The Enemy In Cologne?
Dean
Certain of my friends on the Right want to convince me that Muslims--Muslims in general, and all sincere followers of Islam in particular--are "the enemy." Some of them view me as a hopeless bleeding heart liberal because I refuse to accept this view.
Well, I am a hopeless bleeding heart. No question about it. However, recent events in Cologne, Germany, smell of the sanguine to me:
Translated into English, the sign on the left (apparently) reads, "Killing The Innocent Is No Holy War!"
While I am certain that some would like to tell me that "true" Islam is about killing innocents, I can only say that I am a willful fool. Really a terribly idealistic chowderhead. No one should ever listen to me in fact. Because when I see signs like this: 
...and well, what can I say? There are these evil Muslims from the evil Turkish state, in the French-sounding city named Cologne, protesting against murder by their fellow Muslims, sitting around and apparently singing the Islamic equivalent of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and, well, what am I supposed to think? "They don't truly understand their own faith." Yeah that's it. They're Muslims who "just don't get it."
Okay....!
Yeah right.
Oh yeah, them Muslims, they just wanna kill evrybody!" That's why these teenaged girls, they dress up in their country's flags and symbols and giggle amongst themselves as they demonstrate in the streets. Because they just want to kill the dhimmis, right?
Know what? Anyone who reads the Tanakh (i.e. the Old Testament) knows that Jews are not without their sins. Atheists? You have Stalin and Lenin and Marx in your side, so I would not be in the business of bragging where I you.
Will the circle be unbroken? By and by, Lord, by and by... There's a better home a-waiting in the sky, Lord, in the sky....
Call me a bleeding heart liberal pansy if you want. You'll probably be right. But I'll make friends with these faithful Muslims ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Talking To A Muslim
- The Enemy In Cologne?
Not a Double Standard.
Nice post.
There are good Muslims and bad Muslims, good Christians and bad Christians, good Jews and bad Jew, good atheists and bad atheists, good polytheists and bad polytheists.
To say that Turkey is "free" is not quite true, however it is certainly freer than almost every Muslim country in existence.
There are good Muslims and bad Muslims, good Christians and bad Christians, good Jews and bad Jew, good atheists and bad atheists, good polytheists and bad polytheists.
This is a wee bit inaccurate. I can't remember hearing about any group of Christians, Jews or Polytheists that wish to wipe out every single infidel on the planet and are currently actively attempting to make this happen. When you talk about Bin Laden and company we are not talking about "bad" Muslims we are talking about evil ones. There is a big difference.
One guy I roomed in college with [early 90s] was from there. He remarked that he would be just chatting with fellow Muslims and talk would start about how "we should do something." which he said implied terrorist acts. It would be condescending of me to congratulate him for resisting them, but I note that he never really repudiated the idea, just the motive for doing so.
I asked him about that. Holy War to him was a defensive act, and since he was very Westernised he saw no threat to Islam within the West. But "some do, some don't...you know..." he said. This ambivalence is what was so striking.
His father was a Colonel in Ankara. He explained to me that Turkey divides its military, and thus its military thinking, from Religious intrigue. That isn't always true of other Muslim states- and that's a problem.
Turks are different in a lot of ways from the rest of the Muslim world, I think. I used to tease him about how the Turks ruled the world at one point and shoot, WTF happened, you know? His response was always: "Oh c'mon, who wants the world?" I've heard that sentiment repeated by all kinds of Turks.
Well, no current groups to my knowledge. However, there was this little thing called the Crusades, which consisted of misguided Christians coming into a land undoubtably held at that time by Muslims and killing them off because they felt they had a right to that city (really, no good reason at all).
This comment from a devout Christian - I'm not afraid to call my religion's wrongs.
I agree with Dean - I could never understand my fellow conservatives who say that. I posted something on my blog a while back about how we shouldn't deport Arabs, and got some comments (some of the first comments I ever got, btw) about how we should just ship them all off. I still have to disagree.
Then again, if we do deport all Muslims, I'll never have a good excuse to have a good curry and eat with my bare hands with exchange students again. And that would be truely troubling.
During the Crusades, there were some evil acts done by all sides. But, note, that the West has moved away from that. People are anguished over civilians accidentally killed. We do not deliberately target school children. Only the Moslems and the Communists do that.
I hope that these people are the majority. I hope that they make the same pronouncements in Arabic and Turkish and Farsi that they do in English. Many don't.
The fact that you supported Bush all along confers a great deal of legitimacy on this sentiment, and I'm glad you're willing to stand up to the xenophobes and bigots who have tried to turn this war into something it should not be. Unfortunately, the furthest most right-wing icons are willing to go is making platitudinous, passively negative statements like "We don't hate Islam" or "Islam is a religion of peace that's been hijacked blah blah blah". This is not condemnation, it's validation of policy by stated absence of malevolent intent. There's a HUGE difference. Thanks.
According to this article in the Asia Times, Sunday’s demonstration was organized by the Turkish government. Most of the country’s Muslim groups refused to take part in it. In fact, most of Europe’s Muslim groups refused to condemn the execution of Theo Van Gogh.
Van Gogh wasn’t the only person threatened by radical groups. The woman who wrote the script for the film, Hirsi Ali was a Muslim who had renounced her faith. She and Belgian senator Mimount Bousakla have both been forced to hide from the extremists who threaten them for their crimes of ‘blasphemy’. Ms. Ali and Ms. Bousakla are not just ordinary people, they’re elected representatives of their governments. If they have to go into hiding for the ‘crime’ of expressing their their views, we can understand why a lot of other moderates aren’t willing to express themselves.
This protest and the bravery of Hirsi Ali &Ms. Bousakla are proof that moderates are out there, but it’s also proof that they are as threatened as a liberal, outspoken German, or a Jew, would be in Hitler’s Germany.
Moderates exist, but we can't just befriend them. We have to learn to tell the difference between the bad and the good guys so we can protect them, and ourselves, from the extremists.
To apologise for the Crusades in toto is ludicrous. I would recomend a bit more reading on the subject before pontificating about their being wrong. They were (well with the exception of the Albigensian &Barbar ones in Europe) in response to wars of aggression against Christians and Jews all over (unless of course you believe Spain and large parts of Eastern Europe should be part of a Caliphate). There was behaviour on all sides which was appalling and not only against Muslims..but against Christians (especially the Eastern Orthodox variety and various Gnostic sects) and Jews alike.
There are several problems we have with this situation. First off all there is a large grouping on the left, as frequently written about on Harry's Place, which declares any criticism of Islam as racist (it is not as Islam is a religion not a race) or xenophobic. Secondly, there is a problem with moderate Muslims and their reaction to so-called extremists behaviour. Either you get none or it is qualified with excuses for their behaviour. Another problem, of course, is the one faced by any Muslim who criticises Islam or a fellow Muslim, they become apostate and subject to execution as per Islamic law. The battle in Islam is between literalists and those of more theoretical/philosophical bent. The literalists truly believe that war against infidels is legitimate as it was they are commanded to do so in the Koran (after all Islam means "to serve"). The others just want to live and live... And yes I have read the Koran.
PS: I am not a Christian either.
Attempting to define the "true" faith is something that led Christians to splinter into a thousand sects, and even splintered the tiny Jewish population into three major and dozens of minor sects.
When you have Roman Catholicism on one end and "Christian Identity" white supremacists on the other end, it's hard for me not to chuckle at anyone who claims that group X represents "true" Christianity. And when you have Osama bin Laden being held up as the "true" Muslim---well, let's just say that I'm sure Osama would appreciate you calling him the "true" representantive of Islamic faith.
My view is that Islam is about where Christianity was 500 years ago, and about where Judaism was 2,000 years ago. We're not going to bring them bulk of them into the 21st century by forcing them to abandon their faith, so I'd rather encourage them to reach their own version of the Enlightenment and the Reformation. They aren't quite there yet, but it's obvious to me that an awful lot of them are ripe for it. Turkey is one example, Indonesia is another.
And if we're very lucky, Iraq will be soon.
Some on the right call him a fool for it, and only vote for him because they don't have holy warrior who wants to destroy all Muslims who they can vote for. Which, if you think about it, is yet another reason why our pluralist democracy works: the mouth-foaming extremists on all sides wind up forced to work with moderates, or out in the cold and all but completely shut out of power.
This is, by the way, why I usually chuckle at anyone who paints the Bush government as "far right wing," and why in retrospect I still chuckle at anyone who claims the Clinton government was "far left." Snort.
Parts of Shia law are written into the Turkish Constitution and their everyday laws, just as you can find parts of Christian doctrine all over American and most European laws--it's so deeply embedded it's almost invisible. (Why do you think secular Canadians, French, and Germans take Saturdays and Sundays off, for example?)
The Turkish military has a rigidly secularist and non-sectarian bent, most especially in their officer corps. People make a lot of the fact that the military occasionally takes over the government. But that in fact has been written into the Turkish Constitution all along. Military officers are not allowed to be members of government. Instead, the upper echelons of the military monitor the government, and if the government exceeds certain Contitutional guidelines, the military steps in, fires everybody in the Parliament, and calls for new elections.
This is startling to most Westerners, but if you think about it it's really just a variation of the role our own Supreme Court holds here in the U.S. Instead of using Justices to determine whether governmenet actions are acceptable, a core group of generals does. But that is the extent of their power, and once new elections are held they're done with their authority.
I really wish at times we could just turn Iraq over to the Turks (just like I sometimes wish we'd just turn Palestine over to the King of Jordan). Alas, were it not for the Kurdish problem, that would probably be attainable. I think the Turkish model would work extraordinarily well in Iraq.
Oh nonsense. This is a common viewpoint and it ignores the differences between the religions, and paints as some Protestants do the entire first 1,500 years of the church as a long dark age. Bullshit.
Where is the Islamic Augustine? Where is the Aquinas? Where is the rich intellectual heritage?
Utter bullshit. Islam is a religion that follows Samuel Johnson's famous dictum (he used it in a completely different context): Some of it is good, and some of it is original. But what is good is not original, and what is original is not good.
Islam, at its core, is one of the silliest and most self-serving religions ever advanced by a brutal imperialist power. Sharia is a brutal set of medieval laws compared to the majesty of thought in the Talmud. And it of course cannot be remotely compared to the intellectual heritage of even the Christian "B" team.
Dean, I am afraid, that your comparison does not really hold water. Islam has had a its less literalist and more philosophical arm in Sufism for hundreds of years...and the requisite pogrom against them.
Turkey has its positive points but also has a habit of slaughtering its minorities like Armenians and Kurds. But it is possible that the Turkish model just might work in Iraq.
And lets not forget that secular Muslims are considered to be apostate in Islam and thus to be liable for execution.
A tenet which, unfortunately, is not and never has been truly embraced by most Christians. And your assessment of Islam is ridiculous. You cherry-pick the most violent aspects and claim they represent the entire religion. But how about the requirement to give a certain percentage of one's income to charity? That strikes me as rather "love thy neighbor"-ish.
And you want to talk about logical contradictions based on a pronouncements from an invisible deity? Take a look in the mirror, my friend. Your brand of clinical, sanitized bigotry is the joke here, and reading some anti-Islam propaganda screed does not qualify you as an expert on the religion.
Oh hell, I can't do this justice. Just go to this list of prominent Muslim philosophers and start reading.
Then of course there was Maimonides, the single most influential Jewish thinker and philosopher of the last thousand years at least, who worked under Muslim rulers and whose work was and is widely respected by almost all Muslim thinkers. He had almost as big an impact on Muslims as he did on Jews (well I did say "almost").
Although I've mentioned it many times before, I continue to recommend Stephen Schwartz' "The Two Faces of Islam." The book is slanted and has its critics, but it's very much an eye opener on the depth and breadth and variety of thinking within the Islamic world.
As for the notion that Christianity was a dark and intolerant religioni before Martin Luthr came along: that's not really what I believe, although I do think that by the time Luther came along the church had completely ossified and had become too intolerant of dissenting thoughts or even the appearance of dissent and that it was holding humanity back. I think the comparison here stands up; while certainly I wouldn't say that there is any one Muslim Church or Muslim Pope holding things back, it's certainly the case that most of the Islamic world has fallen into ossified thinking.
These are the people who invented algebra (from the Arabic al-gebra, meaning literally "the restoration") as well as the scientific method, and at one time the greatest mathematician, scientists, and physicians of the world were muslims, or found in muslim lands. At one time, when Christians were busy driving Jews out of their lands, the safest place in the world for Jews was under Muslim protections--that's where all the sephardic Jews come from.
You can point to this, that, or other suras that say things that sound upsetting if you want. The truth is that understanding of the Koran has evolved, just as understanding of the Bible has. The notion that Christians claim they can objectively define what "true" islam is strikes me as ridiculous--and really, as just a case of faith rivalry. If you want to argue that Islam is theologically unsound and try to persuade muslims to convert (I've read stuff by Muslims who left the faith for Christianity) I'm fine with that, but it's beyond my own personal goals. Mine is to get more muslims to embrace modernity and liberalism--and I reject the notion that this is truly impossible, especially becuase if it were impossible then my own doctor wouldn't exist.
I know the Kurds are viewed with contempt and would like to separate but I'm not aware that the Turks routinely slaughter them.
I did know about the language and culture restructions, and I find that intolerable. I'd really like to see the kurds in southern Turkey and northern Iraq allowed to create an independent Kurdistan. Alas, it seems unattainable.
The ugliness of global politics. You can't always get what you want and are often forced to work with what you have. I wish more critics of American foreign policy would acknowledge this reality.
BTW, I find it interesting that you both assumed that I'm a Christian. I'm not. I don't subscribe to any organized religion.
First you say "there are many Muslims who are peaceful and inoffensive, but I think you're missing an important point, and that is that those people are not practicing their religion. They are, in fact the radicals. The so-called radical Muslims who commit atrocities in the name of Islam are simply practicing their religion as it was written."
Then you say "You can hide your head in the sand if you want, but no amount of PC pandering to these people will stop the spread of this evil seventh century joke of a "religion.""
Then you say "what muhammad didn't steal outright from other religions, he made up out of thin air, often in a transparently self-serving way."
All that, and you're still going to play the victim and try to paint me as the aggressor for calling you a bigot? I can't say that I'm particularly surprised, because this has become a depressingly common tactic among right-wingers, but so be it.
What you need to understand is that it's not just the beliefs you express or their diametrical opposition to my beliefs that cause me to see you as a bigot. First of all, I don't know you, so all I have to go on is these statements; you may very well not be a bigot in real life. I should have been more precise: the statements themselves are bigoted. You assume that because you have read a few books about Islam, you know enough to pronounce the religion "a joke", and say that those who commit atrocities in its name are really just practicing the religion as it was written.
It's a very simple matter to, as I said before, cherry-pick a few sayings, quotes, scholarly opinions, and events in order to paint a picture of a certain group in whatever light one may desire. People have been attempting to do so with Judaism for years; the only differenc, really, between contemporary attacks on Islam such as the ones you cite and the blood libels and other vile propaganda against the Jewish religion is that it's politically "safe" to do so against Islam because Muslims are recognized as The Enemy, even if this is not openly admitted by politicians and pundits.
Let me ask you this, Craig: do you known any Muslims? Do you have Muslim friends? If you do (which I doubt), would you say these things to them face-to-face? If you don't, then you need to find some. You need to talk to them and find out that they are regular people just like you, and that their religion is not just about "killing the infidel". Every religion, when you come right down to it, is, in fact, about killing or converting the infidel, or at least not letting the infidel stain the purity of one's home, which often means either killing or driving out the infidel. But this is no more true of Islam the religion than it is of Christianity or Judaism, or even Hinduism, for that matter. Ferchrissakes, even Buddhists have been known to become violently intolerant, which one might say could not possibly be further from the teachings of the Buddha.
Then, of course, there's also the fact that the numbers simply don't support your argument. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, Craig. If, as you say, the radicals are the non-violent ones, then the vast majority of Muslims are radicals, even by the admission of Our Leader. The simple fact is this: if you were right, then we wouldn't be dealing with a suicide bombing here or a 9/11 there; we'd be dealing with fucking wave after wave after unstoppable wave. Christ, man, look at reality! Your view doesn't fit. It's not even vaguely plausible. I don't think even Bernard Lewis would agree with the sentiments you expressed. Ann Coulter might (which, I admit, isn't saying much; she would probably agree with any assertion that portrayed Muslims in a negative light). Jerry Falwell (who stated that Mohammed "was a terrorist") almost certainly would. So with that kind of company, you'll pardon me for jumping to conclusions, if that is indeed what I did.
It gets its history wrong in one regard: while Christianity DID have its bad periods, MOST of the Crusades were not wars of aggression but were defensive--and by the way, the Christians lost almost all of them.
I have to dispute your claim that Islam is the enemy in this war, Walter. Not only have our leaders gone out of their way, repeatedly, to vehemently deny this and to reach out to the Muslim community, but in point of fact if it were a war on Islam we'd have nuked Mecca and Medina by now and, instead of helping the Iraqis as we are, we'd be routinely slaughtering them (and if you think what's going on in Baghdad and Fallujah these days qualifies, you're horribly horribly mistaken--we have the power to kill everyone in Iraq if we want to. We don't because that's not our goal.)
I mean, have you considered the possibility here that the politicians and most of the pundits "won't admit" that they've made Islam the enemy, because they haven't?
Indeed, here's an interesting irony: every major use of force by the U.S. under both the Clinton and Bush administrations has been to intervene to protect Muslims. That's what all our operations in the Balkans were. It's what we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all intervening not to slaughter Muslims, but to relieve them of despotic regimes and to bring them human rights they've never even had before.
Indeed, Walter, I think the very point you make about Muslims applies to the U.S. If 1.5 billion Muslims were at war with us, we'd be experiencing wave after wave of violence from all over the world. That's true. It's also true that if we were truly "at war with Islam," we would have killed tens of millions of them by now. Iraq? Pepper every major city with MOABs and gun down everyone in the streets. Lob a few nukes at Mecca and Medina. Go ahead and put Slobodan Milosovic back in charge--it was mostly Muslims he was slaughtering. Let's invade Indonesia and Turkey and Pakistan while we're at it. I mean, why play around? If it's Islam that's "the enemy" (even though our politicians "won't admit it,") we seem to be doing a pretty piss-poor job of killing them, don't we?
Here's the truth: a certain segment of the right thinks we're at war with Islam itself and should "just admit it." But you will not find that support for thta view is very common among mainstream conservatives. Sure, I'd expect Jerry Falwell to say that, and from his perspective I'm sure he believes it. But read the pages of the National Review, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, or anything the administration itself has ever said, and it's laughable to claim that there's some vast hidden right-wing agenda to slaughter Muslims. It's just not there.
Anyway, just wanted to get that in.