Someone has had to say
all this for a long time. The West
created Western civilization from the Roman idea of citizenship and from Christian
ethical thinking all brought into modernity through the egalitarianism of the
Enlightenment. The East created two civilizations
informed by Buddhism particularly.
Islam grabbed pieces of the
civilized world and imposed a code of barbarian law over its preexisting parts
while imposing an anti rational religious structure that flies in the face of modernism
and actively seeks to destroy just that.
It says much for common humanity that much of the Muslim world has found
ways to preserve the ways of civilized man in the face of this. Allowed freedom of religion, Islam will soon
transform itself into a very different ethos.
The world’s citizens are
engaged with Islam, like no other religion and it is not an engagement from
which Islam can hope to prosper. Every
hate filled diatribe may encourage a few hundred believers, but in the world of
modern communications, thousands learn to reject Islam.
In many regards, Islam
is visibly faltering. The alignment of
radical Islam with political power that has proceeded for centuries is not
unnoticed and is strengthening the resolve of anti Islamic forces whose
strength is waxing. Picking up the sword
will bring the sword down on your own head.
Every Islamic barbarism produces
a million anti converts to Islam.
How to Make Islam Respectable
Posted By Mark
Tapson On December 26, 2010 @ 11:00 am In Email,Feature,Islamic
Groups in the U.S.,Middle East,Radical Islam,Religion,Terrorism (Islamic),The
Concession Stand,Top Twenty,War on Terror
Regardless of whether
one subscribes to the notion of a clash
of civilizations, I think we can all agree that relations between “the
Islamic world” and “the West,” however one defines those labels, are, well, strained. President Obama was elected
at least partly because, with childhood roots in Muslim Indonesia and an
Arabic middle name no one was allowed to mention until after the election,
the Left believed him to be the perfect candidate to heal that rift. When he
wasn’t healing the racial divide, America
So right out of the
gate, Obama made his first order of business an
appearance on al-Arabiya TV, in which he made seven references to
“respecting” the Muslim world, his flashing neon semaphore to them that he was
no imperialist exploiter like his predecessor (Daniel
Pipes notes here how common a motif the word “respect” was for Obama,
ironically so for a man who commands none either at home or abroad). Then it
was on to a
self-important speech from Cairo, in which Obama flattered the Islamic
world so effusively that one wondered if he was angling to ask it to the prom.
And of course, who can forget his
show of contemptible dhimmitude – I mean deep respect – to the Saudi
King?
His efforts
haven’t exactly mellowed the clash of civilizations into a Kumbiya campfire
circle. And yet Obama was at least theoretically on the right track. Because a
recent poll by the new Abu Dhabi Gallup Centre reports that a large
majority of Muslims say that the best way for the West to improve relations
with them is to “respect Islam.” But the West has made every effort at “Muslim
outreach” and bent over backwards to make social and cultural concessions to
its Muslim citizens. President Bush himself expressed a distasteful degree of
deference toward Islam, and Obama far surpassed even that; so how much more
respect will it take to make the Muslim world feel sufficiently respected?
The issue needs to be
reframed. Since even our most gushing genuflection seems to have accomplished
nothing except to incite further expectations of respect, it’s time for the
West to take charge of this dialogue on our terms. We in the West – apart from Obama and his
sycophants – are accustomed to the understanding that respect cannot simply be
expected, much less demanded; it has to be earned. So now the question becomes, what must that majority of
Muslims who want respect for their religion do to earn it? How can they make
their religion, well, more respectable?
What follows are ten
suggestions (some of which mirror Robert Spencer’s five
ways to end Islamophobia) for those Muslims cited in the Gallup poll to
take to heart – those who, like Rodney Dangerfield, lament that they can’t get
no respect.
Let’s get the most
obvious one out of the way first. If Muslims are tired of having the words
“Muslim” and “terrorist” linked (on those rare occasions when our leaders and
media actually do link
them), a painfully obvious solution leaps to mind: stop committing acts of
terrorism in the name of Allah and his prophet.
Ending atrocities
against innocents and non-combatants (as we define them, not as the Islamists define them), and
striving to actually live up to Islam’s Religion of
Peace™ label, would be a nice good-faith gesture to lay the
groundwork for better relations with the West. It’s certainly the most urgent
step to take, and the most necessary – without it, none of my subsequent
suggestions will matter.
For Muslims who already are not plotting or
committing acts of terrorism, confront your co-religionists who are and nip them in the bud.
After all, as it’s often pointed out, they constitute a TME – Tiny Minority of
Extremists™ - that should easily be overwhelmed by the moderates’ superior
numbers. At the very least, report the TME to the authorities…
… Which
brings us to number nine: The police are your (and our) friends.
9. Cooperate to the fullest with law enforcement to root out the terrorists in your midst.
9. Cooperate to the fullest with law enforcement to root out the terrorists in your midst.
A New York Times article last
week noted that Rep. Peter T. King of New York, who will become the chairman of
the House Homeland Security Committee, intended to look into a lack of
cooperation in terror investigations:
When I meet with law
enforcement, they are constantly telling me how little cooperation they get
from Muslim leaders.
He cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, arrested last
year for plotting to bomb the New
York Queens
imam had
tipped off Zazi that he was the target of a terror investigation.
Salam al-Marayati,
the executive director of MPAC, the Muslim Public Affairs Council*,
“expressed deep concern” that [King] basically wants to treat the
Muslim-American community as a suspect community.
I’m sorry to break
this news to Mr. Marayati, but the Muslim-American community is suspect – not because of
bigotry or Islamophobia, but because the terrorists and radicals in its
midst have made it so.
Resisting cooperation with law enforcement naturally lends even more weight to
that suspicion. It doesn’t help when Muslim community leaders
cry “civil rights violations” while claiming that people like King are undermining
the relationship that Muslim leaders had sought to build with law enforcement
officials around the country.
Relationship? Law
enforcement officials nationwide are complaining that there isn’t one. Short of
infiltration, which Muslim leaders also oppose, law
enforcement has no way of knowing what radical activities may or may not be
going on inside the mosques. And that brings us to our next recommendation…
*Check out the
Investigative Project on Terrorism’s devastating piece about MPAC’s
unfitness to serve as a liaison with law enforcement.
8. De-radicalize your mosques
Estimates
are that upwards of 80% of all mosques in the United States
Now former Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Reza
Khalili reports that Iran
is using mosques and Islamic cultural centers in Europe and the U.S.
They recruit, they
train, they sell the ideology of martyrdom, and many, many are guided and
connected to terrorist groups.
There is no surprise
in this, except for those Westerners who buy the politically correct line that
mosques are benign houses of worship that are never used for any nefarious
purposes. In reality, mosques have been used to preach hatred;
to spread exhortations to terrorist activity; to house a
bomb factory; to store
weapons; to disseminate messages from bin Laden; to demand (in the
United States) that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions;
to fire
on American troops; to fire upon
Indian troops; or to train
jihadists.
If Muslims don’t want
their mosques infiltrated or investigated by non-Muslim law enforcement, then
it’s up to them to clean house and rid themselves of the elements –
including the imams themselves – who might be fomenting and plotting
subversion, hatred, and terror.
Seditious
7. Start respecting the rights of women
One of the West’s
bigger bones to pick with the Muslim world is the latter’s (mis)treatment of
women, which rockstar
scholar Reza Aslan angrily
insists is a non-issue:
If you’re somehow
arguing that Islam has a different conception of women in society than Europe does, it’s just wrong.
Women such as Ayaan
Hirsi Ali and my friends Brigitte
Gabriel and Nonie Darwish beg to differ.* Here is how Nonie’s
must-read book Cruel
and Usual Punishment begins:
For the first thirty
years of my life, I lived as a virtual slave. I was a bird in a cage; a
second-class citizen who had to watch what I said even to my close friends.
Under Islamic law I had to live in a gender-segregated environment and always
be aware that the legal and social penalty for “sin” could end my life. This is
what it is to live as a woman under Sharia law.
Last week it
was reported that each year an estimated 600,000 lashes are dealt to
women in the sharia wonderland known as the Sudan
The Commission members
have orders to tell any women in public to cover up her face if they find that
her eyes are seditious.
Ah, seditious
eyes – potentially more threatening than seditious bare ankles, although the
Commission doesn’t explain what constitutes “seditious.” No word either on how
the Commission feels about “Bette
Davis Eyes.”
* Not that Aslan will
listen. In 2009 I
attended an event at which Aslan was speaking, and Nonie Darwish rose
in the audience to challenge him about the condition of women under sharia.
After conceding one small point, he said, “Everything else you said is wrong” –
and turned away from her, ending their discussion.
6. Start reciprocating religious tolerance
There is no more
religiously tolerant country in history than the contemporary United States
By stark contrast, no
Bibles, churches, temples or synagogues are allowed on the Arabian
peninsula , the home of Islam. Non-Muslims are not even allowed in Mecca
Then there is the
violent persecution of non-Muslims. My friend Mark Durie, the brilliant scholar
of Islam, notes in his The
Third Choice that
The human rights
situation of Christians in many Muslim countries has been getting steadily
worse over the past half-century. This deterioration has been directly linked
to the worldwide Islamic revival and reinstatement of sharia law.
A report
last month at the Hudson New York think tank states that
Christians in Arab
countries are no longer being persecuted; they are now being slaughtered and
driven out of their homes and lands.
And then, of course,
there’s the Koran-mandated
Jew-hatred and Muhammad’s
command of death for those who leave Islam.
Muslims want us to
respect Islam? End the persecution of non-Muslims, reciprocate religious
tolerance, and abolish the death penalty for “apostasy.” Then we’ll talk.
5. Update
your penal code from “medieval.”
While our own legal
system has a far-from-perfect record of dispensing justice, and punishment can
be harsh (that’s why it’s called “punishment”), sharia is the very definition
of draconian. This “cruel and usual punishment,” as Ms. Darwish calls it, includes
lashings for drinking alcohol, amputations for thievery, beheadings for more
serious crimes, being hanged or thrown from a roof for homosexuality, and – the
real gem in sharia’s crown – the stoning of adulterers.
This last method of
execution requires that the stones used be neither too small to do serious
damage nor large enough to cause a quick death. So it’s clear that the ordeal
is intended to be as excruciating and prolonged as possible.
Say what you will
about our own electric chairs and firing squads, which we’ve largely abandoned
in our search for the most humane method of execution (itself reserved for only
the most heinous of crimes); sharia’s punishments are characterized by
barbarism. News flash: barbarity doesn’t generate respect.
4. Let the
whole cartoon thing go.
Speaking of barbarity…
This would seem to be
a no-brainer, but apparently it bears explaining: “taking offense” is
not a license for frenzied rioting, murder and mayhem. The most
notable example is the worldwide
rage over a set of cartoons published years ago in a Danish newspaper,
which no one outside of that tiny country would have seen if not for the
cartoons’ shrewd distribution by Islamists themselves eager to unite the
ummah, the worldwide Muslim community, against the blasphemous West. That
murderous outrage is ongoing: Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was recently set
upon in his home by a Muslim attacker seeking vengeance.
Similar, more recent
examples include the threats to kill the South Park creators for their
tame, satirical, animated take on that same
hypersensitive hysteria, and the death fatwa issued against cartoonist
Molly Norris, who
has since “gone ghost” in fear for her life. Not to
mention the death threats, explicit or implied, over innumerable
other things that offend many Muslims.
Apologists like
to point out that many Muslims take disrespect toward Islam,
Allah, and his prophet very seriously, and they suggest we tiptoe respectfully
around that religious sensibility. I would like to point out that such
apologists are cowards, appeasers, and religious hypocrites, and remind them
that violent lunacy is not deserving of respect. And this segues into
suggestion number three…
3. Stop trying to curtail our free speech and to
criminalize Islamophobia.
From the Salman Rushdie affair to Molly Norris’ sad vanishing, the list of Islamist assaults on our precious freedom of speech is far too long to do justice to here. And the West has too often responded not with firm resistance, but by preemptively censoring itself: witness Random House rescinding its offer to publish The Jewel of Medina, a novel that an academic warned might outrage Muslims, or the Yale University Press publishing a book about the Danish cartoons that will not include the cartoons themselves.
Islamists know that
the key to winning the war of ideas against the West is to keep hammering away
at our freedom of speech – our right and our ability to critique and denounce a
totalitarian ideology that is hell-bent on bringing the West under its heel.
Criminalizing blasphemy, defamation of religion, “Islamophobia” and the like
will put us at a mortal disadvantage. Indeed, the world’s largest Islamic
assembly, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has made the
criminalization of religious defamation, specifically “Islamophobia,” its number one priority – and Obama
has sent a sympathetic envoy to that party to help them achieve
it.
To earn our respect
and the beginning of trust, you must embrace, not threaten, our freedoms and
our values.
2. Stop letting the Muslim Brotherhood speak for
you.
For decades now, the Muslim
Brotherhood has shrewdly worked to establish its subversive presence
in America
Maddeningly, our
government, law enforcement, and media have taken the bait and embraced these
groups unquestioningly – blindly engaging an enemy that seeks the “elimination
of Western civilization,” as an internal Brotherhood document
proclaims. Such Islamist groups completely control this country’s dialogue
with our Muslim citizens.
Americans have
been asking since 9/11/01:
Where are the moderate
Muslims? Why have they not risen up en masse to show that they stand with us
against the extremists?
For Muslims to earn
the respect of the West, those moderates in America and around the world must
prove first that they exist –
by uniting, organizing, promoting themselves not only to the media and
government but to the public, and fearlessly
confronting the deeply-rooted network of
Brotherhood groups. They must speak out forcefully in
unqualified solidarity with the West against their
co-religionists’ terrorism and stealth agenda.
1. Start taking responsibility for your own
destiny instead of blaming the West
In contrast to Western
notions of self-reliance and free will, the Arab world suffers from what Hugh
Fitzgerald calls an “Islam-inculcated inshallah-fatalism”
characterized by the habitual mantra “Inshallah,” or “If God wills it,” used in
reference to virtually every action. As Fitzgerald writes,
Why try very hard
when, in the end, every fiber in your individual or collective being tells you
that, in the end, it’s all up to Allah, and he will intervene, quite
inexplicably and suddenly, whenever he wants?
This is fatal to
cultural, technological, scientific, economic, and spiritual development.
Without the culturally ingrained confidence that human beings can, through
their own decisions and choices, impact the external world and to a large
extent steer their own destinies, a people is doomed to stagnation, jealousy,
and parasitism, and tends to look outside themselves to affix blame.
To earn the West’s
respect, such Muslims must stop shrugging “inshallah” about all things great
and small, stop laying the blame for their conditions on conspiracy theories of
Western imperialism and thievery, and actively take responsibility for a
better future and a peaceful, shared destiny with the West.
Article printed from
NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com
