Call Their Bluff
So, Conor Friedersdorf has a good idea:
| Conor Friedersdorf: I want to say thanks again for a great discussion on all this. It's inspired an idea that I'd like to run by everyone. A Muslim group founds a community center, saying one of their express intentions is opposing radicals. Some people like me are inclined to trust them (in the present case, anyway). And others like Peter see this as deliberate provocation, but believe the rule of law requires that they be allowed to build. Time will tell RE their intentions, but meanwhile, maybe the best strategy is calling their bluff. Identify the most useful things an Islamic mosque and community center could do to discourage radical Islam. Statements, specific programs, whatever. Approach the folks who run it in friendly spirit. Say, "Hey, my group wants to discourage radical Islam too. How about we partner to do these things." And voila. If they're genuinely anti-radical, you'd be helping their efforts, and if not, you'd be exposing their true behavior. · Jul 25 at 3:27am |
Let's think this through together. What are the most useful things an Islamic mosque and community center could do to discourage radical Islam?
- Comment (81)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
No! This is like a German commander watching the D-day invasion and declaring that he wants to know the intentions of the allied army before he opens fire.
Re: Call Their Bluff
Sorry, Paules, I'm not following. Are we supposed to be the German commanders in this analogy?
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Well yes, Claire, but obviously my analogy failed. I posted back at "Cordoba House" about practical steps we can take only to find that you had moved the conversation here. This seems to be a small but ongoing problem with the Ricochet format; we sometimes get our threads twisted.
Let me just add one more point. Our enemies are very skilled at using "lawfare" as a means to advance their agenda. As long as we continue to answer them with defensive measures, they maintain the offensive. We need to deny our enemies standing in our courts. This can be done, as per my earlier post, by legislation aimed at targeting the sources of funding for these lawsuits. It's for good reason, for example, that presidential campaigns cannot accept foreign donations. Why does the same principle not hold in a case like the Ground Zero Mosque?
Once again we find ourselves in a rhetorical boxing match when what I need to do is get inside the gloves for a knock-out punch. It frustrates me.
May '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
If (only if) there must be a GZM, then this is a great, great suggestion by Conor. Perfect. Passive-aggressive in a good sense.
How 'bout inviting a Jewish or Christian cleric into the mosque to address the members and initiate a "conversation?"
Jul '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Hold a cartoon of mohammed outside their mosque and see just how "anti-radical" they are.
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
How about we just say that, in lieu of the fact of radical islamists, acting in their belief that Islam required them to murder thousands of innocents to appease Allah, like some sort of sacrifice to a Mayan God, that you peace seeking moderate Muslims show enough respect and sensitivity for our loss to go build your mosque somewhere else. How about we stand up for ourselves and quit appeasing these snakes. How about we quit playing this sucker game, call their bluff, or call them the liars that they are. As I said previously, we owe Muslims nothing. I have yet to see a movement of moderate muslims seeking truly to live in harmony with the west. When someone sticks their thumb in my eye, I don't regard that as an act of good will. This mosque is an arrogant act of insensitive bravado to be built by people who believe we should submit to their will. I will not.
May '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
I've been waiting a decade for these moderate Muslims.
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Scott Reusser: If (only if) there must be a GZM, then this is a great, great suggestion by Conor. Perfect. Passive-aggressive in a good sense.
How 'bout inviting a Jewish or Christian cleric into the mosque to address the members and initiate a "conversation?" · Jul 25 at 6:09am
I can tell you from personal experience that Arabs are habitual liars. It's a characteristic of their low-trust culture. When it comes to infidels, the practice is even sanctioned by the Koran (taqiyya). You make a deal with them one day based on mutual trust, and they break it the next day with excuses based on the most preposterous explanations.
How about we find a legal means to deny the mosque in the first place? All we lack is the political will. Surely our lawyers are better than their lawyers.
Jul '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
I'm afraid I don't see the point of this exercise. I'm sure we can think of lots of things we would like them to do, all of which they would be perfectly within their rights to refuse to do. The rabbi suggestion above, for example: "Sorry, violates our religious precepts." What then? Compel their cooperation? Unthinkable. Shout "Ah, bigotry!", very loudly? But who among us wouldn't defend their right to conduct their own religious affairs in their own way?
All they have to do is claim they are battling radical Islam in the way they see fit. Go ahead, try to prove they aren't. The bluff being called will be ours, that we would insist they cooperate with us against the radicals. The fact is, we will insist on no such thing.
Re: "exposing their true behavior" -- Unless the behavior you expose is demonstrably criminal, you will be accused of fomenting anti-Islamic bigotry. They will play the victim once again, claiming persecution and sending our media elites into a full-dress multicultural cringe. Another win for their culture, another loss for ours.
Jul '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
By the way, this site is way more fun than all the usual crappy Sunday morning political chat shows. I think I'll be spending my Sunday mornings here from now on. (Except during church, of course.)
Re: Call Their Bluff
Actually, I meant the question to be taken seriously. What useful things could an Islamic mosque and community center do to discourage radical Islam? Politics is the art of the possible. It's all well and good to be offended by this plan, but it's not particularly constructive, and I assume the mosque will be built anyway. I also assume none of us would have a problem with that mosque were it genuinely committed to the project of promoting an Islamic Reformation. That would indeed be a public service and a fitting memorial to the September 11 victims. It's a completely feasible idea to go to the people who wish to erect it with a set of well thought-out ideas for using the place as a center for the development and promotion of a modern, enlightened, reformed, democratic and peaceful Islam--beginning, say, with hadith reform. They say no? We publicize it; their real agenda need no longer be debated. They say yes? Everyone wins. They say they will, then they don't? Properly publicized, that will not be a PR victory for them. So, seriously: What would the proposals be?
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Pamela Geller notes that a republican candidate for governor of New York, Carl Paladino, would stop the GZM using the government's power of eminent domain. Booyah!
May '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Ask them to join an interfaith dialog community and/or an interfaith charity network.
If a mosque is built at Ground Zero, then gestures like this would be very sensible. Sure, the mosque administrators would be within their rights to reject our requests and offers. They might even be entirely likely to do so. But there's no harm in trying.
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Claire, you should know better. Islam is deeply reactionary. Anyone who even suggests reform is subject to a fatwa. If a true reformation is possible, the only possible source I know would be the Sufis, a sect which is expressly pacifist in its theology. Such a leader, of course, would likely have a very short period of time to get out the message before being murdered. About as much time as say a Palestinian leader in Gaza who teaches peace with Israel.
May '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
I spent a number of years living and working in Saudi Arabia managing the technology associated to defending the nation from militant Islamists, mostly on CCC systems interfacing with Saudi AWACS. I had several American educated Saudi friends that spent a lot of time helping me understand the underlying reasons of why we needed to develop systems to defend against other Muslims, both militant Sunni, and of course the Shia Iranians.
There are a number of things that I would want to know about the “group of Muslims” referred to. First, are they Arab, and led by an Arab cleric? Then the obvious questions of have they really immigrated to the West and do not have any intention of moving back, have they put down roots and have families and jobs. No orthodox Arab Muslim would forsake Islam to live out their lives in a secular nation,. The militant radicals main objective is to take back the holy land, the Arab peninsula, mostly Saudi and Mecca and Medina. Attacks on the West are only really useful to the extent they can energize other Muslims to support a new caliphate on the Arabian peninsula.
Jul '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Didn't Prime Minister Erdogan say "there is no such thing as radical Islam, Islam is Islam? Quite right too. Could we, please, wake up from our multi-culti daze and face reality about the real meaning of the Cordoba (or whatever they chose to name it now) initiative?
Jul '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
Well, OK, for starters:
Sustained, unequivocal condemnation of the tactics and practitioners of terrorism.
"Separation of mosque and state", i.e., complete repudiation of shar'iah as a basis for civil and criminal law.
Support for total freedom of conscience and the right of people to leave the ummah without condemnation or prejudice.
Recognition of the equal status of women and a call for the end of the subjection of women to their male family members.
All of the above (and more) to be expressed without reservation, in English and Arabic, at all times and to all audiences.
Re: Call Their Bluff
OK, here are some ideas:
1) The GZM could be used as a center for the defense of reformist Moslems who have been persecuted as apostates.
2) The GZM could be used as a think tank for prominent liberal advocates of Iftjihad, promoting their work, holding conferences, and publicizing modern interpretations of the Koran and hadiths compatible with democracy, open societies, and equal rights for women.
3) The mosque should undertake, in conjunction with a task force comprised of representatives of other faiths, aggressively to investigate, publicize and denounce other mosques that serve as incubators for radicalism, to expose their sources of funding, and to build the legal case for shutting them down.
4) The mosque should promote a Friday prayer initiative, calling for particular emphasis, in Friday prayers, on condemning as un-Islamic the following:
a) Terrorism (obviously);
b) Gender apartheid and all forms of subjugation of women traditionally associated with Islam;
c) Anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel
d) Any promotion of Islamic law over secular law.
How's that for a start.
Re: Call Their Bluff
Wow, Peter. I did not realize we were twins separated at birth.
Jun '10
Re: Call Their Bluff
If a New York City mosque turns out to be full of ecumenically-minded moderate Muslims, don't call it Cordoba House--call it Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum.