Petulant Islamic groups

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Apr 9, 2014 at 02:10

Dear Dr Pipes,

Probably some very vocal British Islamic organization (like our own CAIR) managed to twist the arms of the British Library and of the politicians who manage the affairs of the library to block your sites from being accessed from the library. The politicians of free democracies constitute a compromised lot. These poor guys have to win elections and they cannot give the impression that they are prejudiced against any group. So they have to listen to every single demand of any one who has time to scream and demand. The petulant Islamic groups take the maximum advantage of this situation. The Jews, the Hindus, the Christians, in fact, most of the humanity would rather be competitive, pursue creative goals, and make money than spend all their time defending any given ideology at all costs. But the petulant Islamic groups have no such luxury to afford. They do not have to invent, win Nobel prizes, or fight poverty. They can spend all their time in defending their ideology. I hope you succeed in getting the ban on your site removed but that is only a small thing.

I think the days of petulant Islam are now numbered and that is the big thing. In this age of mass communication a lot is being written about Islam. And, I am certain, people in the Islamic world are able to read all that is being written. The questions that the free world is raising for the Islamists are bound to draw the attention of million of people in the Islamic world. Some of these people are bound to get convinced themselves and start asking their own questions. They will also find that defending an ideology against someone else's thought or speech is not worth it. It is more expensive to curb other people's thoughts than to just let the thoughts flow and die their own deaths if they are wrong.

The petulant Islam that uses the freedom of speech and thought in the free world to curb the same freedom is not going to survive for too long. It was easy in the 1980s to issue a threat for Salman Rushdie and get his book banned but it will not be so easy in the 2000s to threaten everyone who can write on a blog and get the blog banned. It will not be worth the cost anyway. So, worry not Dr Pipes, no one has to go to the British Library to read your blog and enough people are reading your blog the world over.

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