muslims PART 2

[Lief Erikson]

Here's an interesting news story.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html
I've complained in the past that Muslims haven't shown much public action desiring peace. There hasn't been a very visible outcry on the part of many Muslims against Islamic extremism- certainly not anything remotely close to the outcry against the Denmark photos of Muhammad.

The story I've just linked is the first major sign I've seen that goes against this. It shows a big public action on the part of Muslims against violence.

Originally Posted by CNN

"Each year more and more people are joining the mass prayer. This shows how Bangladeshi Muslims love peace and are opposed to those who propagate militancy," said Abul Kalam, an Islamic scholar.

Apparently, three million Muslims joined in this prayer event for peace.

This doesn't mean there aren't a very large number of Muslims who do support violence. I don't view them as a small number at all, and their ideology is plainly spreading rapidly. But it is a major public action which opposes violence. That certainly helps.

[Nurvingiel]

That rocks! What a great story.


Don't you have some homework to do?

[hectorberlioz]

Here's an interesting article I think you guys might end up agreeing with:

Meanwhile, America is paying a high price for conservative attempts to depict the Muslim world—a world that includes 1 billion people most of whom live in democratic countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey—as religiously bigoted and politically fanatical. These attacks on Islam and Muhammad and Muslim culture are having the predictable effect of alienating traditional Muslims and pushing them toward the radical camp. No wonder the moderate Muslims are reluctant to take the side of people who are always blasting their prophet and their religion.

Yet as their strategy continues to fail, Hanson and others become more desperate and are now trying to enforce conservative political correctness against independent voices like me who are calling for a new understanding and a new approach. Why else would a guy who knows me and is a colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution make the absurd accusation that I am justifying the 9/11 attacks and blaming “millions of Americans” for those attacks?

It’s time for conservatives to reject such attempts to cling to a collapsing orthodoxy. My book shows that there are two clashes of civilizations, one within the West and the other within the Muslim world. While the left in America is working in tandem with the radical Muslims to defeat Bush in Iraq, the right should ally with the traditional Muslims to thwart this “war against the war on terror.” The traditional Muslims are the one group that can help us defeat radical Islam, and we would see this if we stopped looking for allies in all the wrong places.....

Read it all here:

The Rest of the Story....

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I like the idea of working with the traditional Muslims; the Pope is doing that to fight European secularism, much to the CWR's dismay.

[hectorberlioz]

CWR? ...

[Lief Erikson]

Meanwhile, America is paying a high price for conservative attempts to depict the Muslim world—a world that includes 1 billion people most of whom live in democratic countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey—as religiously bigoted and politically fanatical.

This is a ridiculous sweeping generalization. President Bush has repeatedly said that Islam is a maligned religion of peace. He tried to get the Dubai Ports deal signed with Muslim groups, but the Republican Party stopped his efforts. He has formed many alliances in the Muslim world for fighting the War on Terror. Many conservatives have not portrayed Muslims in general as religiously bigoted and politically fanatical. Though I do believe that this view about Islam is more prevalent among conservatives than it is among liberals.

[hectorberlioz]

Actually Lief, the guy is conservative himself...read the whole thing, it'll clarify the more "theatrical" comments of the last part, which I quoted. I would say that he agrees with you...but read the whole thing.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

CWR? ...

Catholic World Report.

Also, he didn't say that all conservatives think Muslims are fanatics, he said that America paid a high price for conservative attempts to depict them as such. All that means is that some conservatives think Muslims are fanatics.

[hectorberlioz]

Now why would the World Catholic Report be ansty about the Pope's move to befriend this muslim group?

[The Gaffer]

There has been screeds of stuff written and said about the "clash of civilisations", including on this forum, mostly from the conservative end of the spectrum.

Well, if we secularists can bring the two sides closer together, glad to be of service.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

There has been screeds of stuff written and said about the "clash of civilisations", including on this forum, mostly from the conservative end of the spectrum.

Well, if we secularists can bring the two sides closer together, glad to be of service.

I think it's more likely liberals (don't know why you use the word "secularists" ) will end up getting the West mauled. In my view, they'll weaken us from within on many levels. The Republican Party has been the only group trying to get passed programs and initiatives to enhance our country's security. I haven't heard anything from the Democrats, counter-proposals or other, just rejection of all that's going on and being tried. Some conservatives have joined the effort to get us very hastily pulled out of Iraq, but that is primarily a liberal movement seeking that. Outright liberal opposition to the modification of any of our current freedoms, in view of the threat of terrorism, and opposition to almost all of the measures being taken to stop terrorism, is weakening our country and making us more vulnerable to terror.

Not that it's unpatriotic. I know that they're doing what they feel is right and best for our country. But it's going to hurt our country, in the end.

[The Gaffer]

I said "secular" to reference Gwai's putative Papal alliance with Muslims to counter European secularism.

On the contrary, almost all of the policies implemented by your leadership have made the world a less secure place.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

On the contrary, almost all of the policies implemented by your leadership have made the world a less secure place.

But this is part of what's difficult about the "security" debate in the US. People who believe that administration policies are improving our 'security" aren't really caught up in the day to day battles in Congress. They don't see how money that could be used for programs that improve access to education or fund local police (both Democratic initiatives) is diverted to invading countries based on poor intelligence. (at all levels ) And they certainly don't see how the Republicans have completely abandoned and betrayed a legacy of fiscal responsibility and small government to expand domestic spying and create massive redundancy in our centralizing government, all headed up by intellectually lightweight political appointees.

They DON'T see, because they don't cope IRL, how the federal government's first call on taxes shifts burdens onto the states that they're increasingly unable to cope with, and how THAT disenfranchises, in often a literal way, people who, a generation ago, were the guardians of an orderly society.

And even when it hits the papers, they don't see how the people they elect, year after year and in good conscience, mock and betray the "family values" that are the key issues to their supporters because they don't, in fact, share them.

[hectorberlioz]

Another D'Souza article...sorry, I can't help but agree with him...

The Article

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I think it's more likely liberals (don't know why you use the word "secularists" ) will end up getting the West mauled. In my view, they'll weaken us from within on many levels. The Republican Party has been the only group trying to get passed programs and initiatives to enhance our country's security. I haven't heard anything from the Democrats, counter-proposals or other, just rejection of all that's going on and being tried. Some conservatives have joined the effort to get us very hastily pulled out of Iraq, but that is primarily a liberal movement seeking that. Outright liberal opposition to the modification of any of our current freedoms, in view of the threat of terrorism, and opposition to almost all of the measures being taken to stop terrorism, is weakening our country and making us more vulnerable to terror.

Not that it's unpatriotic. I know that they're doing what they feel is right and best for our country. But it's going to hurt our country, in the end.

Lief, I think you didn't quite get what we were saying. I referred to the Pope's recent hints of recruiting Muslims, especially from Turkey, to combat European secularism. Gaffer said he was glad the secularists could help bring us together (), so we were discussing European secularism, not the American Democratic party.

Also, Hec, D'Souza is largely right, though I think it's too complicated to say it's all one or the other.

[The Gaffer]

I think his opening assumption is hugely wrong:

For many Western liberals—and even some conservatives—the war on terror is a clash of opposed fundamentalisms: Christian fundamentalism vs. Islamic fundamentalism.

I don't know anybody who has characterised it in this way.

Whilst I agree that many of the aspects of Western society that are abhorred by radical muslims are "secular" (e.g. emancipated women, freedom of speech), I think it is a vast oversimplification to ascribe them purely to secularism.

If I remember my history right, our concepts of freedom of speech owe something to a bloke called Martin Luther...

In which case, I genuinely wonder what the point of the article is.

[Butterbeer]

and way beyond.

Lief - blinkers are for horses, not thinkers.

You have every right to think whatever you want, but you, my friend, also have a mind (else i wouldn't bother, believe me) -

think and conclude what you will - but God (if you will) gave you a mind to think - use it to it's max.

It's yours free to use - just do not blinker it.

[hectorberlioz]

turns out the democrats DO have a plan to win in Iraq!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

If I remember my history right, our concepts of freedom of speech owe something to a bloke called Martin Luther...

Ummm....no. Martin Luther didn't believe in freedom. He believed in His Holy Infallible Self. He encouraged Protestant nobility to suppress Catholics, and IIRC also encouraged the slaughter of Anabaptists.

[hectorberlioz]

And he wanted to be Pope, too. Power mongerer.


Gaffer, I think you mean Martin Luther King jr.