Arbitration

Submitted by Alain Jean-Mairet (Switzerland), Jan 31, 2005 at 00:58

I think that Mr. Arevalo has a good point when he says that "Radical Islam is actually Islam itself". But just after that quite true observation he is making the same mistake that Mr. Auster makes. He just stops thinking, as it were, and keeps arguing on that static basis, instead of, as Mr. Pipes wisely does, gathering a global historic vision of the phenomenon of Islam.

That study would have revealed to them not only that Islamic civilization can exist and prosper but how it can do that, and that is what we should strive for today. It is an awkward attitude indeed to just condemn Islam, as justified as it is. If we want it to change, we have to look for solutions, and if history shows us some, who are we to ignore them?

Hence, Mr. Auster and Mr. Arevalo are drawing the wrong conclusions on a sound ground. Their proposition leads to nothing useful. Whereas Mr. Pipes stays able to discern a way, for the billion of people who are living under Islam today, voluntarily or not, to get rid of the evil part of it while keeping in touch with their personal faith.

In grounding his analysis in the multi-faceted evolution of Islam's history, Mr. Pipes is showing a true realistic and acceptable way towards the future, whereas Mr. Auster is leading to a mere confrontation.

Mr. Auster and Mr. Pipes will possibly be walking side by side for a while, but Mr. Auster is bound to stumble as soon as we'll have to come to grip with the body of Islamic culture. That is why I'll stick with Mr. Pipes, in full confidence.

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