Saturday, June 03, 2006
I meant to post this yesterday ...
... and forgot. So here is my colleague Carlin Romano's profile of Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Freedom fighter. In tomorrow's Inquirer, Carlin takes a closer look at Hirsi Ali's book The Caged Virgin. In the meantime, this Roger Simon link seems relevant: Oriana in The New Yorker. Like Roger, I admire Fallaci immensely.
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I admire Oriana Fallaci too. It would be hard not to. You don't think though that she is a little extreme in her views on Islam? Out of the billion people who are Muslim, the vast majority are as secular as Christians, albeit with different customs and practices. I understand that Muslims don't currently tend to assimilate well, particularly into European cultures, but then nearly all cultures tend to keep to themselves, at least for a couple of generations. How well, for example, do Europeans or Americans assimilate into Muslim countries when they live and work in them?
ReplyDeleteI agree it is disturbing that a criminally fanatical element in the outskirts of the Muslim faith directs its suicidal hatred towards the West by seeking to hijack Islam. Should they succeed, a billion moderate Muslims will be drawn against their will into a religious war with the West with a billion moderate Christians drawn the other way.
Oriana Fallaci warns us against being unwittingly conquered by the Muslim religion, but offers no reasonable suggestions for how to avoid it.
Hi Noel,
ReplyDeleteWell, I keep hearing about this overhwelming number of moderate Muslims, but I'll be damned if I ever hear much *from* them. Pat Robertson makes some half-witted remark and a good many of his fellow Christians dump all over him. Ahmadinejad calls for wiping Israel off the face of the Earth and the silence among Muslims is thunderous. Buddhist monks once burned *themselves* alive to protest in Vietnam. They didn't blow up innocent people. If the vast majority of Muslims are so peaceful, what keeps these huge numbers from speaking out?
I think they do speak out, but they're not featured much in the media who are more interested in airing the views of the extremists, probably because it's more sensational.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I read Mona Eltahawy and Shobak to get a different perspective on the news and see what moderate Muslims are thinking. Times the BBC have bothered to take their camera crews to local Muslim neighborhoods and ask people what they think of the terrorists, I've heard many of them say that they really wish people would stop calling them Muslims and start calling them criminals which is what they are, dangerous and violent ones at that.
It's hard not to lump everyone together, but I remember when I was living in England during times when the IRA bombed it. It never occurred to me to apologize for the actions of the IRA because I was not a part of the IRA, even though they carried out their actions in the name of my country. Most of the funding for the IRA came from Irish-Americans living in America. Would it have occurred to you to have apologized for the actions of the IRA or to have in any way associated yourself with them?
I think the vast majority of people, no matter what their background or beliefs - Christian, Muslim, Buddhist - are peaceful. Almost a billion people comprising nearly 200 ethnic groups in almost 40 countries around the world are not all suicidal bombers bent on conquering the West. That's as extreme as the terrorists claiming every resident of Israel or American citizen is an infidel.
I think we have to take people as they come: individually and judging from our previous conversations, I think it's safe to say that this is something we agree on.
As regards individual Muslims, Noel, we do indeed agree. But presumably lots of individual Muslims had no trouble taking to the streets to condemn the Danish cartoons. Where have they been when it comes to protesting violence done in the name of their faith? Moreover, consider this: When the Catholic sex-buse scandals were in the news, the media scarcely bothered to point out that the priests guilty of the crimes constituted but a small, unrepresentative fraction of Catholic clergy. (Lest you think I was passive on this issue, read this comment I posted here: Toll the bell, close the book, quench the candle …)
ReplyDeleteMoreover, however inadequately, church authorities did address the matter publicly. If an anti-abortion fanatic with a bomb strapped to him walked into a Planned Parenthood office and blew up himself and a bunch of other people, you can be sure the church would loudly condemn his action - though the media would use it to beat Christians heartily with the intolerance stick. As for the media's attitude to Islamic terrorism, check out this post at InstaPundit. If a major Islamic organization has formally condemned terrorism in the name of Islam it has certainly been under-reported. If imams are preaching against violence in the name of Islam in one mosque after another, it has certainly be under-reported. Which, given how the media bends over backwards to assure us that Islam is a religion of peace, seems unlikely. The responsibility for protecting Islam's good name lies with Muslims, not us infidels.
But presumably lots of individual Muslims had no trouble taking to the streets to condemn the Danish cartoons.
ReplyDeleteI think the Danish cartoon 'outrage' was evidently a well executed piece of PR rather than a genuine reaction representative of the majority of Muslim people throughout the world. I do however recall that The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) denounced calls for the death of the Danish cartoonists for daring to satirize the Prophet Mohammed.
Where have they been when it comes to protesting violence done in the name of their faith?
Take a look. Here's the latest:
"The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today expressed relief that potential terror attacks in the city of Toronto have been averted and applauded the efforts by Canadian security forces to combat terrorism and other criminal activities. CAIR-CAN also said it stands with all Canadians in the pursuit of safety and security.
"As Canadian Muslims, we unequivocally condemn terrorism in all of its forms,” said CAIR-CAN Executive Director Karl Nickner."
When the Catholic sex-buse scandals were in the news ...
I agree that the media could have pointed out that the actions of a minority of paedophiliac Catholic priests were not representative of a majority of Catholic priests, but both of us know the media's interest lies in sensationalism and we also know that the media can't be trusted to be unbiased (unless of course the media in question is a book reviewer!). But whether or not the media do or do not provide balanced reporting is immaterial since it is up to us as human beings to be as fair and unbiased as we can. As mentioned previously, pigeon-holing almost a billion people comprising nearly 200 ethnic groups in almost 40 countries around the world as suicidal bombers bent on conquering the West is as extreme as Islamic terrorists claiming every resident of Israel or American citizen is an infidel. We have to keep a sense of perspective, if only to prevent the state oof affairs extremist Muslims would like to see, namely, War.
Sorry, here's the Take a Look link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cair-net.org/html/911statements.html
OK, we have a couple of organizations speaking out. And we have well-engineered PR against the Danish cartoons. I'm still waiting for the well-engineered PR against Islamo-terrorism, and against homicide bombers (my preferred term). Given that the media, as I said, bends over backwatd to remind everyone that Islam is a religion of peace, doesn't it seem strange that the media has so little to publicize? And I say this as one who has been very much impressed by Sufi mysticism and someone who much admires medieval Islam's (comparatively) enlightened civilization. The media finds Christian fundamentalists lurking in every corner ready to impose a theocracy at the drop of a hat (even though they are usually confusing evangelicals with fundamentalists). Faced with genuine Islamic fundamentalists who really are trying to impose a theocracy on the whole world, they timorously tell us they're not really such bad people once you get to know them.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I agree with you on: I agree that the media has no sense of perspective and takes a perverse pleasure in bashing the West. I agree that theocracies are a very bad idea, in the East or the West. I agree that the rigidity of extreme Islam is a serious concern, as is the rigidity of extreme Christianity.
ReplyDeleteMy concern is that both extremes are coming forward, the Christian extreme in reaction to the Islamic one. Being able to blame Islam for starting a worldwide religious war is scant consolation when the result will be a huge loss of life on all sides of the religious divide and the clocks of humanity turn back to the dark ages. Are we willing to allow a handful of criminals to manipulate our thinking and spark war?
I found an interesting quote in my copy of Beyond Peace. Nixon wrote:
"In the clash of civilizations, the fact that we are the strongest and richest nation in history is not enough. What will be decisive is the power of the great ideas, religious and secular, that made us a great nation. Though the West and the Muslims have profound differences in their cultural and historical development, we can learn from each other, studying the reasons for our past successes and failures.
The twentieth century has been a period of conflict between the West and the Muslim world. If we work together we can make the twenty-first century not just a time of peace in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, but a century in which, beyond peace, two great civilizations will enrich each other and the rest of the world - not just by their arms and their wealth but by the eternal appeal of their ideals."
Well, I can endorse that view. I also think the terrorists need to be defeated.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
ReplyDelete