For Heinrich. LoL
The Department of Defense
denial, but this is what is coming to your silly ass, dont think I didnt
warn you. Allah Akbar. You silly Euro Dhimmi... France first then your
Netherlands. Your soccer players are gonna be called Abdiel, Abdelkarim, and
Abu, lol, what a Euro dhimmi. I think somebody has a tent to spare to give
to your women. Wanna cover them up? Dont bother responding Heinrich, you are
on killfile,just rest assured you are going to fall like a domino, the Dutch
windmills will be replaced by minarets....LOL....Call to prayer Heinrich,,,,
better put your ass in the air and beg allahs forgiveness. Fucking weak Euro
Dhimmi.
Heinrichs stupid response.
Shut up def: go back to kissing jew ass.
Heinrich is such a tool.... a tool of the Muslims. Such is the Euro weenie.
LOL
****************************
Symposium: Muslims in France: A Ticking Time Bomb?
France's Muslim population is exploding and fundamentalist Islam is gaining
control over it. French society remains almost completely oblivious. Does
this phenomenon entail a ticking time bomb? What consequences does it pose
to the West? What lessons is it teaching? To discuss these issues with
Frontpage Symposium today, we are joined by a distinguished panel. Our
guests:
Mohamed Ibn Guadi, an Islamologist at Strasbourg University and a researcher
in Semitic Philology. He is a contributor to Figaro, Le Point and other
journals. He has lectured at the Theological Seminary of Montpellier
(France) in Islamic Law and Islamic Warfare during the Abbasside empire at
Fez (Morocco) and has taught Persian, Arabic, Sumerian and other Semitic
languages in Switzerland;
Dr. Soner Cagaptay, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University
and a senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Turkish
Research Program.
Laurent Murawiec, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. His book Princes
of Darkness: The Saudi Assault on the West will appear in August;
and
Reza Bayegan, a Paris-based university lecturer, political analyst and human
rights activist. He writes regularly about Iran and the Middle East and is a
political commentator for Iranian radios in exile.
FP: Mohamed Ibn Guadi, Soner Cagaptay, Laurent Murawiec and Reza Bayegan,
welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Mr. Cagaptay, let's start with a brief overview of the phenomenon of Muslims
in France. Tell us about the situation there. Is there a ticking time bomb?
If there is, what is it? Does it pose a threat to the rest of the West?
Cagaptay: Here is the picture: percentage-wise as well as in cumulative
terms, France has the largest Muslim community in the EU. There are no
official figures, since France does not collect numbers on religious
affiliation, but according to official estimates, there are 6 million
Muslims in France, that is 10 percent of the population. Unofficial
estimates point at an even higher figure, suggesting as many as 8-9 million
Muslims. What is more, given the low birth rate in the general French
society, and the continuing immigration of Muslims from North Africa, this
number is bound to increase.
The issue I would like to raise in this context is not that we should be
concerned that there are so many Muslims in France, rather it is that the
Muslims in France see themselves at the margins of the society and resent
that fact. The Muslims in France are the worst integrated Muslim community
in any EU country. Mass Muslim immigration to France is a post-WWII
development. Many came from North Africa, especially Algeria, to look for
jobs. However, France has done a terrible job in integrating them. The
benign founding myth of the French state, that there are no differences
between the citizens, has worked against the integration of the Muslims. On
the one hand, from the very beginning, Muslims in France, already from a
background of conservative--rural Islam, had few avenues towards
assimilation into the metropolitan French society, and on the other, the
society has acted as if these barriers do no exist.
The end result is that vast segments of the Muslim population in France have
little to do with the rest of the society. There are for instance no Muslims
in the French parliament, and when is the last time anyone met a Muslim
diplomat representing France? The banlieus of Paris, Marseilles, and other
major French cities are full of disgruntled and poor North African Muslims
today, who feel discriminated in the school system, in the public sector and
in access to government services. The bottom line is that elite
institutions, means of upward mobility, as well as quality government
services are in accessible to most Muslims in France. What is more, with
the rise of radicalism in the 1990s, these neighborhoods are now under the
effective control of fundamentalist Muslims. If I were French, I would be
very worried.
FP: Fair enough, but wait a second here. Can you completely blame France and
the French government itself for Muslims not "integrating" into French
society? It's many of the Muslims themselves that despise their host society
and isolate themselves into their own communities and cultures, no?
Mr. Bayegan?
Bayegan: I don't think it is the issue of whether it is the fault of the
French government and people, or whether it is the Muslim community here
that is to be blamed. The issue is very complex. The French colonization of
North Africa created a new relationship that the French could not pick up
and drop down at will. The French language and culture had a greater and
more permanent impact in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon than anything
that could ever be accomplished by military might. It is very significant
that Albert Camus, one of the greatest twentieth century French novelists,
was born in Algeria. During its colonization of Algeria for one hundred and
thirty years France transformed Algeria to a French département. Small
villages were turned into French villages and the whole Algerian economy was
geared towards serving France's needs. Algeria became so Frenchified that
one could go to a village restaurant there and order croissants and cafe au
lait for breakfast.
Many Arabs have come to live in France not merely for economic reasons, but
also because they felt France is their cultural homeland. There is no
resemblance between these people and say Turks in Germany who have no
historical or cultural ties with their adopted country. As Dr. Cagaptay
pointed out, a large number have also come to France from rural, uneducated
backgrounds. What ails these people and makes them stick out like sore
thumbs in French society is not so much Islam and Islamic teaching but
backward traditions they have brought with them from home. One of most
problematic of these cultural baggages is the status of women within these
communities. Second or third generation North African women in France
still live under tremendous pressures to uphold the retrograde practices of
their paternalistic communities. Women are treated as inferior to men and
are bossed around by their husbands, brothers and fathers.
Here in France, French art and especially French cinema is playing a role in
dramatizing this predicament and educating the public. A recent movie
'Chaos' directed by Coline Serreau was about the plight of an Algerian
prostitute who was led to a life of crime and violence through a forced
marriage.
There is also an attempt within the Muslim community to modernize Islam and
bring it into line with the realities of the twenty-first century. Soheib
Bencheikh, mufti of Marseilles and his preaching of a progressive Islam that
rejects backwardness and fundamentalism, can be cited as a good example.
The French government has also tried to defuse Islamic fundamentalism. In
December 2002, the then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy persuaded the
country's three main Islamic organizations to settle their differences and
form a body called the French Council for the Muslim Religion. The jury is
still out about the long term consequences of this move. In a country where
only a small percentage of Muslims attend mosque regularly, this religious
council can hardly be representative of the secularized Muslims.
What is certain is that there are no short cuts, easy answers or quick fixes
here. The presence of six million Muslims in France is a reality as strong
as the presence of Basque, Breton, and Corsicans in the multicultural French
mosaic. This reality is not going to go away. The more the French Muslims
are antagonized and alienated the better it would be for the spreading of
fanaticism and the growth of a violent version of Islam. Efforts should be
made in further enhancing a culture of tolerance and mutual understanding
between Muslims, Christians and Jews within the French society.
FP: Dr. Ibn Guadi?
Ibn Guadi: I agree with Dr. Cagaptay. I think the French state could be
blamed and in particular for the French model. In this model, individuals do
not exist -- only French citizens. The general interest takes precedence
over the particular interests. As a community, the Muslims see themselves
with difficulty recognizing the right to the difference. The French state
succeeded in imposing the ideology of its model on a society which is not
it. That's why, as Dr. Cagaptay pointed out, they are the worst integrated
Muslim community in any EU country. France wants to build a French Islam but
without Islamic institutions. It is impossible. The dilemma is that the
French law is disconnected from the religious questions.
Is there a ticking bomb? Probably. But not necessairement because of Islam.
For several years the French have been also very confused concerning their
own values. For a long time, they believed that they could manage to set up
an exemplary society by eliminating the religious sphere, and in particular
Christianity. The religious feeling is almost non-existent in France. It is
normal that Islam, a young religion in France, occupies the essence of
spiritual space here in this country. And in particular today, Islam
generates fear, fascination and questioning. The place of the Muslims and
Islam in France will in the future present new anthropologic and
sociological challenges for the French people.
Reza Bayegan mentioned Soheib Bencheikh, the mufti of Marseille.
Unfortunately, the Mufti Bencheikh is not really representative of the
majority of Muslims in France. Actually, most of the Muslims in France wish
to be represented by the leaders of the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations
of France). It is a normal reaction since the UOIF means an Islam expurgate
of artifices regarded as specifically Western - reform, secularism,
integration, etc. - It is illusory to think that the Muslims "moderates" are
or form the majority in France.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, France - and Europe - is not the
center of the history anymore. France does not have the means to follow an
international politic distinct from the United States. In the Arab world,
France is seen especially as an undecided and ambiguous country vis-à-vis of
Islam and Muslims. France believes that it has weight on the international
chess-board against the United States only because it calls upon the
relations with its old colonies. France is not the model anymore for Arabs.
Public opinion remains still very badly informed on these fields.
FP: So Soheib Bencheikh, the mufti of Marseille, doesn't represent the
majority of Muslims in France. In other words, if this is true, the majority
of Muslims in France are not interested in reforming Islam to make it a
religion compatible with modernity and democracy. What danger does this
spell for the future of France and Europe?
Murawiec: I fail to distinguish an Islamic community that is "well
integrated" anywhere in Europe. Turks in Germany were not allowed to become
German until a few years ago. British Muslims are dominated by radical
rabble-rousers. Dutch Muslims, I'm afraid, have not distinguished
themselves.
The large-scale Muslim presence in Europe is the unanticipated consequence
of scores of State and individual decisions. Nobody imagined thirty years
ago that a permanent Muslim community of 6-plus million would live in
France. For instance, president Giscard d'Estaing in 1975, in order to
display his compassion, took the decision that legal immigrants could bring
in their families. As a result, such problems as polygamy arose on French
soil.
A second set of problems: all earlier waves of immigration into France, from
Italians in the 1880s onward, Jews, Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese - when I
was in the military, I checked the rostrum of my regiment: close to twenty
per cent had foreign surnames - all passionately wanted to become French,
and did. This was not and is not the case with the preponderance of Muslim
immigrants, North Africans and West Africans in the first place. The price
of the entry ticket was higher for the Muslims than for Christians, or
Ashkenazi Jews, from other parts of Europe.
Thirdly, France used to be an effective melting pot. After 1968, the culture
in general collapsed, the moral fibre of society, which stopped believing in
its own values, that traditionally were Christian. France's intelligentsia
deconstructed the nation - this is no incentive for integration. I agree
with Mohamed - there is no competition between a lame, self-loathing
ex-Christian and a young Muslim who is all the more intent on his belief
than he knows very little about the religion, and the Arabic language. The
current of conversions through marriages is one-sided.
The French elite, and that benighted president Chirac, have been sucking up
to the Muslim world in the imperial hope of taking the lead in a world-wide
We Hate America alliance. Arab leaders in particular have used that conceit
to their advantage. Chirac was a prime supporter of Arafat, fought against
any measures to curb Hezbollah and Hamas, and so did Villepin. France has
mostly reaped a great deal of the contempt reserved for the dhimmi-s. To me,
the ticking bomb is the European drift toward dhimmitude, as Bat Ye'or has
shown. It empowers Muslim radicals. The Union of Islamic Organizations in
France is dominated and run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The textbooks are
Wahhabi. A large number of the imams are Wahhabi-trained.
I do not think that the assassination of Theo van Gogh has had the same
impact in France as it has in the Netherlands, but also in Germany. I think
that some fundamental reorientations are afoot, concerning immigration,
Islam, and definitions of nationhood. Look at the results of the referendum
on the European Constitution.
FP: In other words, for the sake of worshipping at the altar of
anti-Americanism, France has committed national suicide.
So gentlemen, paint me the worst case scenario in terms of this ticking
time bomb. And what can we do to take the edge off of the explosion when it
comes?
Cagaptay: First, I agree with Laurent that there are no well-integrated
Muslim communities on the continent. Yet, it is the case that some Muslims
have assimilated better the others. One case is the Turks in Germany, which
gives me a chance to look at where the problem is with regard to the Muslim
communities on the continent. Even if for a long time the German state
made it difficult for Turks to assimilate, until 2001, for instance, the
Turks could not even take German citizenship, the Turks, nevertheless,
persisted. They moved into middle-class German society faster and in bigger
numbers than Muslims in other countries, such as the North Africans in
France. Why? Because the Turks are "Western leaning" Muslims. Even if
they may be of the poorest and least educated segments of Turkey, Turks have
come to Germany from Ataturk's Turkey, having been exposed to Western values
and institutions. Accordingly, even if there are Turkish working class
neighborhoods in Germany, you do not see the problem of Islamist-run, and,
due to the ineffectiveness of past French governments, often criminal
ghettos there as you do in France.
Next, the worst case scenario. But, first let's deal with a cliché. Europe
is not a continent with religious tolerance. Look at 1492, the expulsion of
Jews and Muslims from Spain and then Portugal, St. Bartholomew's Day
Massacre of French Protestants in 1572, Thirty Years War, incessant pogroms
against Jews in Eastern Europe from the 17th century until the 20th, the
Holocaust, and last but not least, expulsion and annihilation of European
Muslims in Central Europe, Balkans and Russia ever since the seventeenth
century.
Why am I making this point? Even under the veneer of post
1968-multiculturalism, which Laurent skilfully mentions, there persists a
Europe that is intolerant towards religions other than Christianity. What
is interesting is that in this day and age, when a majority of Europeans are
either non-believers or lapsed Christians, and Europe is arguably the most
secular,
Europeans view Muslims through their religious identity and their European
credentials, or the lack thereof. Given this dynamic and the historically
combustive mix of religious hatred on the continent, here is my prediction
for a worst case scenario, which I should add I would never want to see:
imagine for a minute that there were 9/11 style attacks in France, what
would the French response be?
We have a small scale test case to answer this question. Remember what
happened after the murder of Van Gogh in the Netherlands. This was a
gruesome and appalling murder. Yet, the response to it, acts of violence
against Muslims and mosques collectively in the old --but apparently still
alive-- European fashion showed that even in the very liberal Dutch society,
the old European mind set still persists. Hence, to go back to my worst
case scenario, if there were a 9/11 type of attack in France, I shudder to
think in which ways the majority French people will take on the Muslims in
the country.
FP: Sorry if I am misunderstanding you here, but this interpretation implies
a theme that gets my blood boiling. It reminds me of the lefties here in
America who, after the 9/11 attacks, instead of being sympathetic to the
victims and their families and angry at the perpetrators, and supporting
revenge against those who committed the crimes and those who harboured them,
instead were agonizing about how Arab and Muslim rights were now going to be
violated.
I am a Russian. If tomorrow, hypothetically, some Russians massacred 3,000
innocent people, my heart would go out to thee victims and to their
families, and I would want to see retaliation against those who committed
the crime. My greatest concern would not be sitting around thinking: "Oh and
now they will discriminate against people like me, people with the ending
'ov' at the end of their name."
I think that this emphasis reveals a certain ideological bent.
Sorry, but when I think of the problem of the growing presence of Muslims in
France, the first thing that comes to my mind is the heart-breaking reality
of forced marriages and honor killings being perpetrated on Arab-Muslim
girls on French territory. I think of forced veiling. I think of the
gang-rapes of Muslim and non-Muslim girls who are not veiled in Arab-Muslim
ghettoes. I think of female genital mutilations. I think of the growing
radical element that might perpetrate another 9/11 over there. I think about
all we can possibly and hopefully do to crush these forces. Needless to say,
that is what is on my mind, not sitting around worrying what will happen to
someone else afterwards, someone that is not even a victim of the huge crime
that is perpetrated and should be thought about and condemned.
Bayegan: The worst case scenario will emerge out of our failure to
discriminate between Muslims and Islamism. By Islamism, I mean the
fundamentalist, extremist doctrine that is based on a violent and intolerant
interpretation of Islam. The worst case scenario will show its ugly and
violent face when in our rage against fanaticism we subscribe to another
form of fanaticism ourselves. In other words, as Amos Oz the Israeli
novelist has said, 'In our anti-fanaticism we can turn into the worst kind
of fanatics'.
Remember that the person who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin was not a female-genital mutilating, honor killing Muslim, but a
fanatical Jew. The worst case scenario would develop out of blind ignorance
in all its various shapes and forms. Blind ignorance is not the monopoly of
Muslims, it has a fertile breeding ground wherever reason and sound judgment
give way to hatred and bigotry. Do not forget that The Holocaust was
perpetrated by refined Christians who enjoyed listening to Wagner and
perused the works of Heidegger and Celine, and not gang-raping Arabs. What
the fundamentalists want, and as an Iranian I can testify to, is to polarize
and radicalize the conflict between Islam and the West as much as possible.
They want to push the West over the Rubicon of waging a wholesale war
against all Muslims. Achieving this task they can turn around and tell their
fellow Muslims that the argument of moderate, tolerant Muslims is
ineffective and irrelevant. They want to make all Muslims believe that
anyone who argues that peaceful coexistence with the West is possible is a
traitor to Islam and acts as a fifth column.
The West should concentrate its efforts in defeating Islamism, and not in
the alienation of Muslims.
As a child growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran, I remember that my Muslim
parents had their best friends amongst the Jews. One of these Jewish friends
helped me to leave Iran for Canada after the Revolution and his family
provided me with all the love and assistance they could offer at a time when
I needed it most: early difficult years of separation from my parents and
country. During the time of the Shah, religion did not create division and
hatred amongst the Iranian people, but it was a force for gaining spiritual
strength and provided the ability to empathize with other human beings
irrespective of their race, religion or color. If the fundamentalists
eventually prevailed, it was to a large extent due to the unfortunate fact
that forces of moderation failed to develop a discourse for safeguarding the
spirit of peace, tolerance and political evolution. They took for granted
that political stability will last for ever without thinking it necessary to
intellectually nourish and defend it. Accordingly the challenge of the
writers and orators who were preaching sabotage and violence went
unanswered. Fanaticism won by going unchallenged and in absence of a cogent
counter-argument.
Dr. Ibn Guadi remarks that it is illusory to think that Muslim moderates
form a majority in France, and the moderate Soheib Bencheikh the Mufti of
Marseilles does not represent a wide section of the Islamic population in
France. The corollary is that the bulk of the Muslim population in France
supports groups affiliated with Islamic extremism. This is not an inference
reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. In a country like France
where the public opinion shifts from socialism to the far right in a matter
of months, it is not fair or consistent to assert that Muslim public opinion
is exempt from the same vagaries and is locked in a certain inflexible mode.
Muslims, like every member of the human species respond to changes in
political, societal and economic circumstances. It would be as ridiculous to
suggest that white French Christians are represented by the National Front
and Jean-Marie Le Pen because they agreed with him in rejecting the proposed
European Constitution; or to say that the protest vote against the
Socialists in 2002 was a vote of popularity for Jean-Marie Le Pen and his
fascistic views.
Adam Lebor, the author of 'A Heart Turned East' is very illuminating when he
says : "In most (French) people's minds to be an Arab is to be a Muslim, and
to be a Muslim or a fundamentalist is the same thing. Everywhere young
Muslims are told that they ae fundamentalists... So it becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy". (p. 174). The worst case scenario can also become
a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will happen if people are deprived of their
hope to live with dignity and are driven to desperate mindless acts. I
believe the very fact that moderate Islamic discourse such as the one
propounded by Soheib Bencheikh exists is a cause for hope. I am not here
calling for appeasement or promoting wishful thinking, but am suggesting
that since there are rational elements within the Islamic community in
France, one should do one's best to encourage and disseminate its message.
In medieval Spain for more than seven centuries Muslims, Jews, and
Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, where literature,
Science, and arts flourished. If such a co-existence was possible in the so
called Dark Ages it cannot be impossible in the twenty-first century.
There has been also some change in French attitudes in the past seven years
towards Arabs which seems hopeful. When in 1998 Zinedine Zidane, the French
soccer player of Algerian origin scored two goals for France in the World
Cup helping France defeat Brazil and claim its first World Cup, everyone in
France celebrated; Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Jingoism and casus belli are the attitude of the of Eastern and Western
fanatics. A creative solution on the other hand requires a search for a way
of peaceful coexistence of diverse and seemingly incompatible elements. The
worst case scenario will only come about as a result of victory of ignorance
over common sense. Unfortunately there have been many historical precedents
for such a victory. It is also possible to change the ticking time bomb into
a mellifluous instrument of peace and harmony there have been precedents for
that also.
FP: Sorry gentlemen, my eyes are starting to glaze over.
When organizing this symposium, I thought about the term "ticking time bomb"
and thought it was a given that it referred to the growth of the Muslim
population in France and the dangers it poses. There is an obvious Islamist
component here. Within this whole phenomenon lies a clear threat to
democracy, freedom, individual rights (of Muslims and non-Muslims) in
France, not to mention the rise of extremism and terror etc. As this
discussion proceeds, it appears that several members on this panel believe
that the ticking time bomb is the potential response that some French
citizens might engage in to Islamist terror and extremism. In other words,
Islamist terror and extremism is not the problem, but the response that
might be made to it.
Obviously we need to avoid alienating Muslims. It is clear we need to try to
nurture a moderate Islam and to ally ourselves with Muslims who seek to
modernize and democratize Islam. But to pretend that the threat to France
posed by Islamism has nothing to do with the growth of the Muslim presence
in France is mind-boggling.
The reminder to us that a fanatical Jew killed Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin is an absurd distraction to this conversation. Sorry, I think
the last thing the victims of Islam's gender apartheid, and all the victims
of Islamist terror, worry about at night are fanatical Jews. The homosexual
Palestinians that flee to Israel to avoid their death sentences under PA
culture for being gay, I assure you, do not live their lives in dread
worrying about fanatical Jews. And trust me, when I go to sleep at night and
worry about the world's safety and future, I think about things like 9/11,
about Tehran's Mullahs having nuclear weapons, about Zarqawi and Bin Laden
getting their hands on WMDs. The threat of fanatical Jews, I am afraid, does
not loom large in my fears at night.
The point about the Holocaust being "perpetrated by refined Christians" is a
crock and the people who utter it know it is a crock. The Holocaust was not
perpetrated for a Christian reason. It was not perpetrated by Christians
acting out of loyalty to their faith and following their religious texts.
The Holocaust's evil was not perpetrated and legitimized, step by step, by
references to verses from the New Testament. The Holocaust was the ultimate
anti-Christian act that might have been committed by some people who
happened to be Christian but who were violating the basic tenets of their
religion. You cannot find anything in the New Testament that serves as a
foundation for the legitimacy of the Holocaust nor can you find a reference
to anything even close to justifying the acts used in carrying it out. And I
am not going to waste my time here going over how Islamist terror finds its
roots in Muslim texts. Go read Robert Spencer's Onward Muslim Soldiers: How
Jihad Still Threatens America and the West.
Do we support Muslims who want to reform Islam and democratize it and make
it a religion of peace? Yes. Can we deny that when Osama and al Zarqawi
refer to Surahs in the Koran to justify their violent acts that they are
referring to real Surahs? No.
The Muslim community is as diverse as any other group, culture and
community? Please. When there are Muslim women from the Muslim world freely
competing in sports and in the Olympics, get in touch with me. When they are
free to become prominent intellectuals and critics in their own society and
receive material and cultural rewards for being prominent dissidents, get in
touch with me. When they are free, if they so choose, to engage in Muslim
beauty pageants, get in touch with me. When Muslims throughout the Arab
world start creating the most hilarious self-critical stand-up comedy
routines, get in touch with me. When Muslims create heated and controversial
talk shows, books and films, where free opinions startle and provoke thought
on all limits, and the creators are not hiding in desperate fear of their
lives, get in touch with me.
Again, is there a fight happening for the soul of Islam? Yes. Must we
support Muslims, like groups such as The Free Muslims Against Terrorism?
Yes. But please spare me the absurdity of the Muslim community being as
"diverse" as any other community. When Jews and Christians rise in its ranks
and become members of it on many levels and realms, like Muslims have done
in the West, get in touch with me. In the old Islamic empires, Jews and
Christians who attained political influence were often the target of
violence and resentment by Muslims. Today, Christians like Tariq Aziz, the
former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, have risen in power only in states where
Islamic law has been set aside.
When you can name me ten fatawa, off the top of your head, made by ten
famous Muslim clerics against bin Laden within this "diverse" community, get
in touch with me. Yes, of course these fatwas exist, but why are they so few
in number and what effect have they had on widespread support for Islamic
terrorists within the Islamic community worldwide? Does this not say
something about "diversity" in the Muslim community?
Kindly also spare us the nonsense about the Islamic "tolerance" that was
practised in medieval Spain. Newsflash: it never happened. Robert Spencer
has meticulously delegitimized this myth in his Ch. 7, "The Modern Myth of
Islamic Tolerance," in Onward Muslim Soldiers.
In any case, Dr. Ibn Guadi? Sorry, it's getting a bit hot in here.
Ibn Guadi: I see.
I share the concerns of Reza Bayegan on the fact that no one should favor
excess pressure against Muslims. We need, on the contrary, to nourish
relations with Muslims who wish to democratize the institutions in the Arab
countries. But the error would be to believe that the Islamic religion is
accessible to the reform. What I mean to say is that those who wish to
change the political institutions don't want to necessarily change the
Muslim institutions. They are two different things. As faith and policy are
inseparable to Muslims, the subtraction is difficult. The change is more
difficult because it requires the re-examining of several centuries of
traditions and Islamic jurisdictions. The authority in Muslim theology rests
on Bukhari, Muslim, Shafi'i, Ibn Hanbal and other schools. To be able to
"reform" some religious elements, it has to be justified by a person of a
higher authority. Which is impossible, given the doctrine they follow.
On the theological level, no one can avoid or draw aside the Hadiths.
Several Islamic regulations do not come from the Koran but primarily from
the Hadiths. The Canonical circumcision or the five canonical prayers do not
appear in the Koran but in the collections of Sahih Bukhari, one of the
greatest authorities in the chain of the traditions. Other regulations which
do not find their source in the Koran but in the Hadiths are the subject of
a religious decree (fatwa) to abolish these precepts as the death penalty
for apostasy (Bukhari Jihad 149: II, 56, p. 352, 2), the punishment relating
to adultery (Muslim, Hudud 12) or the night voyage of Muhammad to the sky
(Bukhari, Manaqib Al-ansar, 42: III, 63, 42, p. 37, 1) which is important to
negotiations related to the statute of Jerusalem. But even as great
authority as the Mufti of Al-Azhar was, even he could not abolish these
precepts. Because to some, when you discuss these points you call into
question the legitimacy of the Muslei faith. It is precisely for this reason
that the leaders of the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France) have
had disputes with the French government. For the Moslems in France and
elsewhere, to discuss these points is to reduce their faith.
It should be realized that in the eyes of some Muslims, the religion of
Islam is itself the reform the world needs. According to the Islamic
doctrines, Judaism and Christianity are good religions but not sufficiently
reliable to claim the authority on the questions of faith. For the Muslims,
the Christians and the Jews were misled in their writings. In the spirit of
Islam, the religion was reformed because the Koran corrected the preceding
revelations.
Even if it is difficult to admit, I must recognize that Jamie is right when
he says that no one can be unaware of the various texts in which Osama bin
Laden or others are using. In February 1998, in a text of six pages, bin
Laden declared the war on the Jews and the Christians through a fatwa. No
Muslim religious authority produced a fatwa to refute the remarks of Osama.
Few Muslims would be in disagreement with what bin Laden said on November 3,
2001 on chain Al-Jazira: "It is impossible to forget the hostility which
exists between the inaccurate ones and us. It is a question of religion and
creed". From a purely objective point of view, he was right.
Some Muslims are better assimilated than others. Yes, but if they are better
assimilated it's because they are "less" Islamic. The more spiritual
questions that face the Muslims in France, the less they feel related to the
country which they live.
Moreover, contrary to the Turks in Germany, the Muslims in France did not
need to insist to get their citizenship because a residence permit can be
sufficient. The residence permit is delivered to aliens for a 10 years
period. Several immigrants whom I know have had this card for 40 years and
don't know the French language at all.
Moreover, they do not wish to acquire French nationality and speak about it
rather with contempt.
About the worst case scenario in France. On the one hand, France could
implode. But on the other hand, I don't think that this implosion would have
a huge impact in French society. I agree with Laurent about the Theo van
Gogh impact among the French people.
Bayegan talks about Jean-Marie Le Pen. But most of Muslims in France have
been like (even admire) him since the end of 80's. This field is taboo in
France, but when Jean-Marie Le Pen says in some interviews that most of
aliens agree with him, he is right.
Murawiec: The sad truth, I think, is that little indigenous to Europe will
seriously contribute to defusing the "time bomb." There is a bomb ticking
because the world of Islam has proven itself incapable of facing modernity,
because of the stubborn adherence of its rent-seeking and rent-owning elites
to a mythical view of the world, because Muslims have been left with the
delusional world-view of a Golden Age of Islam to which one should aspire to
return, because a self-image of the Muslim-as-victim (of "imperialism," of
"colonialism," of "Zionism" and whatever else) has been systematically
propagated by those elites, and accepted by large numbers. So we have large
numbers of alienated Muslims throughout Europe.
Soner is right about the Turks: since they come from a more structured
society with strong historical traditions and a sense of self-respect born
of a millennial domination of the region south and east, their self-identity
tends to be less based on self-aggrieved victimhood than that of Arabs.
However, even the Turkish model, which has much to be admired, today faces
the rising tide of an Islamic regime which is drowning the secular
modernizers. The limits of the Ataturkian model have been reached: Mein
Kampf is the #1 bestseller in Turkey today, it is sold at train stations,
museums, newsstands, etc. Once again, it is perfectly true that Turkish
areas in German towns are no ghettoes. So both Turks and Germans are better
off. Still, it does not dispense us from dealing with the problem that
Islamism in general poses.
We've got to deal with Islam - I'll agree with Mohamed. Now, being alienated
does not mean being right. "Suffering bestows no right," said Albert Camus.
The problem is that today's world of Islam considers it licit and even
recommended to kill Infidels as a way of "solving" problems. Al-Azhar says
that. Qaradhawi says it. The Saudi shaykhs repeat it endlessly. Arafat built
a career on it, as well as Saddam, Assad, etc.The ideology of terror has
been promoted, extolled, lionized, and adopted, in the world of Islam as in
no other part of the world. It is symptomatic of the generalized blindness
that prevails in the world of Islam: a love of destruction, a desire for
annihilation: Nihilism has become a principal intellectual force. Blame
Khomeini and Shariati, al-Banna and Qutb, as well as Michel Aflaq and the
ideologues of "secular" nationalism. This is what powers the time bomb.
Now, Europe's attitude has been to pretend that this does not exist, and
look the other way. In the UK, the Labour Party is so craven toward the
radicals in the Muslim population, there is little that it will not do to
gain its favors. While France was watching existentialist movies and
dreaming of imperial glory, huge swaths of surburban (banlieue) territory
have become "lawless areas" (zones de non-droit). So it's not just a French
problem, though the problem there is acute. Bat Ye'or has a very strong
point when she analyzes Europe's evolution as moving toward what she called
"Eurabia." To deal with a problem, you would need to recognize it to start
with. I'm alright, Jack, says the French elite. Europe, I predict, will do
nothing. It will wait, like the proverbial Roman patricians, waiting for the
Barbarians at gates to enter and slaughter them.
Now, dealing with Islam. It seems to me that we have to escape the fatal
dilemma: "it's their religion, we can't touch it." The problem is that Islam
has been captured by Islamism; we can live with Islam in general, we cannot
live with Islamism. Islam has failed to cope with Islamism. We have to do
so, because it will not let us live, but make us die.
In part, slowly, haphazardly, awkwardly, the U.S. has started facing the
problem. See Condi Rice's superb speech in Cairo - challenging our
pseudo-friends and revoking the disastrous Eisenhower Doctrine in the Middle
East, which, as she emphasized, put stability ahead of democracy to the
point of forgetting the latter altogether. So we're moving ahead. This in
turn encourages those in Europe who are unhappy with continental suicide,
and, even more importantly, those in and around the world of Islam, who want
it to change: Irshad Manji, Nasser Abu Zaid, Ibn Warraq, Yousef Seddik,
Abdelwahab Medeb, Kanan Makiya, etc. Dissidents all, each in their own way.
They are the seeds. We must help them, because their societies are too
despotic and frightened to give them much help. We've started with Iraq - we're
doing the right thing, through our innumerable stupidities and mistakes. Let's
go on. The idea is that it is at the root - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
etc. - that terror as the preferred and extolled solution to the crisis of
Islam must be tackled.
Am I far from France? Oui et non. There is indeed a ticking time bomb. The
growing self-assertiveness of a radical and violent minority has already
started to spill over into the hip and posh areas - a recent street
demonstration of high-school students in Paris was violently attacked by
Arab thugs from the suburbs who proceeded to beat up and loot the 'rich
French kids,' with abundant displays of racial hatred. Not that I think that
the multiculturalist elites will take heed. When you're bent on
self-annihilation, you don't "notice" the Barbarians. There we are.
Cagaptay: Let's put things straight. First, no need to compare Europe to
the US when we discuss the issue of and how and if Muslims fit into these
societies, etc. The US is light years ahead of Europe in terms of religious
coexistence and also its ability to frankly discuss such issues. (I am not
even going into why we should not compare Russian cases to America: just
remember the "rescue" effort when Chechen terrorists took hostages at the
Moscow theater: Russian security forces stormed the building and killed over
a hundred of their own citizens instead of saving them). Anyhow, the point
I am making, which I should repeat so it does not get blurred behind the
moderator's comments, is that we face two gruesome problems: a large,
growing, unintegrated, poor, and increasingly radical Muslim population,
which because it has been left in the hands of fundamentalists is becoming
monochromic and is segregated from the rest of France, and a larger French
society that will not even admit that these problems, is at a loss as to how
to deal with it. This society, I am afraid, will be rudely awakened and
will react harshly as deserved but not wisely as needed for victory -because
of its lack of religious tolerance when the fundamentalist Muslims show the
first signs if serious unrest or conduct terrorist attacks in France. Now,
is that a time bomb and a half or what?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18631
Pete Hine
did you write it?
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