The Taliban infamously implemented it in an extreme form in Afghanistan, and recently Nigerian regional authorities drew international condemnation of their violent punishments of women deemed to have breached moral codes. Maurits Berger, a specialist in sharia, believes this image is misleading. "People, especially westerners, think it's a kind of ready made code, a blueprint in a single book of law. It's not. It's a way of thinking that's been developed by generations . . . so the sharia itself doesn't mean anything without the people who're interpreting it. Is it Osama? Or is it a Muslim feminist? Because they're all reading the same text but giving different interpretations."
Western hostility towards Islam is often directed towards its perceived discrimination against women. According to educated Muslims however, Islam and the Koran have to be seen in historical context. "Islam came to liberate women because when you look at society before the advent of Islam, you know female children used to be buried alive and so forth," says Shusha Guppy. "So the idea that women are repressed because of Islam is absurd – they're repressed because of traditions going far back before Islam, traditions of the Semitic tribes, and above all because of present day poverty and backwardness."
Some analysts have explained the "War on Terror" as a way of substituting Islam for Communism in a post Cold War world when we needed a new enemy – any enemy. Dr Berger however thinks that's too easy a brush off. "When it comes to Islam, it's a generic fear we've always carried with us. I compare it with my little daughter who's scared of monsters under her bed. I try to explain it rationally, show her there are no monsters, but she doesn't want to listen – she enjoys being frightened. It's like us. We may have lots of books and radio programmes to tell us not to be afraid, but people won't read, won't hear. They're the same as my daughter – she doesn't want to hear me saying ‘don't be afraid'. She wants to read more about monsters."
President Bush’s unbending resolve to destroy Islamicism and promote democracy combined with his insistence on respect for Islam makes him one of history’s truly courageous leaders and a champion of enlightened tolerance in the face of both Muslim fanaticism and progressive bloodlust.
I can't share your enthusiasm, Peter. While Bush has indeed promoted democracy, he has hardly even defined victory against "Islamicism." His resolve is without clear purpose.
Posted by: Paul Cella at November 15, 2004 7:03 AMPeter:
Without Muslim fanaticism, there is no progressive bloodlust. And even with the former, there is astonishingly little of the latter.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 15, 2004 7:51 AMHopefully, Shusha Guppy is correct, and after the Arab cultures cease to exist in the 21st century, most global terrorism will go with them.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 15, 2004 8:34 AMPaul:
Perhaps we interchange Islamicism and terrorism a little carelessly at times, but they'll do as working synonyms for now. It seems to me the President has said very, very clearly that, to the extent Islamicism means death and conquest, it will be crushed. Beyond that, what else could he, a Christian President of the U.S. do? As Neuhaus said, Islam will (and should) be reformed from within or it won't be reformed at all. I think there is plenty of evidence reform is underway, but we were promised a long war, weren't we?
Also, well over half of the Muslim world is non-Arab and does not fit the popular stereotypes. Several Arab countries don't fit them either.
Jeff:
Checked out some of the posts around here lately?
Seriously, it won't happen in North America, at least not generally, as we have been saying here for ages. Decency, individualism and tolerance will prevent that. But many say that events in Holland last week are a harbinger and there is plenty of historical precedent there. If so, we can sit back and watch schools and mosques torched while people cower in their homes, and react with a wise and knowing schadenfreude, or we can speak out. Time to choose is a-comin'.
Posted by: Peter B at November 15, 2004 8:50 AMwithout clear purpose
To the contrary, the establishment of democracy (or relative democracy, as the case may be, even if such relativity may be anathema to purists) in these totalitarian societies is, in the neo-con conception, the constructive, moral and humane (or if you will, the least worst) way to defeat Islamicism---though I'm not sure this will convince anyone who views Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden as horrific crimes of war).
This then is the ambitious neo-con gamble: a) that (relative) democracy can indeed be established in what Robert D. Kaplan has recently described as "barren ground," infertile soil; and b) that such a democracy can sustain itself against Islamicism and provide a climate of hope and opportunity that will persuade its citizens to utterly reject Islamicist ideology.
And this is the clear purpose of the Bush administration.
Whether it succeeds or not, whether or not it is a flawed conception, the combined effort of defending the nation through offering hope and opportunity to peoples enslaved by despotic regimes who see the US is their worst enemy is a most noble one.
One might wish to consider, seriously, the alternatives.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at November 15, 2004 10:29 AMI just love how an incident where a Muslim murdered a Dutchman for speaking his mind is now used as a means to attack the Dutch.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at November 15, 2004 10:45 AMBarry, it's a noble exercise but then so was Don Quixote's. The separation of Islam into Islamicism and some 'Islam is a religion of peace' pipe dream is a fool's errand. Were it not going to result in the deaths of thousands of innocent Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and seculars worldwide, it would be as funny as the Man of LaMancha tilting at windmills.
PeterB, the simple fact is that every single mosque in America is a fund raising center for terrorists, that there is not a single Muslim leader who has come out in any substantive way against terror, and that there are thousands of mullahs leading Jihads against Western civilization all over the world. We can either succumb meekly to this or we can fight back. Now, I understand that you're Canadian a nation where meek submission to bullying is the national creed and where all non-Muslim males must take a daily estrogen shot and abstain from red meat, lest they be rounded up and castrated instead, but for the rest of the world , reality impinges on our false utopianism. If Holland is too tough for the Muslims, they can always go back to Ragheadistan where they belong.
Finally, the idiotic notion that the Dutch discriminate on the basis of color has no basis in fact as anyone who has been to Amsterdam or even the Dutch West Indies can tell you. The intermarriage rates are staggering and many of the most popular figures in Holland, like Ruud Gullit are non-white.
Posted by: Bart at November 15, 2004 12:04 PMPeter:
I didn't say it couldn't happen, only that there is a cause-effect relationship between the two.
If the Muslim community loudly criticizes Islamofascists, and actively tries to turf those who happen to be in the US, then progressive blood lust will never happen.
The Muslim community in the Netherlands has long demanded special privileges. Whatever else one may think of Pim Fortuyn, he was on the mark in campaigning against that.
It seems that making special, religiously based, claims for exceptional treatment are coming back to bite the claimants.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 15, 2004 12:08 PMOne might wish to consider, seriously, the alternatives.
The "alternative" to the democratic reform of the Middle East--well, if we fail, or abandon the project, where we end up is either with the slow suicide of the EU or in a generalized "clash of civilizations" between the Islamic world and the U.S. The latter scenario ends with a B-61 nuke dropping on Mecca and Cairo and Tehran . . . .
I don't want to go there either.
Posted by: Mike Morley at November 15, 2004 4:25 PMMike,
It doesn't bother me as long as we can engage in a modern-day version of 'Thank the Lord that we have got the Maxim gun and they have not.' We cannot wait until the Islamic World attains a significant nuclear stockpile.
Posted by: Bart at November 15, 2004 4:42 PMBart:
Write a hundred times on the blackboard: "There is no such thing as the Islamic World."
Posted by: Peter B at November 15, 2004 6:06 PMPeter,
Just because you live in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land doesn't mean everyone else does. There is a war going on between Islam and civilization. It is a fight to the death. It is us or them. There is no middle ground. The only choices are surrender or victory. Only their annihilation will save our societies, otherwise it's burqas for everybody and a new Dark Age that makes the 9th century CE look enlightened.
Posted by: Bart at November 15, 2004 6:55 PMBart:
Do you live under the charming conceit that you are so brilliant that fulminating tirades constitute debate if they come from you?
Posted by: Peter B at November 15, 2004 7:28 PMJeff:
You and I agree there is a war on. War is war. I think it is obvious we both want it waged resolutely. My problem has to to with your use of the phrase "Muslim Community". You of all people should be very sensitive to the dangers there. Just who exactly do you think you are talking about? Be precise.
Think about it. Somehow, 9/11, Iraq, the war on terror, etc. are being used to defend a blasphemous (or,if you wish, racist) Dutch film and to be casual or "understanding" about the burning of schools and mosques in Holland and the terrifying of a general population of a million. Contrary to what Chris says above, there is plenty to call the Dutch to account for without condemning then as racists. But I'm not yet overly worried. I look to the truly amazing inspirations of the peoples of Israel and the USA, and the IDF and the United States Armed Forces, to keep my moral bearings.
Posted by: Peter B at November 15, 2004 7:53 PMThe situation today is no different from that when we faced the Nazis in the 40s or the Soviets in the post-WWII world. The Soviet system collapsed of its own weight and we had to obliterate Nazi Germany.
We face an enemy in Islam that means to eliminate our civilization and replace it with a new Dark Age. The stakes are precisely that. Every single Muslim nation is in the fast lane to barbarity. What evidence do you have that I'm wrong or are you so infected by the disease of multi-culturalism and cultural relativism that you are incapable of distinguishing between good and evil? The answer is that there is none, just a whole lot of wishful thinking by people infected with what Nietzsche would call 'slave morality.' All over the world, it is the Muslims who engage in genocide whether it is killing Thai Buddhist schoolteachers, Filipino Christian nurses, animist herdsmen in Sudan, or office workers in NYC. The culture of Islam is one of death and murder, that is what defines their world. If they merely kept to themselves butchering each other, it wouldn't bother me so much. But they bring Jihad with them. Or don't you read the papers.
Paraphrasing one of my heroes, William T Sherman, war is the remedy our enemies have chosen, let us give them full measure.
It isn't just an Arab thing. Name me, for starters, all the borders where Muslims meet infidels where Muslims are not killing infidels.
That's going to be a mighty short list.
Some blogster wrote that Muslims don't know how to be a minority in a society. That's it, right there.
And, despite a certain Pollyannaism in some quarters (like 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.), it's no different here.
We can use the handy John Morris test of veracity. (I've mentioned him before, he's the historian of medieval England who uses preposterous saints' legends to reconstruct daily life in the Dark Ages, because if you're trying to sell a lie to people, you'd better have all the stuff they know about first-hand exactly right.)
Anyhow, let's start with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the closest thing to a putatively mainstream Muslim spokesbody in the U.S.
But think about that. To have a council of American-Islamic relations, you have to have Islamics who are not American.
It's a clear statement that they have (contra Orrin's fantasies) no intention of adopting American principles and living in harmony among us.
They didn't think this through, obviously. The divide between Americans and Muslims is so obvious to them that they don't muse on it.
But if they wanted to live in peace among us, they'd have named their group something alon the lines of Council of Patriotic (or Loyal) Muslims in America (or American Muslims) or the like.
They really are not like us.
No securlarist is trying to kill Orrin's kids. The same cannot be said for Muslims.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 15, 2004 10:18 PMHarry-
Secularists spent the entire 20th century attempting to kill Americans.
Islam has a curious fixation on earthly matters which it has in common with what you describe as "secularists". Islamism as imagined by the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, was highly influenced by fascist ideology and has developed it's own totalitarian flavor.
Is there something specific to Islam which has made it susceptable to totalitarianism?
Posted by: at November 16, 2004 10:05 AMPeter:
I apologize for my sloppy language--I meant something more precise, like American Muslims, Dutch Muslims, etc, as the situation warrants.
Whether a particular movie was blasephemous or not is irrelevant. Taking charges of blasphemy into account automatically plays into the hands of the most easily enraged. While I think it entirely counterproductive to burn mosques and churches, all subgroups need to understand the obligations attendant with big-L Liberalism.
And if they can't reconcile those obligations with their particular fairy tale, they need to use that return ticket.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 16, 2004 12:23 PMIs there something specific to Islam which has made it susceptable to totalitarianism?
Well, the name "Islam" means "submission", theoretically submission to the soverignity of God (with an accompanying strong belief in predestination).
In practice, this can become forced submission to anyone in power who can claim they're The Will Of God, a dynamic you see in a lot of dysfunctional churches and cults where the priest/preacher/prophet on top throws his weight around by Divine Right.
The predestination beliefs also lead to passivity and fatalism. ("Why bother changing anything? What happened to me is God's Will!") And provides further Divine Right justification for the Saddam wannabes ("Of course I can sieze power! It's God's Will that I rule the world!") and a convenient excuse when reality bites back ("Not my fault! It was God's Will!") with no linkage between cause and effect.
Add to this that "Men of Sin" will claim Divine Right to justify whatever they wanted to do to you anyway...
Posted by: Ken at November 16, 2004 6:22 PMblank, I have less than no interest in why Islam is the way it is.
No possible reason or explanation of its origin would change my opinion of its project and behavior.
I, by the way, never defined 'secularists.' There are many kinds.
None, however, are trying to kill Orrin's children.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 18, 2004 9:29 PM