Mr. Pipes holds out false hope...

Submitted by john S (United States), Oct 25, 2005 at 13:53

I do not ascribe malevolence to persons such as ... Irshad Manji -- BUT -- I feel strongly that these persons have gravely helped the Islamist cause by championing the false prospect of redemption for the iredeemable. In fact, their entire notion that so called "moderates" could EVER pursuade the vast majority of Muslims to shed the basic tenets of Islam is based on a fantasist lie. Historically, nothing resembling their impossible conflation of "reform" and "Islam" has ever happened. Nothing like this IS happening now... And I strongly believe that nothing like this EVER will happen! Holding out the false hope that something like reform will ever occur is like whistling while kicking the can down the street past the graveyard, to mix a couple metaphors... Postponing the day of reckoning AND pretending the reckoning will never come...

I suppose that for appearance's sake, and with an eye towards how Western actions will be viewed historically, it is important that we pass through extremely painful phases such as encouraging Muslim "moderates" to reform their hate filled religion, or with good college tries to jump start "democracy" in the heart of darkness's domain... Time will tell whether "democracy" will take hold in the abscessed center of the Arab world... But perhaps this is a little late for scholars to be promoting these vain and empty gestures?

Mr. Pipes' scholarship on Islam is far superior to my own in a purely academic way -- but in a 'how things REALLY work' kind of way -- in a 'here's how the chips are gonna fall' kind of way--I believe that ...these analyses cause harm to the anti-Jihad, and permits the Jihad to gain in momentum -- making its defeat even harder as the days pass...

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