Experimental Pro-Democracy approach

Submitted by Demsci (Netherlands), Dec 13, 2015 at 10:58

Excellent article, about realities of law and strategy, as well as mentioning the rise of the anti-Islam parties because of dismissal of concerns about Islam by governments.

And there was this by now familiar but fiercely contested by some, distinction between Islamists and Muslims. So of the bad and the rest. But I like more a distinction between the good and the rest (the rest then to be considered not good enough).

We can be ANTI-something, be it Islam or only Radical Islam. But we should IMO also and more importantly focus on and strengthen that what we are in contrast FOR. In short the Democratic System, with it's 5 pillars, and it's essential rules, tenets, values.

If we are not to commit suicide, it is an absolute must that we defend those, and no other values can ever trump saving Democracy.

Viewed from this perspective I ask for a different distinction between Muslims; That of Democratic Muslims and the rest. We can be FOR Democratic Muslims and yes, put limitations on the rest. I know the term Democratic Muslims sounds grotesque, and this distinction seems unworkable.

But allow a thinking exercise; If Muslims apologists and their Western enablers alike are always denying that Islam is violent, supremacist or in any way dangerous, what does this mean?

For them it means that Islamic State and radical Muslims and of course counterjihadists have a wrong interpretation of Islam. Ridiculous.

But for us it can mean: OK, so now we see two or even multiple interpretations of Quran-Hadiths-Sira (QHS); conclusion; Islam is vague, multi-interpretable. And interpreted by hundreds of Millions of Muslims as supremacist, anti-Democratic, violent and hostile.

Muslims simply support these anti-Democratic Muslims too much and so unqualified Islam will no longer be free in Democratic societies, because Democratic Citizens will simply not suicide the Democratic system.

But the Muslims in Democratic countries, they do get a way out, by declaring themselves Democratic Muslims and subject themselves to conditions and monitoring, in so doing they will more effectively separate themselves from both radical AND neutral Muslims, as we demand.

And we can demand this by using the ISLAM-is-irresponsibly-vague-approach among ourselves. There should be no reason why Muslims should not be obliged to declare themselves to be "Democratic Muslims", because if there protest against this, can they please explain what their problem with Democracy precisely is then? Do they prefer or allow Dictatorship then??!! Like Nazi's and Communists?

Muslims who refuse to declare themselves Democratic CAN then be refused entry into Democratic countries and when they do declare themselves Democratic we can let them enter under lifelong, or very long, probation.

And we don't need approval from Muslims to declare Islam as basically irresponsibly vague. And we CAN then view even neutral Muslims as unacceptable, because of their too high, too dangerous tacit support of the hundreds of millions clearly anti-democratic interpreters of Islam.

And we can take it from there.

---

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".