Moderate by What Standard ? ... By police-staged demonstrations , I presume.

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), May 9, 2007 at 10:13

Dear Ron Thompson , you write absolutely correctly :

> There are plenty of forms of extremism Moslems may oppose in their own countries, while still supporting the worst forms of religious violence against Israel, and against Americans and others, including other Moslems, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Indeed It would be most interesting to know the opinions of those so praised "moderate" demonstrators in Turkey and Pakistan on Israel and America . Isn't it a bit disappointting that none of those million moderate Moslems had an idea to show a single Israeli or American flag and shout a single pro-Israeli or pro-American slogan ? Did the police and militarists forget to instruct them to do that or they preferred not to ?

Instead of police-staged demonstrations a thorough nation-wide opinion poll would be a more reliable source on (whether and) how widespread secularism in Turkey or Pakistan really is. As in no police state such an objective opinion poll can be conducted , so this loud , over-advertised police-sponsored show of "secularism" and "moderacy" in the streets is rather a very deceptive indication of what people in the countries involved really think of Islam .

Hence I whole-heartedly agree with your conclusion :

"Therefore, while I'm reading about events in Turkey and elsewhere with great interest, it seems radically premature to be optimistic about any large-scale or meaningful population of "moderate" Moslems without a much better and focused definition of what a "moderate" Moslem is in relation to the West, and particularly with regard to Israel."

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".