To Plato and the Moderate Muslim

Submitted by Michel (United States), Feb 24, 2007 at 14:00

Hi Plato, Moderate Muslim

In matters of human behaviour, I believe, we must remember the bell curve. Our behaviour takes the shape of the bell-shaped curve with extremes of thought, behaviour at the two tails. I would put some of the people on this blog at one of the extremes. But some events tend to pull the tail inwards or outwards. Such an event was 9/11. The bell shape got a bit distorted. Now we see more people at one extreme, the extreme where the hawks live. The job is to bring it back to the proper bell shape. The hawks will be there and must be there for the balance they provide.

I thought we were better than that. I am disheartened by so many of our western Intelligentia displaying features and attitudes of Nazi Germany. The climate of intolerance here in this blog is stupefying.

This blog sometimes makes it seem as though the bell shape is grossly distorted in one direction, but I am sure in your day to day interaction with the American people you would have had a different experience. I do not know, but I am willing to bet that your experience of Americans is very different from waht you have experienced on this blog.

You bet they are. I was yesterday at the oath ceremony for my new citizenship. 2500 people were sworn in.70% Hispanics, 30% Asians and one Swiss…lol. They brought family and friends and so many tears in their eyes, it was touching. God bless them, as they are no people who round others up, ban and deport them or nuke their countries.
The fanatics, as they always exist, become more and more meaningless, irrelevant, which is why they are so angry. It is sheer frustration for which they compensate with aggressive, insulting language.

As you have yourself said in this post: The US is neither a society of Hare Krishnas, nor is it of fanatics, It is mainly a civ with an unheard drive towards bettering circumstances of any kind. It is a sharing, curiouos, innovative, kind, giving, warm, totally heterogenuous people, where the strong assists the weak and family ties to pretty much all other cutlures lead to awareness of such disparity and ethicall driven motivation to improve their conditions.

What you see on this blog is a lot of people the exact opposite of what I have underlined. The idea in engaging in long dialogues with them is not because of any expectation that they will change but because of the fact that there are hundreds who visit this blog every day. It is not in any way to honour the ideas they espouse but to show the reader that those opinions are not unchallenged, that their reasoning is not entirely without flaw that the end they seek is very likely unreachable with the means they want adopted.

I appreciate where you are coming from, and your efforts are highly commendable. But it is in my mind like throwing pearls to pigs ( a Swiss saying). Any normal human who eventually makes it to this site and reads some of the contributions, will run in horror. It is like some form of masochism. I myself wanted foremost to find out, if it was not possible to pragmatically get some of the hawks into a constructive dialogue. It just is not possible, no matter what you try. There is nothing coming back but insults, one liners or outright lies.

The best one is, that when indeed in direct contradiction to their hypothesis of the lack of moderate voices, some people appear and dare to voice their moderate opinions, they are being accused of being me posting under 5-6 different names. I offer proof to the contrary and what happens? It is like a good darn Kindergarten. It is a moving target with continuously changing rules….

Yes, if you let it some of the stuff they throw at you can erode your confidence, which is the end they seek. If you have faith in what you stand for all the acid that comes your way will not corrode it. Michel you have often been a balm for some of the acid that has come my way. I hope you stick with it.

Hell, Plato - you got me totally wrong here. My confidence is certainly not eroded. After all, I was the only one here willing to open up as to my identity. In the course of this debate here, I definitely myself went through a learning curve.
I started up here thinking that the migratory attack was a potential threat to us. I also felt in the beginning, that moderate Islam may not exist. On both counts I did some internet research and found good material to the contrary.
But instead of discussing such material, the responses circled around me as a person, instead of the supporting evidence. That is something, I can not deal with.

Yes your posts are balm to my soul too. It was fun for a while to see you in a humorous way tearing Susan's belief system apart. But, after a while it gets tiring to see individual sentences being quoted out of context or you being insulted for the lack of an intelligent counter argument.

Michel, I too admire the American people. The ones I have met are amiable, ethical, self-deprecating and sometimes abrasive. Europeans do tend to be condescending towards them and sometimes see them as philistines. Asians are always critical of Americans but shamelessly want to imitate them and become American citizens.

I am more than ever proud to be a part of this society. Especially the Asian influx we see at present, makes this country better by the day. It is good to be critical about our own, as it leads to continuous improvement.

It is because we are Chinese, that we take an interest in human rights there - it is because we are Muslims, Jews, Christians, that we seek to better the lives of the people we left behind recently, or several generations ago.
This young society contains the best of every continent and, if done right, may well become a template for a future global society or my so called "utopia".

Voices like the ones we try to reason against do not bring honor, but shame to us. These voices should be ignored, is my opinion by now. To respond to them justifies their existence. I made this mistake for too long now. There is no reasoning with fanaticism, especially not with educated fanatics. That's Goebbels all over again, and I will not have a part in giving them a platform. Apart from the fact that it does in fact bring me nightmares.

They are so courageous, when calling for a crusade or war, but when challenged to be proven wrong, have the spine of a jelly fish. It is their confidence which is inexistent, certainly not mine.

If someone wants to talk to me about facts and references, my arguments or material in support of those, I will be all ear and engage. As soon as it digresses to personal attacks and the likes, …talk to my hand, as the rest is not listening anymore…

Greetings and respect to the Moderate Muslim from Canada. Thank you for reviewing my statistical material.
It was an eye opener for me too. I did not know that Hinduism or Buddhism is growing here at a much faster pace than Islam. As supported by one of my earlier reference links, I did not know that there is a possibility for differing interpretations of the Quran. The Western Society must be further educated about that. Mostly about the fact that Jihad can be understood as internal struggle and does not necessarily mean violent war against Infidels. This one is one of the biggest misconceptions by the average westerner. Before reading this article, I too was to the opinion that any low ranking Mullah can call for a Jihad and raise an army of terrorists that way. Education in that regard of us and your own is what moderate Islam should do now. And here is, where we, moderate Westerners, could and should assist.

While I fade out here, my friend, I can only invite you not to be discouraged by the ones who will call you" Michel".
It is just their cheap strategy to dismiss your existence. So – keep on fighting the good fight.

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