Mainstream Muslims Finally Take on Extremists

[Oldiesfreak1854]

This is a headline I've been waiting a long time to see, if only to prove that not all Muslims support terrorism.

[Sbane]

Do you not believe in free speech? Do you not think the preacher should be able to say what he wants? You and me can both agree what he says is disgusting, but why should we have the right to stop him from saying it? And if we have the right to stop someone from doing something we find offensive, then why shouldn't Muslims have the right to stop an artist from drawing the Prophet Muhammad?

To answer your stupid question, the response is not to ban speech.  It's to highlight how stupid it is and refute it.  We engage in a dialog with Muslims, we use argument, humor, satire and criticism to get them to abandon extremist positions and harmful ideas.  We don't ignore and respect their beliefs, we actually listen and we communicate why things like cutting people's hands off for stealing are barbaric.

So who doesn't already condemn the sort of things this preacher says? I don't think even your most wishy washy liberal will try to "understand" why this preacher might feel this way. I just don't think the correct response to people like the preacher is to go on a crusade against "islamic values".

The silence is deafening.  Or, more often, the apologizing and explaining away Islam's problems is deafening.  You provide cover for guys like him.  You earlier said, "Islam in India is peaceful and liberal."  Now, you're like, "well, not him."  You're basically saying, "Islam is great, except for the bad parts."  That goes for anything, it's weak, cowardly nonsense. 

Islam in India is more or less peaceful. I separate violent Islamists from Islam in general, which can include people who are very conservative and may hold disgusting views. You seem to want to turn the middle east and the muslim world into some liberal utopia. That is a ridiculous goal to have. You keep on saying we cannot solve the ISIS/violent Islamic extremism problem without wholesale reform of "islamic values" but you yourself state these "islamic values" are widespread in peaceful parts of the muslim world. It is quite obvious these "islamic values" are not the only ingredient leading to extremism.

Also I don't have any interest in defending Islam. I just think your plan is extremely foolish. It is the George W Bush sort of mentality. I am a realistic pessimist and I want to solve the problem of ISIS, not spread democracy/liberalism/lollipops and gumdrops across the middle east.

[Sbane]

This is a headline I've been waiting a long time to see, if only to prove that not all Muslims support terrorism.

All muslims support terrorism just like all christians support shooting up planned parenthoood clinics, right?

[bedstuy]

Islam in India is more or less peaceful. I separate violent Islamists from Islam in general, which can include people who are very conservative and may hold disgusting views. You seem to want to turn the middle east and the muslim world into some liberal utopia. That is a ridiculous goal to have. You keep on saying we cannot solve the ISIS/violent Islamic extremism problem without wholesale reform of "islamic values" but you yourself state these "islamic values" are widespread in peaceful parts of the muslim world. It is quite obvious these "islamic values" are not the only ingredient leading to extremism.

Also I don't have any interest in defending Islam. I just think your plan is extremely foolish. It is the George W Bush sort of mentality. I am a realistic pessimist and I want to solve the problem of ISIS, not spread democracy/liberalism/lollipops and gumdrops across the middle east.

You just keep repeating yourself and trying to straw-man my position.

My plan is literally just be more direct about criticizing Islamism and to stop giving political Islam a free pass.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think you've been putting words in my mouth tbh. I ultimately support liberal secular democracy in MENA and all regions. I dislike religions, especially those unreconstructed or that would, say, kill people like me merely for existing. Unfortunately, I feel like you're being naive. Do you really think by the west coming in and saying "well actually islamism is bad" it will stop jihadism? The west's (and here I think Russia can be included) integrity in the region is shot enough as it is - we made those damn borders, we have propped up numerous nasties in the name of 'stability' and geopolitics, we are believed - fairly or unfairly - to have more interest in Israelis than Arabs. If you start throwing out mass appeal largely democratic movements just because we dislike them (for example: the west pretty much accepting the Egyptian military overthrowing the elected Morsi without question) then you hand the whole of political Islam over to the violent. In power, islamism can be tamed by political reality - look at Morocco for a good example - and one hopes that they will eventually become the equivalent of Europe's Christian Democrats once the current fashion for reactionary thought in Islam dies down.

I think the very strange view that people have is that Islam is uniquely able to inspire terror. If only!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

BTW if your argument is that we should prevent our Gulf allies from spreading extremis t thought and then playing innocent when violence occurs, well I have no problem with that.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

This is a headline I've been waiting a long time to see, if only to prove that not all Muslims support terrorism.

All muslims support terrorism just like all christians support shooting up planned parenthoood clinics, right?

That's exactly my point.  Groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda don't represent all Muslims any more than the KKK or the Planned Parenthood shooter represent all Christians.

[bedstuy]

Do you really think by the west coming in and saying "well actually islamism is bad" it will stop jihadism?

Yes, sort of.

I reject your phrasing.  Will it stop it quickly or completely?  Of course not.  Should the government spearhead this effort? No.  Is this truly about "the west?"  No.  Is the message simply "your religion is bad?"  No.

The way I see it, it's like a political campaign on a macro level.  You have the people who basically agree with you, you have the people who are persuadable and you have the opposition.  And, you have a multitude of issues, some you can't win on, others you have some hope.

In 1975, nobody thought Islamism would be such a big problem in 2015.  But, a terrible religious revival movement did the hard work of spreading their version of Islam.  Honestly, if we could get back to the Islam of 1975, that would be a huge step forward.  We can do the same argument and education campaigns through the media that Saudi Arabia has done.

You can use a lot of the same techniques political campaigns use.  Wedge issues, attacking people, satire, social media, advertising, etc.  And, we can do a lot of good by just withdrawing our taboo against criticizing religious ideas.

I'm also talking about what we do and say in America.  Our liberal/left-wing community is very extremely careful about not seeming to criticize Islam and they often spend more time reporting on Islamaophobia than Islamic extremism.  Many of our media organizations treat Salafi hate preachers as moderate Muslims and treat groups like CAIR as the voice of mainstream Muslims.  How about we just stop doing that?  Baby steps. 

[Storebought]

Even overlooking the intrinsic ugliness of your proposal (lampooning religious outsiders is not a new idea), state-sanctioned propaganda campaigns, or at least, use of state protection of free speech as a proxy for a propaganda campaign against Islam hasn't been successful in changing Muslim hearts and minds anywhere it was tried. France and the Soviet Union are outstanding failures in this respect -- Turkey and Egypt are as well.

I join the other posters in questioning your rationale on how you could even suggest such a thing as a solution.

[Marokai Backbeat]

(lampooning religious outsiders is not a new idea)

Yeah this is definitely the equivalent of what Bedstuy is saying here. For sure. You nailed it.

[Storebought]

(lampooning religious outsiders is not a new idea)

Yeah this is definitely the equivalent of what Bedstuy is saying here. For sure. You nailed it.

That was an example of the hatred that the West is very capable of resorting to, after years of dormancy, that bedstuy wants to legitimize in an updated 21st century cable news format against a different opponent.

It's been done before and it hasn't worked.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Your political campaign analogy is apt, but your chosen 'campaign' method is equivalent to a Democrat running an a "guns, god and coal are stupid" platform in West Virginia. You need to ally with the pious to fight the zealous. Otherwise you're just writing ISIS propaganda for them.

[ingemann]

I think it's quite telling about some people's views of Muslims, that they think treating Salafi hate mongers as the scum, they are, will alienate the Muslim community. The truth are that bedstuy suggest that Muslims are treated as human beings, while some of your other seem to think that Muslims are so fundamental irrational and by their nature savage, that treating them that way will only make them more likely to commit violence.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

No its a view I hold of most people. Such is the curse of humanity, I guess.

[Storebought]

I think it's quite telling about some people's views of Muslims, that they think treating Salafi hate mongers as the scum, they are, will alienate the Muslim community. The truth are that bedstuy suggest that Muslims are treated as human beings, while some of your other seem to think that Muslims are so fundamental irrational and by their nature savage, that treating them that way will only make them more likely to commit violence.

No, you have it the reverse: It's unrealistic to expect that Muslims living in Europe right now to acquiesce to their social isolation in the passive and defeated way black Americans have living under similar circumstances. But why is it unrealistic? -- because they (Muslims) haven't been conditioned by their very religion to think that they are innately inferior and deserve their subjugation.

But beyond that:

Even playing along with the idea of a secular Rush Limbaugh with infinite airtime and state-backing spewing satire mocking and pillorying Islam -- this campaign is supposed to reach the households of all 1.4 billion Muslims who still allow their backwards superstitious religion to shape their opinion, not just those captive to the Wahhabi clerics -- whose mind is this effort supposed to change?

It surely is not supposed to change the Muslim's mind, to lead to mass apostasy on their part, because satire is effective only when (1) the message itself is valid, and (2) the target is its own audience, otherwise it's dismissed as just defamation from an enemy.

Is it to reduce the fear level of westerners living with Muslims, since they (the westerners) will be comforted by the fact that Rush Limbaugh can lampoon Islam -- and Muslims themselves -- with the same panache he does Obama or Clinton, without fear of retaliation? That tactic sure hasn't worked in France. And, besides, it's a contradiction, since Rush is supposed to broadcast his message of hope and inclusion to all Muslims worldwide, to make them pause and reflect on their condition, not to already conditioned westerners.

Is it instead to goad otherwise disconnected Muslims into lashing out against the both the message and its messenger so that an ultimate retribution against them can take place on a clear conscience? Damn likely.

[bedstuy]

Muslims aren't innately inferior.  Islamic culture is inferior to Western culture.  It's a big difference. 

The question is ultimately, how do you get people to modify Islam to become more amenable to our values?  Some people here say, do nothing because it's hopeless.  I can't get on board with a plan that says, both it's hopeless and we should do nothing.  And, it's not fair to Muslim individuals.  Why do they need to suffer because we're afraid of offending their "group?" 

We're all human beings, I'm offended by the idea that repugnant, evil ideas are beyond criticism because they're part of someone's group identity.  That's cultural relativism. 

Sometimes the truth hurts.  But, telling the truth about the negative aspects of Islam is ultimately good because it's the truth.  The same goes for any other religion, ideology, belief system, etc. 

[Sbane]

The problem with your proposal is that you seem to think it will work. You are free to criticize Islam, but if you think that will somehow end well then you are completely delusional. I am not strawmanning you when I say you want war with 1.5 billion human beings. I just see that as the ultimate result of your "plan". Westerners aren't going to be able to modernize the middle east/muslim world. It has to be an organic, internal movement. The west has no role to play in that. The west can only make things worse, not better.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

To borrow a phrase from another religion, change must come from within. An external force telling Muslims they are wrong, and allowing elections to be negated if 'they vote wrong' and prop up nasty autocrats because they make a big show of secularism is just silly.

I notice d you kind of ignored my examples from Morocco and Egypt because you insist on making the war against jihadism harder than it already is. Instead you're just tilting at windmills, like imaginef cultural relativism on our parts.

[bedstuy]

To borrow a phrase from another religion, change must come from within. An external force telling Muslims they are wrong, and allowing elections to be negated if 'they vote wrong' and prop up nasty autocrats because they make a big show of secularism is just silly.

I notice d you kind of ignored my examples from Morocco and Egypt because you insist on making the war against jihadism harder than it already is. Instead you're just tilting at windmills, like imaginef cultural relativism on our parts.

What was the Morocco/Egypt point?  We don't support Egypt because we like their government.  It's for international strategic reasons.  You're changing the scale on this.

But, what about in our countries?  Should it be more socially acceptable to say you hate Jews if you're a Salafi hate preacher, but not if you're just anti-Semitic for non-religious reasons?

[Sbane]

Who the hell even defends people like that? Specific examples please.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well it doubles down on the mixed messages we're sending to MENA in regards to democracy if we sell Arabs out at the drop of a geostrategic hat. Surely that might be a better target to understand the reasons behind jihadism rather than engaging in a quixotic information war against the world's second largest religion? In regards to Morocco, it shows that Islamist parties can operate under a democratic framework. Tunisia as well.

Perhaps I'm blind, but I don't really see much coddling of hate spee? I mean the best example in the UK was probably Abu Hamza, to my knowledge. Obviously at some level to preserve peace you do need to make deals with the devils - that isn't unique to Islam, as a brief glance at the N Ireland Assembly will tell; but I think the UK's anti hate laws are pretty well bolstered.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Many of our media organizations treat Salafi hate preachers as moderate Muslims and treat groups like CAIR as the voice of mainstream Muslims.

[Citation needed]


I have never seen The Media treat "groups like CAIR" as the voice of mainstream Islam, let alone try to make a distinction between Salafism and other branches.

Political correctness, like Libertarianism, is not actually a thing outside of the internet and college campuses. Our news is nothing but covering Islamic extremism and the wars in the Middle East for 15 years. The reason people on the political left talk about Islamophobia more than Islamic extremism is because Islamic extremism is not an existentional threat to our liberal society (at least, not until it ) the way Islamophobia is.

Honestly, if we could get back to the Islam of 1975, that would be a huge step forward.  

What does this even mean? How has Islam as a whole changed for the worse since 1975?

The Islamic world as a whole (not just MENA), by the virtues of globalization and the ideological conflicts of the War on Terror, is arguably on a path to a better future now in 2015 than it was in 1975. Widespread denunciation of terrorism by leaders and peoples, the washing away of bloodthirsty warmongering dictators that enabled Islamism, would start wars with Israel to unite their population against a foreign enemy to maintain support, and suppress democratic movements; feminist movements, the penetration of societies to the ideals of democracy and equal rights being made possible in a world connected by mass media and the internet, etc.


Yes, the Muslim world is in turmoil. It has been for most of the past 100 years, and centuries before that. But the Western world as we know it and our systems of government were born out of turmoil as well. It took the United States 400 years to arrive at our current form of government. Our history was nothing but mass violence from the 1760s - 1890s. The Iraq War shows that you can't just impose it on them from the top down; there has to be a ground-up building of governments. That's exactly what's happening now with movements like the Arab Spring. Our meddling in Muslim countries is part of the reason it's taken so long for these movements to develop, and then you get mad because there's a predictable backlash?


Progress is not linear; there will be steps forwards and backwards. Many times, our interventions in places like MENA actually set things back. Yes, let's support those fighting ISIS and other extremists by all means. We may have to ally with non-violent conservative Muslims to achieve this goal in the short term, and work on supporting movements for liberal governments in the long-run. "Us versus Them" mentalities like "Western culture is superior" is exactly the wrong way to go about this. You need to stop viewing a complex world in such black-and-white terms.
 

Or did you mean the situation of the Islamic world back in 1975? Because if so, that's exactly what enabled the rise of Islamism.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Also, to continue a debate from earlier about "Western" versus "Islamic" values/culture, I pointed out that universal human values are not exclusive nor original to the West, and you agreed and said that Western values are essentially universal values.


Which negates the "universal" part of it.


You can't just attribute everything good in the world to the West, and then claim because of the West the world was blessed by these good things. That's just Eurocentric arrogance and feeds the flames of culture wars, and then you get a backlash when people find out the not-so-nice things about the West and Western culture who then group it in with the good stuff (see: anti-liberalism, utopian extremists, religious conservatives, etc. reacting to the negative aspects of a consumerist, capitalist, permissive society and/or imperialist legacies by trashing universal rights and political secularism as well).

Islamic culture is inferior to Western culture.

Which also makes this sentence hilariously wrong and just weaponizing the concept of human rights into a intercultural conflict, which it is not.

Multiple Muslim scholars (and other religions as well, by the way) have issued declarations of rights by tracing them back to Islamic teachings based on the Quran and the Sunna of Mohammed, and the rights they give are the universal values. You have many Islamic scholars arguing that Shariah law needs to be freed from its medeival legal basis, the same thing that happened with Christian teachings today having abandoned the ancient tribal laws of texts like Leviticus.  Tradition is not incompatible with the modern world or universal rights.


If you keep going on in a divisive fashion about how this is about Western values/culture versus Islamic values/culture, then you're only going to perpetuate this conflict.

[bedstuy]

Many of our media organizations treat Salafi hate preachers as moderate Muslims and treat groups like CAIR as the voice of mainstream Muslims.

[Citation needed]


I have never seen The Media treat "groups like CAIR" as the voice of mainstream Islam, let alone try to make a distinction between Salafism and other branches.

Political correctness, like Libertarianism, is not actually a thing outside of the internet and college campuses. Our news is nothing but covering Islamic extremism and the wars in the Middle East for 15 years. The reason people on the political left talk about Islamophobia more than Islamic extremism is because Islamic extremism is not an existentional threat to our liberal society (at least, not until it ) the way Islamophobia is.

Perhaps it's out of ignorance more than anything else, but I think it's often the case.  CNN will invite someone from CAIR essentially to speak for Muslims.  They'll make the distinction between terrorists and radicals, but they basically give anyone else the benefit of the doubt.  Someone like Pat Robertson gets treated like a conservative religious person with a real agenda, someone from CAIR like gets to play the put upon victim. 

When people talk up "moderate Muslims," often they aren't moderate.  The New York Times praised Anwar Al-Awlaki as a moderate Muslim leader after 9/11.  That's a textbook example.

Honestly, if we could get back to the Islam of 1975, that would be a huge step forward. 

What does this even mean? How has Islam as a whole changed for the worse since 1975?

There has been a move away from secularism and Islamism has gained steam.  Not uniformly or anything, and it has also been accompanied by growing atheism and liberalism in some places.

The Saudi regime, the Iranian regime, the rise of Islamism in Pakistan, it's kind of a pattern.  Nationalist movement in the Middle East have largely disappointed people and many places, a fair election would lead to awful Islamist type regimes.  That's my point.

Also, to continue a debate from earlier about "Western" versus "Islamic" values/culture, I pointed out that universal human values are not exclusive nor original to the West, and you agreed and said that Western values are essentially universal values.


Which negates the "universal" part of it.


You can't just attribute everything good in the world to the West, and then claim because of the West the world was blessed by these good things. That's just Eurocentric arrogance and feeds the flames of culture wars, and then you get a backlash when people find out the not-so-nice things about the West and Western culture who then group it in with the good stuff (see: anti-liberalism, utopian extremists, religious conservatives, etc. reacting to the negative aspects of a consumerist, capitalist, permissive society and/or imperialist legacies by trashing universal rights and political secularism as well).

Islamic culture is inferior to Western culture.

Which also makes this sentence hilariously wrong and just weaponizing the concept of human rights into a intercultural conflict, which it is not.

Multiple Muslim scholars (and other religions as well, by the way) have issued declarations of rights by tracing them back to Islamic teachings based on the Quran and the Sunna of Mohammed, and the rights they give are the universal values. You have many Islamic scholars arguing that Shariah law needs to be freed from its medeival legal basis, the same thing that happened with Christian teachings today having abandoned the ancient tribal laws of texts like Leviticus.  Tradition is not incompatible with the modern world or universal rights.


If you keep going on in a divisive fashion about how this is about Western values/culture versus Islamic values/culture, then you're only going to perpetuate this conflict.

Well, sometimes you should perpetuate a conflict is you have a legitimate of difference of opinion.  If you sweep differences under the rug, you tend to just let your differences fester.  I think people should feel pressure to accept secularism and human rights.  And, I think most American Muslims do accept those things and they're a part of the solution globally.  If Muslims around the world were like American Muslims in terms of their beliefs, there really wouldn't be much problem.

As far as reinterpreting the Islamic texts to make them jibe with human rights, great!  That's what I want to happen. 

[DC Al Fine]

Well, sometimes you should perpetuate a conflict is you have a legitimate of difference of opinion.  If you sweep differences under the rug, you tend to just let your differences fester.  I think people should feel pressure to accept secularism and human rights.  And, I think most American Muslims do accept those things and they're a part of the solution globally.  If Muslims around the world were like American Muslims in terms of their beliefs, there really wouldn't be much problem. 

Oh come on, that's just  ridiculous. These aren't roommates upset over which way the toilet paper goes. You really think that showing up, actively antagonizing local Muslims and propping up secular forces is going to lead to less people hating America?! I've got some beachfront property in Des Moines to sell you dude.