Do not give prominence to Islamists

Submitted by Concerned European (Lithuania), Jan 14, 2007 at 11:13

[Well, assuming that all I said above is wrong, and your "seedlings" indeed do exist, could you please elaborate in more concrete terms what do you mean by "an axe which would undercut that forest", and by giving "more fertilizers to the trees of the forest"? I am really curious what in effect are you trying to tell us.]

Well what I wanted to say is the same that Daniel Pipes said many times, namely that the West should stop any contact with pretendedly "peaceful" and "lawful" Islamist organizations and forces, do not give them any position in any interreligious dialogue, but rather unmask their ideology in clear and principled way.

However, unmasking does not mean to say simply that "islamism is evil", let alone "islam is evil". Accepting the division of things into "good" and "evil" is to subscribe to the rules of Islamist language games which they like so much and know how to play them. One should abandon the vision that divides the world into "good" and "evil". Instead one had to do rigorous and precise analysis capable to show that Islamism is self-contradictory and incoherent way of thinking, that the utopia of Islamism is unable to materialize, that the utopian thinking, whether it is "good" or "evil", is absurd in itself.

If the West starts to encourage liberal and moderate Muslim forces and treat them as if they were central and defining factor in Islam and the same time showing the Islamists the place where they belong - in the margins of history, we certainly will see that there is much more these liberal forces than we have expected, however now when many people in West are ready to see the representatives of "genuine Islam" in CAIR, Qaradawi and the likes, it is hardly encouragement for liberal Muslim forces. At present time liiberal Muslims cannot make alliance with the left who prefer to collaborate with Islamists neither with the right who proclaim that "islam is evil". Is it surprising that they prefer do not show up at all?

It is not even so important, whether Western forces collaborate with Islamists like leftists of the type of Ken Livingston do(which of course is the worst option), or whether they decry them as "evil" as the right and the conservatives do, what is important that both the left and right take only Islamists as serious factor and dismiss liberal Islam as something insignificant and marginal. Islamist are only happy with such attitude - when they are regarded as central factor they can only prosper and grow. When they meet fellow travellers from the left they put "peaceful face" and proclaim - "Jihad is only improvement of the self and islam is the religion of peace", when they meet islampohobes they put up stern face and say "have we not said that the Western "cruzaders" are the enemies of Islam?". In any case they have won the battle of propaganda.

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