Growing moderate Muslims

Submitted by Ann Farmer (United Kingdom), Feb 22, 2008 at 17:55

Jaladhi maintains (20.2.2008) that there are no moderate Muslims. One can only judge by those who have voted with their feet by immigrating to Western countries. It's the second and third generations that present problems, especially when not assimilated into their new countries - it's their form of adolescent rebellion against an older generation that do not appear to take their religion seriously; the younger generation see them selves as 'orthodox' although, because they have become detached from their parents' religion, they are vulnerable to exploitation by extremists who claim to be inspired by religion but are not very religious.

as Ed Husain noted in 'The Islamist: why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left' (2007). If we wish to combat terrorism, we cannot afford to ignore the terrorist methods of cultivation. And if terrorists can cultivate terrorism, anti-terrorists can cultivate moderation. This cannot be done by cowardly evasion of the truth and the refusal to call terrorism by its proper name, as the British government has done, in an effort to retain the Muslim vote and appease left/liberal opinion.

The government does not hesitate to throw out genuine asylum seekers, or those who have overstayed their visas, but who have lived law-abiding lives and contributed to society, while it allows the hi-jackers of an aeroplane to stay in the country at public expense, and bribes foreign prisoners who have served their sentences to please go away. It is true that one cannot imagine such 'leaders' leading anyone anyhere, apart from to hell in a handcart, but in that case the public must stir them into action by creating a debate.

If there are few moderate Muslims we must grow them by opposing and exposing extremist arguments - by weeding out the extremists and giving the moderates space to grow without being intimidated into silence. After all, what is the alternative? If we cannot change wrong attitudes by reasoned dialogue, there is no alternative but to kill those who disagree with us - to kill not just those who are trying to kill us, but anyone who disagrees and/or is a Muslim. Churchill would not have approved.

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