A Question

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Aug 21, 2010 at 22:47

Dr Sudrania,

I agree with your comments about the "highly intoxicating" force of Islam as devised by its founder, who deserves to be rated down there with Hitler and Goebbels in his ability to convince masses of men that they will find their salvation and meaning in life in hatred and acts of violence.

But as to its getting "more violent and fiery", Islam has had an ally we have yet to acknowledge. Namely, we have and still remain silent in the face of its challenge. We still AGREE that Islam is a "great and peaceful" religion.

We don't know what will happen if enough people, especially a few leaders get up and firmly express their doubts that this is a "great and peaceful" religion. They could do this by simply and solemnly, without stridency, listing all the atrocities of just the last few days or weeks, from the 50 young men suicide-bombed in Iraq to the young girl in Kabul getting acid in her face for going to school.

At the same time they would note the utter absence of any mass protests against these atrocities in any Moslem country, or from their leaders. Not a single Moslem leader, and certainly not the in-your-face Imam of the planned 9/11 mosque has dared say that these unrelenting atrocities have been blackening the name of Islam for decades now..

But why should they? No one in the West have ever said this, but instead goes out of the way to state that no matter how many atrocities happen in the West, let alone against Moslems in Moslem countries, nobody should EVER say a strong word against Islam itself.

We simply don't know what may happen if we take off this blindfold we covered our eyes with, and we start reacting, as we long since should have, to the religion itself. Perhaps the reaction against the NY mosque, although marred by the political opportunism of the likes of Gingrich and Palin, is the long overdue challenging of the supposed merits of the religion itself.

Perhaps there's a huge well of doubters in the ranks of Islam, who will, slowly at first but then with gathering momentum, respond if we recover our own ability to stand up not only to individuals and groups (and crazy Iran) but to the totalitarian ideolog which has bred all of them..

And we could, for instance, make a standing offer: If you wish to leave Islam, but of course fear for your life if you do, come to the West and we will give you religious asylum (although with no purpose to convert you to any other religion). Say we offered a limited number of slots, 1,000 or so at first, just to see if everybody wants to stay in a religion which promises to kill them if they decide to leave it, or even merely to experiment with an alternate belief system, as so many do in the West.

regards, Ron Thompson

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".