To Plato - a voice of sanity - thanks

Submitted by Michel (United States), Jan 23, 2007 at 16:14

Another voice of sanity - I could hardly believe it. Thanks a bunch for your work and comments, Plato.
I was just about ready to give up. For my own curiosity, what's your background and, where do you live?

There is not much I can add to your post, as I am fully with you. A couple of comments maybe okay?

Arguing about whether the West is better or not, its political policies, is a mindless game like disputing whether my father is better than your father

If you followed this specific thread, my (intense) debate with Noah mainly, an individual I respect due to his factual knowledge, passion and honest effort to "convert" me, you may have seen that I seem to encounter here, what happens often in the pragmatic business world. One submits an idea or strategy and the team comes back with reasons, why it ain't going to happen. The Problem is being discussed endlessly, a mountain of evidence and facts delivered to describe it, yet the solution is almost becoming a secondary issue.

"They do this, they teach that, they always do and they always don't". They, they, they is the most often used pronoun. This radical, outspoken faction does not realize that no conflict can be resolved by means of finger pointing alone. They call it "wake up call' and realizing the truth and facts and thay call any differing opinion as living in denial.

Other than that I find appalling, how such a complex matter, let's call it for lack of a better word " conflict between Western society and the Muslim World" is being simplified and approached with one single stroke of the brush. They draw a picture of one single nasty ugly Muslim and apply it grosso modo without distinction to every single member of Islam. No difference between countries, domestic muslims or even terrorists. Just one ugly enemy and only one fundamental strategy to fight him.

My efforts to argue for introspective, segmented strategies in direct response to specific threats, moderation, self-critique etc., found here zero willingness for compromise and only silence on the other side. Evidently articles like the one Pipes published tend to always bring out the fanatics on either side of the fence, but rarely moderqate voices. I deplore it, as now Muslims can go ahead and prove in print, how we think about them. The biggest tragedy to my opinion. Blogs like this one feed radicalism on all sides, especially, since the silent majority is silent. Other than you and only very few others, no en masse outrage against the intolerance – nothing – apathy, lethargy, passiveness.

Muslims out there do not want their children to grow up in a violent dangerous world. The genes nature has provided all of us with militate against it. They want their children to survive and in turn procreate. That instinct is hardwired into us. However much the mullah in the madrassa may try to nurture an inclination to jihad and annihilation the drive to live, survive and prosper is hard wired into our nature. No religion, no imam can rewire nature try as they might. But they can do immense harm in their trying and that is where sane people must make the effort to undo their baleful influence.

Could not have said it any better.

Just as the printing press brought the age of reason to christendom there is great hope that the internet age will usher in the Islamic age of reason. And what you see on these blogs is a small demonstration of it. It must be happening on other such innumerable site.

My point exactly - the truth can not be stopped by any demarcation line.

We can see anguished Muslims crying for explanations of some verses of the Koran, the age of marriage of Ayesha, the marriage of Zainab, Safiya and Rayhana, the treatment of the Banu Quraiza. Many Muslims will see through the soothing often incoherent replies from the "scholars" who reply to them. They will not , for instance, be able to keep from them the fact that the much trumpeted Battle of Badr was a raid on a peaceful caravan, that surprise raids were conducted on unsuspecting people and without provocation. These are all there in the history written by admiring Muslims, not cunning missionaries.

I so hope there is a modern day Muslim out there to comment and confirm the above. I called them out, yet have not heard one single such voice.

Why does the religion devalue all pre-Islamic achievements as inconsequential, one's own heritage rejected and replaced with an alien one in the name of brotherhood. You have the sad spectacle of wannabe Arabs in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia and Africa. They take pride instead in the Islamic civilisation in Spain, the Abbasids, the Ottoman Empire, people like Avicenna, Al Razi, Harun Al Rashid. This is a sorry spectacle which Muslims will ponder over when they read the facts on the internet.

I hope you are right.

No other religion, let it be repeated, no other religion has such a record. The nearest is Christianity but only during the dark ages. Though not smelling of roses, the beginning and the modern age of Christianity at least are not drenched in blood. Buddhism is virtually spotless, Hinduisim has taken huge strides to reform itself. All show a willingness to honestly and rationally examine their past, their scriptures, admit to what was wrong and attempt to make amends.

The truth as a nasty habit to eventually percolate. I consider Ireland as a wonderful example here.
For centuries it was an example for poverty, religious intolerance, terrorism and fanatism. During only the last decade, many corporations discovered it as a haven for cheap labor, real estate and ideally located call centers. Ireland is currently booming and blooming in any sense of the word. What happened to riots, radicalism, the IRA, Ulsters, blown up subway stations? Everybody had jobs, vision and hope again and the IRA for instance lost its base to the extent that they had to consider themselves as defeated. Radicalism almost completely disappeared within this short time of ecomomical boom.

It is to my opinion as a minimum circumstantial evidence to the fact that people are foremost interested in satisfying immediate human needs. Poverty, unemployment etc. are prime prerequisites for instability and breeding grounds for any form of fanaticism, including the religious kind. If you have nothing else to do, no vision, no personal future, people are perfect potential victims to radical (religious) indoctrination feeding off hatred, frustration, jealousy, and "me too".

BUT – Beware – using this example to argue for instance to lend a Marshall Plan type of support to Muslim Countries with the least amount of grassroots tendencies towards democracy, will of course find massive opposition by our own fundamentalists. They'll bombard you with a mountain of evidence as to why such will never succeed as in my analogy out of the business world. Any response of mine towards do not tell me why not, but, what you are willing to do to make it work, will be countered with insults and "you live in denial".

Using original sources you can show that Islam is as contradictory, as gory as irrational as any other religion and is not the splendidly unblemished religion its votaries claim it to be.

Good luck with that. You will hear to the above that you are minimizing the problem, that it is the only gory religion, that they will never be willing to admit it and so on.

As long, as there is no credible Muslim voice, confirming you ( and me), that there are indeed such efforts from within, Plato – we'll be crucified by our own fanatics for such statements. Silence is interpreted as confirmation of extreme and radical views. Can one blame them?
Once again – If there is a Western Muslim out there to comment on this thread – please do so.
Now there are already two voices here, willing to give it a fair listen.

Thank you again for your support of the position to apply pragmatism and not buy into a WWIII scenario.

Let us (together) make the radicals the minority here.

Let's start a fresh, constructive dialogue with a whole different tonality, a dialogue, not confrontation, between people like Plato or myself and the "mythical" moderate modern Muslim.
Talk about constructive, pragmatic ways to counteract the vice-versa demonisation and climate of intolerance.

Wouldn't it be deeply satisfying, , if we together would overwhelm the propaganda on both sides?

Let's find commmon ground and not, what separates us. That's how you extinguish a fire, before it becomes a blaze consuming us all. Stop nodding and sit there in silence, start writing!

It could commence right there - in this mostly Islamophobic Blog. I know you are out there - why do you hesitate?

---

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".