Letters to the Editor
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FMHilton
You really believe that? Your father's interpreter was calling him an "infidel dog" under his breath?
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it IS us
"This is definitive proof that the United States is not anti-Islam, something that violent extremists like bin Laden often accuse us of being in their propaganda."
BUt we ARE anti-Muslim! This article is about all the ways we are. And if you want to say that Coulter and Fox News and certain troglodytes in Congress don't represent us, then god damn it just come out and say it. But don't try and deny the very truth you document!
This nation has ALWAYS been of two minds. "We the people" didn't include the black slaves that built this place. Wilson of the League of Nations also brought us the Palmer Raids against immigrants and labor organizers. We have ALWAYS been two faced about tolerance and opportunity. The sooner we face this reality, the sooner we will come to terms with it. Pretending that such bigotry is not US just destroys our ability to deal with it.
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Christianized Islam.
I was born, raised and think I'm still a Muslim. but the Islam that is talked about now days by so called learners, experts and practiced by Muslim fanatics "Christianized Muslims", is Foreign to me. maybe we have invented this Islam; and it's a bad Invention.
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All I know is this
Given our very colourful international history, I don't believe that anyone can claim the moral high ground. Yes, there are many atrocities being committed in the name of Islam ... equally, there have been, and continue to be, many committed in the name of Christianity, in the name of Judaism, and in the name of atheism.
If God exists, and if God is perfection, all-powerful and omnipresent, as I think all these religions believe ... then why does God need defending?
Aren't we perhaps defending our own fears and denying our own shadows by projecting them on to a God who ultimately wants or needs nothing from us at all? In the name of God? Perhaps not. In the name of our disowned fears and shadows? Maybe.
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Have any of you ever been outside the country
Most people simply don't like America or Americans and haven't for a long time. This is just one in an endless chain of excuses or reasons to feel thus. The French would spit on you in the '60s. South Americans generally loathe you. The Filipinos and SE Asians like your currency but really have no need of you. In fact, the Arab world and Indonesia is fine for Americans. They don't generally feel any better worse about you than they did 20 years ago. You couldn't randomly wander into bad neighborhoods then and you still can't. No no the old cry still applies "Yankee Go Home (and take us with you....)".
Face it there is no American good will, there never was and there never will be. Have all the hands across the bridge meetings with local groups in Dearborn Michigan all you want. Go to CAIR meetings. But it won't change the fact that whatever you do most of the rest of the world doesn't like you or like your country. Call it hate, or envy or politics or mob thinking, culture, ethnicity or whatnot.
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I Wonder What...
I wonder what Salman Rushdie would have to say about P.W. Singer's article. If Islam can consume Cat "Peace Train" Stevens and turn him into an apologist for every fatwa spouting mullah, then it is difficult to know how the West is supposed to respond to the Muslim world while at the same time furthering the hope that we can continue to go to the grocery store without being blown up by an enraged adherent of the Koran. Certainly the ideal is a society where every person is able to practice whatever religion one prefers and dream of innumerable, afterlife virgins--if that is their bag. However, Muslims in the West are hardly in the same boat as Christians in Ancient Rome (or women in Saudi Arabia, for that matter).
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'They' are right
I think the writer of the article misses the point. First of all, who is a 'real muslim'? Is it the one who takes bits and pieces of Islam that he likes and ignores the rest? Many muslims would argue that these are not real muslims. These so-called muslims are not the ones that are directly responsible for terrorism. But they ARE responsible for keeping quiet when one muslim destroys a mosque and kills dozens of muslims, but are willing to run into the street over some cartoons. They are as dangerous as those that strap bombs around themselves.
If we define 'muslim' as one who believes in ALl the teachings of Islam, then we are right to be Islamophobic. Islam is not just a religion - it is an economic, legal, social system as well as an ideology and a religion too. Islam is NOT peaceful - not in it's books, not in it's teachings, not in the way it is practiced.
Many major muslim scholars have gone on record saying this loud and clear - Islam is not peaceful. That being the case, we have every right to be Islamophobic. At core of Islam is un unshakeable belief that Islam is the only true religion, and that every muslim has a sacred duty to spread it at any cost, and if that fails, to kill those that refuse. That is the bottom line.
This means at the core of it, it is us against them. Whom do you want to win?
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Two sides of the Coin
This article is a clear demonstration of the problem facing the West in dealing with Islam - how to reconcile the tolerance accorded to faith and its practices with the intolerance required to deal firmly with the militant side of this religion. If the demonizing of the whole of Islam on one side is wrong, as suggested here, then equally minimizing the problems caused by the Salafist ideology and practice (Wahabi, al-Qaeda and the like) is equally unacceptable. Until the West can develop and clearly implement a two pronged approach to Islam - strength against the militant activists and an ideological response to the excesses of the faith, then this problem will persist. When I read this article, all I see is an attack on the critics of the faith - and not a word about the real crisis of the Islamic faith being hijacked from within by their own extremists.
The Islamic faith can be practiced in a moderate manner - the United States clearly has the most integrated Muslim population in the West who have found a balance between their personal beliefs and their civic lives. This is far removed from the situation developing in Europe where ghettos of culturally and religiously isolated minorities are being radicalized by Salafist ideology. You may hate Bush, but at least he has publicly made sure that he reaches out to the Muslim community and has never demonized them after 9-11. And while there will be others who have said harsh things, all of them pale in comparison with the verbiage regularly spewed from the channels in the middle east.
The great failure of the intellectual community after 9-11 was not challenging Salafist doctrine head-on, and developing a response to the same alienated masses that are so easily manipulated by its siren call. It is not Islamaphobic to state that some aspects of the faith have been twisted and perverted. And it is not Islamaphobic to shut off the funds that are spreading this minority interpretation of the faith throughout the world. But this is not happening and so the ideological side of this struggle is being ceded to the Salafist side.
What we have now is a shotgun assault from both sides over the motives and believes of the other - blacking all of Muslims for the crimes of a few and blackening all of the West for its actions. We need to tighten the focus and insure that criticism from both sides is directed at the problems - and not
at the majority who just want to get along with their lives.
Military action will not win this struggle, but it is necessary in some cases. With the power of modern technology, the destructive potential from some of these groups will have to be countered. But this needs to be matched with an assault on the beliefs that motivate these people to extremes - and a willingness not to confuse action against this deviancy with an attack on the whole of Islam.
Until both sides of this issue are addressed, we will remain in shackles.