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Hope on the Islam Front
Two little pieces of what looks to me anyway like hopeful signs: that Europe is looking to Australia’s model for how to cope with immigration, and that there may be more atheist, agnostic or otherwise apostate Muslims than we know.
From Quillette, an interview with a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim writer, Ali Rizvi. A few good quotes to give the flavor:
Liberals have often squandered the opportunity to have an honest and morally responsible conversation about [Islam]. And by doing so, they left a void, which has been filled by opportunists from the far-Right, who want to have this dialogue in an irresponsible and xenophobic way.
Many freethinkers and disbelievers in the Muslim community who saw what happened to Salman Rushdie, even in the West, will think twice before coming out. Liberals are not supporting the people that they should be supporting, and they have compromised on their own values. That’s how terrorism works. They want to curb terrorism, but they’re not curbing it, they’re already victims of it.
But then, the Internet came around. Here in the West we use it mainly for sharing cat videos and we enjoy that, but for [Muslims in the Middle East], it is a window onto a world that they had no idea existed at all. These are people who are born and raised there, who didn’t go on vacation to the West like I did. Muslim youth globally are being more exposed to secular influences. They’re seeing Hollywood movies that are now uncensored, and they are thinking about these things, comparing them to their own life. And yes, the conservatives are very worried about this.
Rizvi sees the rise in extremism and terrorism not as signs of Islam’s strength, but of the opposite — its desperate attempt to prevent Muslims from drawing the obvious conclusions from what they can now know about the world.
I hope he’s right.
How, though, to hold the line on immigration into Europe long enough for the Muslim world to, at last, reform along Western lines? I could offer lots of inexpert advice (and have, in these virtual pages) but Gatestone reports something more practical in the works:
From Gatestone
Four years ago, the Australian government sparked criticism after it ran an advertisement aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from traveling illegally to the country. “No Way“, the poster read. “You will not make Australia home. If you get on a boat without a visa, you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeking illegally to enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters”.
and:
Last year, EU officials came to Australia for help. At a recent summit, European Union member states agreed to copy the Australian model of turning back the migrant boats and sending them to third-countries, to centers there run by local authorities, on the model of the Manus Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea, which was used to house migrants turned away from Australia. Italy is now looking to create similar reception centers on the southern border of Libya.
What do you think, Ricochetti? Reason for optimism or mere aspirins offered to a continent with a metastasizing cancer?
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Z, we’re specifically cautioned as Christians about lying: “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’ be ‘No’. Anything else is from the Evil One.” (I know there’s humo[u]r here in your response, I hope…).
Islam is what it is and has always been, some will leave, others will accommodate the rest of the world, but most won’t and if the west changes immigration policy to accommodate those who leave, we’ll start getting really dangerous people mascaraing. Moreover, if we want Islam to change it needs to be quarantined. Remember Hirshman, “Exit Voice and Loyalty. Those who escape are also the ones who may change it from the inside if it is to ever change. It is not right wing to listen to the experts who tell us what Islam tells itself about itself. We want it to be different but what we want is irrelevant. It’s ethnocentric to see Islam through our western eyes.
Well yes, some. Though if you’re arguing that Christians are always truthful (to themselves and others) I confess myself a tad sceptical.
Which other eyes would you see it through and on what basis would you select these?
I didn’t say that we always hold to teaching, human beings make mistakes, but we’re not formally encouraged to be willfully/purposefully mendacious.
I think what @I Walton is suggesting is that Western progressives have a tendency to project their own assumptions and orientations onto others, particularly those who are sufficiently “marginalized” as to be, frankly, pitiable. To wit: Muslims are tender-hearted sweetpeas who sing lullabies to their children and would make excellent, pre-Woke Americans. Conservatives from, say, Kansas are, on the other hand, irremediable and beyond the pale.
Islam speaks for itself. Muslims speak for themselves, and actions do indeed speak louder than words. At the moment, the body count is downright deafening.
We all do, Kate. Hence my honest question.
Even if you selected a Muslim POV, or a number of them: which ones and on what basis?
True enough. Be we (christians) feel guilty about it. (-:
Guilt and four dollars will buy me a cup of coffee.
More history (modern): The Savagery of ISIS
By DOUGLAS MURRAY
July 30, 2018 11:16 AM
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/isis-brutality-nazi-like-cruelty-yazidis
Must be cheaper in Australia.
Our guilt is totes discounted.
(But coffee still awesome.)
Zafar, it doesn’t seem like an honest question. It seems like just more chaff thrown up to avoid the subject: Forget the forest! let’s insist on examining the bark, buds, leaves, twigs on every single tree…if we keep it up, maybe we can eventually declare there is no forest. Only atomized individuals whose growth cannot be predicted no matter how much information the forest as a whole provides about light, soil conditions, rainfall and all the other factors well-known to make trees do what trees do.
Oh but not every tree…you will say. And what about the deciduous trees versus the pines, the oaks as distinct from the birches? How can you say the forest is unhealthy when I can point to this thriving shrub or patch of happy sumac?
You happen to dwell in a country whose government (perhaps because its guilt is “totes discounted”) actively and quite aggressively protects its citizens—yourself included—from the flood of immigrants, including—importantly— Muslim immigrants, now overwhelming the capacities of Europe. You and the culture you depend on are kept safe by a system you seem to think Europe doesn’t need or, perhaps, deserve. You have the luxury of being a “meh” Muslim because everyone around you is tolerant of both “meh” and “Muslim,” the former for obvious reasons, the latter because (arguably, anyway) there are not enough angry, disaffected, alienated and potentially-violent Muslims around whose behavior is creating and/or enhancing a deeper prejudice in your neighbors.
Human beings are predisposed to tribalism, predisposed to prejudice. Any moron could have predicted that introducing large numbers of people from an “other” culture, even completely peaceable and inoffensive one, into an essentially homogeneous culture would provoke friction. That the “other” culture is not known for its peacefulness and is, in fact, simultaneously aggrieved and sure of its own superiority, that the imported representatives of that culture are primarily young males, that the jobs supposedly awaiting them do not, in fact, exist in sufficient numbers to either employ the newcomers or even provide work for underskilled natives…
The sheer idiocy of it is enough to make one despair. Claire Berlinksi, in Menace in Europe, was pretty clear about the problem. She’s sympathetic to Muslims, does not see them as a monolithic mass, knows and loves individuals and all the rest of it, but she is very clear about the twin problems that Europe has created for itself. First, the presence in Europe of both new and native born disaffected and violence-prone Muslims…and the potential for Europeans to revert to long-standing traditions of nationalism, which includes a pretty impressive history of committing violence against even inoffensive minorities, let alone those who can plausibly be claimed to pose a threat.
This is not good. Indeed, it looks to me like a nightmare waiting to happen. And no amount of mealy-mouthed obfuscations, excuses and appeasements is helping or will help. Indeed, all of this can only serve to infuriate those who count the dead (Bataclan, the London Tube, Madrid, Charlie Hebdo, etc. etc. etc.) and conclude that they can no longer count on their government to do the one thing we ask a government to do, namely to protect us from risks to our lives and property.
So here’s the answer on the Muslim POV—I don’t have to worry about that. That isn’t the problem. It’s the European, American, Western POV I’m concerned with. What were we thinking? and then what will we do?
The same history you so often invoke to relativize the outrages of the Islamic world should be a warning: Unbelieving Niceness is not the only choice that Europe and Europeans can, or are even likely to make.
Recalling the etymology of “nice” in this context…Hmmm.
@katebraestrup – yet again, I am not an open borders guy. Whose viewpoint are you contesting, because it really doesn’t seem to be mine? Who are you answering ? Are they here?
Nice link Nanda.
As K-Dawg said, it doesn’t really matter. What matters from my parochial and provincial POV is the POV of the citizens of the great state of Missouri.
Nevertheless, instead of getting too deep into trying to figure out which mohammadens’ POVs and why — ad nauseum — how about we just take the POV of the Koran and what we know about Moham-Dawg (or thought we knew as his bio seems to becoming more not less detailed with the passage of time)?
Then let us take the POV that Islamic Supremacists believe that the Koran is the immutable word of Allah and that M-Dawg was his prophet? Good ’nuff fer ya or do we go back down a new and ever more interesting rabbit hole?
Well, if you just talked to yourself then nobody would disagree with you ever. Talking to other people inevitably introduces that discomforting possibility.
Obviously there are Muslims who believe (and act) as you say. What about the rest of them? Meaningful question, given numbers, or not?
Other than you, Z, where are they? Also, we’re not worried about those who’ve thought through *their* Islam, who practice for themselves, it seems to me. Those who’re fundamentalist/political/societal; those who seek external validation – in public accommodation and secular law – who’ll take up arms, commit crimes against those they view as ‘pigs and dogs’, if negotiation doesn’t work – they’re the worry. (Yeah, I know, Christians once did these things, too…Not now.)
What % are the ‘rest of them?’
Wow. I somehow suddenly feel enlightened.
What does this mean in English?
Seriously, amigo mio, that is some profound stuff. Probably never would have sorted that out without your kind and gentle tutelage.
<span class="atwho-inserted" contenteditable="false" data-atwho-at-query="@zafar“>@zafar I commend you for your adherence to the faith.
Carry on!
flippant. Of course it is possible that this is just another weekend fun thread so I suppose yours is the proper attitude that one should take concerning this topic. I must admit that I am totes jelly of you for being able to laugh at the rape, abduction, slavery, torture, abuse, beatings, decapitations, and/ or murder (et cetera) of thousands of innocent non-Muslim women and children just within this news cycle.
P.S. &/or FYI: Not talking about ancient history and how awesome was the Spanish Inquisition and witch burnings.
Indeed. Which is why the size of these two groups in different countries and places seems a pretty relevant question.
Kate,
Let’s take this point by point. First, he is correct that Western liberals, if there are any left, have completely failed. As they don’t care about free speech anymore and are now actually against it they are no help in dealing with the extreme totalitarianism coming from Islam. Second, no the right has not used the issue falsely. The Doctrine of Jihad has proved itself to be alive and killing repeatedly. From 911 to the latest knife murder on the streets of London, the anti-Western mentality inculcated by Imams who are willing to preach violent Jihad is extremely dangerous. Third, his general point about the ability of the Internet/Media to break through all barriers is quite correct. This will have a profound effect on young people in otherwise controlled Islamic majority societies and sooner then we all think.
What this adds up to is that we on the Right should stop just playing defense by only stopping Jihad after it has metastasized. Once you see that black flag flying it is too late. We need to go on offense. Any Imam caught in the West preaching violent Jihad must be arrested, deported, and/or Mosque closed. We must keep the full court press on the Jihadist State of Iran. If the Mullahs fall and young liberal Muslims take over the country it will be the greatest symbol that a new era has come into being and the old Islam must give way to it. Erdogan is just playing to the crowd. As long as the Islamists pose a threat to him he must keep on playing Ottoman Empire Sultan to keep them in control. He knows where his bread is really buttered, a modern liberal economy, but for his own survival, he can’t let liberal governance take over while Jihad is still allowed to run wild.
Watch out for the EU trying to save the Mullahs. The EU is like concentrated stupidity. They can screw anything up. If we are lucky the Mullahs will fall under the weight of their own hopeless intolerance. Let freedom ring!
Regards,
Jim
You have to find someone who knows a subject deeply whom you believe you can trust, then recognize that we don’t and can’t know much and what we want to be true has no bearing on the matter. I don’t know the subject and didn’t even start reading about it until after 9/11, so I tried to find people who were respected and who I had no reason to suspect bias. It’s like every other subject if ones interest is trying to discover who is telling the truth when one has no personal experience to bear on a subject. Such matters usually turn on whether one is interested in truth.
Have to say that I’m finding Dr. Jasser’s memoir compelling. More soon about that…Just going to put this here, too. [H/t to @brianwatt for it.]
Amost an hour but worth a listen: