Do Politicians Dream of Electric Sheep?

Provocation, freedom of speech, Islamisation and Fitna:


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Do Politicians Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Khodadad Rezakhani
03-Apr-2008
 

Okay, I like the Dutch as much as the next person, or actually I like them more than most people I know. I like their language, despite all the “ch” sounds (that is KH, a hard, laryngeal sound not dissimilar to one cleaning one’s throat), I like their country, and I like their penchant for the provocative and the controversial. Recently, I dragged my girlfriend through the streets of Amsterdam during a five hour stop-over in Schipol on my way from Athens to Los Angeles. She hated it, and it was cold, and all the stores were closed (we got there at 9am), but I loved it. I even want to live there, if possible, but apparently I will not be really welcome, looking at the way Mr. Wilders is warning his fellow Netherlanders. Why? I am a “moderate Muslim” and apparently, that is a contradiction, and I might be contributing to the “Islamisation of Europe” by things my mother and father have taught me at home (they did not tell me that gays have the same rights as others. True. The subject did not come up, which might explain the neglect).

Well, I am not really even a Muslim. I grew up in a family who has grown up in a country in which most people identify themselves as members of the Islamic civilization and if you stop 90 per-cent of them, they can barely tell you anything about the Quranic verses beyond the regular prayers and even they are in Arabic which they don’t understand. So, I am the totally secular son of a non-practicing Muslim family from a country which has been mostly Muslim for 1300 years (Iran). That usually makes me think of myself to be as religious as one of my best friends who is a secular son of a non-practicing Christian family of a country which has been mostly Christian for 1500 years (France).

My friend, let’s call him Robert as I have not asked him if he wants to be named, has nothing to explain, but whenever I say I am Iranian, I have to explain that I am not a practicing Muslim, that I too think stoning is evil and should be banned (I am actually against the whole death penalty, which makes me have to argue it with the heirs of the “Christian. Jewish, and humanistic traditions” which Mr. Wilders advocates as owners of rationality which everyone should copy) and that no, in Iran they do not mutilate women and that as far as I know is a local west African custom continued by Muslim as well as non-Muslim population of that region. I actually heard of this first when I came to the US!

As I said, I like the Dutch and their provocative political actions. Don’t think of me as a pervert, but I even liked their attempt at making underage sex legal and putting porn on TV. Disgusting in general, particularly the first one, but coming from a country which still has enough soul left to dare and be controversial, and consequently appreciated. I am very glad that the party that brought that issue up did not win though…

So, I saw the new Fitna movie by Geert Wilders (who is NOT a filmmaker as some have reported, but a politician, and has NOT directed the film, as some others have claimed) with an open mind. Horrible, the atrocities it was showing. I actually did not find the film to be offensive. Provocative, yes. Opportunistic, you better believe it. Inaccurate, of course. Politically motivated, you betcha. Hateful, classically so. But offensive? Not to me. I found it interesting. Fascinating that a few images, verses, lines, and a whole lot of fears have been heaped on top of each other to create a political statement that is more a propaganda than anything that is meant to actually change anything.

Among the things that I am not is a scholar of Islam, so I cannot tell you exactly what in the film is inaccurate. I can see details that are inaccurate and instances where words and concepts are used to relay the wrong message. One is the use of the word “terror” (as in “strike terror in the hearts of your enemies”) where the choice of word is obviously used for its association in the English speaker’s mind with the word “terrorism” and “terrorist” which in recent years has become synonymous with the actions of radical saboteurs who have committed gross crimes such as 9/11 and is now used in the media to basically mean “muslim terrorists” (as if no one used “terrotist” acts before this). I should interject though that I wonder why a Dutch politician of known right-wing and nationalistic tendencies has made a film in English. Isn’t xenophobia meant to be at least an equal opportunity form of bigotry? So, I shall leave the film alone and say a few things about the interview that Mr. Wilders has given, about the comments left at a certain weblog, and about the whole Islam in Europe things in recent years.

In his interview, Mr. Wilders claims that moderate Islam is a contradiction. He goes on to say that those youth gangs in the Netherlands who commit crimes “don't carry the Koran under their arms” but that they have learnt to hate gays from their parents at home. First of all, why is moderate Islam a contradiction? Why can someone not believe that 1- there is only one god (monotheism) 2- that he is the creator of all things 3- that he rules via the division of human actions into good and bad (virtue and sin) and that 4- there is a judgment day? I personally do not believe in any of these, but I know that my mom’s old uncle did.

At the same time, he did not beat any women, he did not mutilate his daughter, he did not beat my mom when she started a relationship with a man before getting married to him, he did not hate gays, he did not hate the West, he did not hate freedom (quite the contrary), he drank alcohol, he kind of considered himself a socialist, he danced, and he loved his family, he also did not teach his son to beat gays or his wife, nor did he tell his daughter to obey her husband. He did say his prayers daily and he did participate in some religious feasts. He was a Muslim, a moderate and even liberal one.

Then, I would like to ask Mr. Wilders on HOW he knows that those young people are told as such by their parents? Has he asked them? Is he claiming that all hate-crimes are religiously motivated? Was Hitler a representation of Christianity? Is he also claiming that Europe, through its Christian, Jewish, and humanistic tradition, has forgotten about hate crimes? What does he have to say about the fact that while the Holocaust and Nazism are publically slammed and hated, the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini and another lady in Italy are battling each other for the safe-keeping of the memory of Fascism and that Ms. Mussolini has claimed “better a fascist than a faggot”?

People constantly opt for freedom of speech when the issue of hateful statements against Islam is brought up. Yes, everyone is free to express their opinion, but everyone else is also free to express their unhappiness about that opinion. So, yes, when people send death-threats to the makers of hate films and hate cartoons, that is uncalled for, but why is it that everyone gets surprised when Muslims get angry about Fitna or the Danish Cartoons? Is it okay to say “This ideology endangers our values. I hate it,” (Geert Wilders) but not okay to say that one hates the film because it spreads racism?

Come on, don’t say it is NOT spreading racism… if I am seen in Europe by a group of racists, they are not going to ask me whether I am a moderate, secular, radical, or atheist, they are just going to see that I am from a Muslim country and they are going to hate me for it. I cannot tell them that I am much less religious than my Greek or American friends, that I have never been to a mosque as opposed to most my friends who attend the Church every Sunday. They are just going to hate me because they are going to see me as part of that rising number of “Muslims” who is increasing in number in Europe and whose rising chart Mr. Wilders has included in his film (btw. how did he make that chart? Did he just include the number of the people who identify themselves as Muslims or did he just take the number of the immigrants from Muslim countries?).

I am also annoyed about the issue of the Danish Cartoons. Everyone is complaining about the “Muslims” finding it offensive. They say that Muslims believe that the prophet should not be depicted and that drawing a picture of Mohammad hurts Muslim sensibilities. That statement might be true in theory, but there are hundreds of years of artists depicting Mohammad and all of his family in paintings. Just go to any average Iranian mosque and you see a bunch of them. I am annoyed since no one sees that the issue is the “comics”.

It is making fun of the leader of a religion and is attaching him to someone who lived 1400 years later and tries to say that what Usama does (by the way, it is Usama and not Osama, never mind the USAma association) is the same as what Mohammad said, all because Usama wears a turban like Mohammad did (or your modern Danish cartoonist thinks he did; historically he almost certainly did not). It is the CONTENT that is offensive, not the DRAWING, get it? Now, in my opinion, the content is just short sighted, stupid, pointless, and not funny, but not offensive. I will find it a bit suspicious that the newspaper that published it, and its editor, are known right-wing, anti-liberal characters and they are even disliked by most of my Danish friends, and as such, I tend to doubt its “liberal”, free-speech supporting claims.

And then, we have the Islamisation of Europe. How much fun. Oriana Fallaci wrote two best sellers about it before she died (what is this with Italian ladies and Fascism?), Victor Davis Hanson warns us against it (although he lives in a farm in Fresno, California and generally seems to dislike whomever is not American), and the average man in Denmark seems to fear it, as you can see here:

“Hej . I am danish .  
Mr. Wilders is a hero !!!  
Bravo Geert Wilders ! go and get all this muslim pigs .  
Its a time to wake up and look around whats happens in the western countrys . I think many of those politiks are sleeping or are afraid of fuckin muslims . Mr . Wilders is a brave man and i wish him all the luck he needs . And now something to you mslims . Go home to your muslim country and stay there forever and kiss your muhammd ass .

Keep the good work mr.Wilders.”

I wonder if you replace all those “muslim(s)” with “jews” will you not find this eerily similar to what was said about them before the WWII? Am I the only one who finds the similarity a bit sickening? I am all the time looking for Holocaust survivors who will see statements such as these and write to newspaper editors and blogs and tell them that they heard similar things from ordinary Germans and Danes and French before the biggest disaster of the twentieth century happened. I hope they are a few, since they might be the only ones who can stop the biggest disaster of the 21st century from happening.

By the way, I also always want to point out the obvious: Mr. Wilders, as many others, picks up on the apparent Muslim anti-semitism by showing pictures of Muslims praising Hitler (although at least one is a picture of a salute that is like the Nazi one in the mind of a European, but not for the people who are giving it. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong about raising your right arm erected half-way up, and Hitler didn’t create the pose). Well, I keep on having to tell people that Holocaust was not undertaken by Muslims or Palestinians or Middle Easterners, rather by Europeans, the same heirs of the Christian, Jewish and humanistic tradition Mr. Wilders invites us to join; and don’t blame it only on the Germans: ordinary Dutch and French, Austrians and the English (even the former king of the latter country) were in it as well, and would you deny that anti-semitism is alive and well in Europe?

Muslim takeover of Europe, to get back to the subject. First of all, I find the idea absurd. Really, why do you think most Muslims immigrate to Europe? To set-up Islamic regimes and establish the same situation they have at home? You must be either naïve or genuinely misguided. They move to Europe because of better economic opportunities and because they do not want to live under the rule of the governments who call themselves Islamic. The media does not tell you, but the most potent movement in the modern Middle East has not been Islam, but communism. Saddam Hossein was not a Muslim radical, but a Ba’athist, member of a political party set-up by a communist Christian Arab and at the beginning mostly popular with non-Muslim groups, including Arab Jews. Arab nationalism of the post WWI era owes more to communism than to Islam, and the militant secularism of Turkish generals has more in common with the Middle Eastern political movements of the last century than does Islam.

Many Muslims who move to Europe are those who originally studied in European and American universities and who pride themselves in being secular, even atheist, and “modern”. Those who move to the US (like me) are constantly shocked by how much more deeply rooted religion is in America, compared with what they grew up with. We read Voltaire, Nietzsche and Popper and dream of secularism, but are often taken aback by how much it has back-tracked in Europe and how people like Mr. Wilders and Mr. Bush are emphasizing the “Christian” and “Jewish” side of their cultures and how people in the West are fascinated with Buddhism and Hinduism and other religions.

So, where do we get with this? Nowhere really, and this was exactly the point of this piece. I am not offering solutions, I am not critiquing anything, and I am not fantasizing that I can right any wrongs. I know that many a times, misunderstanding is beyond that, it is really bias and bigotry guised in the form of “cultural barriers” and incompatibility.

I also know that sadly many of these “misunderstandings” are not going to be condemned or even recognized for their danger until all those “Muslim pigs” are forced out of Europe (or just killed) and that after the upcoming slaughter of Muslims, we will have a long period of remorse when we (or rather you, as I will also be killed along with other “Muslims” despite protesting that I am not one) shall study the causes and roots of the biggest hate-crime of the 21st century at the universities and research institutions. I am just writing these as they come to my mind, leaving it for those future researchers to find and to realize that “freedom of speech” in form of hate-speech was indeed recognized as what it is and that human beings never learn from their past mistakes.  


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more from Khodadad Rezakhani
 
Khodadad Rezakhani

Hmmm, sorry...

by Khodadad Rezakhani on

I have to first come and say that I apologise for the "average" Dane part. Okay, one dane whose testimony I can find. I personally do not think my wording implied that all danes are calling Muslims "pigs", but I am sorry that it could be read that way.

Also, the source of all these is missing. I got it from here: //atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/geert-wilders-f.html

I am also not sure what the issue with mentioning the plight of the Jews is here. As was pointed out by another commentator, I meant something simple: the Holocaust was a human tragedy as well as a specifically Jewish one. So, same as one would bring out historical examples to warn against future historical mistakes, I personally do not see the problem of pointing out the horror of the Holocaust to warn against an emerging Muslim massacre. I hope that is clear.


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The more I read, the stranger it gets.

by Adrian from Denmark (not verified) on

____

Saddam Hossein was not a Muslim radical, but a Ba’athist, member of a political party set-up by a communist Christian Arab and at the beginning mostly popular with non-Muslim groups, including Arab Jews.
____

And now I wonder what the hell Saddam has to do with the fitnamovie, but I also wionder why you have that bizarre habit of involing jews into all this.

Do you honestly feel that jews are responsable for Saddam Husseins acts (whatever that have to do with Fitna movie)???

My mind is flowing freely now, and it lead me to a funny memory about some crazy mullah that claimed Tom and Jerry is a jewish conspiracy - that could be a topic for your next article :-)

I did the basic reseach for you : //www.youtube.com/watch?v=40VFcJTIduw


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Impressive article.

by Adrian from Denmark (not verified) on

Especially the way you describe the average dane here
_______

and the average man in Denmark seems to fear it, as you can see here:

“Hej . I am danish .
Mr. Wilders is a hero !!!
Bravo Geert Wilders ! go and get all this muslim pigs .
Its a time to wake up and look around whats happens in the western countrys . I think many of those politiks are sleeping or are afraid of fuckin muslims . Mr . Wilders is a brave man and i wish him all the luck he needs . And now something to you mslims . Go home to your muslim country and stay there forever and kiss your muhammd ass .

Keep the good work mr.Wilders.”
_______

Being a dane myself, I have to say that I cannot recognize the stuff you write, but I'm confident that you have all your facts straight and most likely you know more danes than me, so....well....I'm sure you're right.

Just curious how many danes youhave met that calls muslims for pigs, but sure it's enough to call it "average man in Denmark" :-)

But all in all I get your point about it's wrong to stereotype and spread hate and lies and put people in a bad light - I only wonder why you doesn't practice what you are preaching.

Comment over - I have to check my dictionary to see what the word "Hypocrisy" means.


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Fitna - Clear and

by meanig of fitna (not verified) on

Fitna - Clear and Simple

"When we hear that we must understand that the 'moderate Muslim' is not for the radicalist ways of jihad, then we, as a society collected of individuals, come to the point where all the excuses given for wanton murder and Private War waged across the globe in the name of Islam and jihad must come down to one very clear and basic view.

Part of why that view is necessary is given a first and strongest view in Geert Wilders' short film Fitna. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Fitna, we see the following:

Fitna is an Arabic word, generally regarded as very difficult to translate but at the same time is considered to be an all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy at once. It is often used to refer to civil war, disagreement and division within Islam and specifically alludes to a time involving trials of faith, similar to the Tribulation in Christian eschatology. The term originally referred to the refining of metal to remove dross [1], but became common in apocalyptic writings and is often used to refer to the First Islamic civil war, in 656–661 CE, a prolonged struggle for the caliphate after the 656 assassination of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan. The Second Fitna, or Second Islamic civil war, is usually identified as the 683–685 CE conflict among the Umayyads for control of the caliphate. The third one refers to the taifas in the end of the Caliph of Córdoba's rule.
This is a meaning beyond simple trial or test, and hits straight to the heart of the problem in trying to apologize or veer off from confronting a religion that puts violent ideas and ideals into action. Within Islam, then, those that utilize violent ways and means are practicing something beyond jihad: they are practicing Fitna upon their fellow Muslims".

//ajacksonian.blogspot.com/2008/03/fitna-clea...


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Nice Piece

by Anonymous Observer (not verified) on

Nice piece and well written. I do think, however, that criticism of ALL religions is proper and, in fact, constructive. All of these Abrahamic religions advocate violence in their books. Just read the Old Testament and see how Moses orders his commanders to destroy a tribe, kill all the "old" women and the "non-virgin" ones and take the "young girls" for themselves as trophies. While there is no doubt that Wilder's "film" was a propaganda piece (I watched it… BTW, this was the first time that I saw someone’s head being cut off…how can a human being do that to another human being?!!! I don’t care if you’re a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian, Hindu, Buddhist or a goat worshipper. How can you kill another person like that? This people are more sociopaths that anything else. ), Islam in particular, among the other ones, is suffering from two problems: 1) it has become overly intertwined with politics. Therefore, things are done, and are advocated, in its name, for political purposes, in a way that open it to the type of attack that Wilders has was waged. Christianity went through this phase in the Middle Ages and the crusades, which, as a student of history, you are much more familiar with than me. Perhaps this is because of the way in which Islam was created, in essence as a political and military institution, that is contributing to this phenomenon, but that is something that needs more research and analysis. 2) Lack of a clear reform movement within Islam which essentially disavows the violent aspects of the religion, similar to reform movements within Christianity and Judaism. While I agree with you that there are moderate Muslims, I do have to agree with Islam's critics also that the voice of these moderate Muslims, along with any attempt at modernizing the religion, have been suppressed by powerful governmental and other interests in Muslim countries. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, there is no clear, coherent and identifiable branch of Islam that can come out and say "ignore the violent idiots. This is not what the religion stands for, rather, this is how you should interpret it." In sum, the job of advocacy for Islam has been left to people like Bin Laden, who has so far pretty much has had a free ride in being the most vocal advocate of the teachings of the religion, and that gives ammunition to people like Mr. Wilders. This is my objective take on the issue. Once again, nice article. Always enjoy your writings. BTW, I think you should write more on Persian history. There is a lot of misinformation about our history, and I think that people would benefit from an educated, unbiased evaluation of Persian history.


Ari Siletz

Khodadad:

by Ari Siletz on

When comparing American Muslims to European Muslims, the angry Wilder does reveal an analytic side. He thinks American Muslims integrate more easily because the US has a stingy welfare system, forcing immigrants to integrate as a matter of economics.

I respect your honesty when you say, "I am not offering solutions." But what do you think of Wilder's implied solution?


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Fair and detailed article.

by * A n o n y m o u s * (not verified) on

This is a nice article and in my opinion totally unbiased. I just wish people did not hate each other for things they don't and can't understand.


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Tijl on March 28th, 2008 at

by Anonymousk (not verified) on

Tijl on March 28th, 2008 at 3:11 am:

"The purpose of this film is to show a Dutch public that Islam is very different from a religion like Christianity, because Islam is much more than a religion. It’s also a political ideology.

Islam has been a political system from the moment Mohammad became leader of Medina. Mohammad wasn’t just a Prophet, he was also a political and military leader. So basically, what Islamists want, is some kind of Muslim renaissance: going back to the “original” Islam and revive the political dimension of Islam, that has been neglected by the majority of Muslims over time. So all those European politicians who say that Islam is at the moment going trough it’s middle ages and that the Muslim renaissance will be there soon, don’t realise that the radicalisation we are witnessing in countries like Egypt, isn’t the middle ages: it is the renaissance

When Wilders tears a page from the phonebook, he says that it is up to Muslims to tear the violent parts out of the Quran. He didn’t say that they had to destroy their Qurans, he said they had to remove the calls for violence. My interpretation of that is that he doesn’t attack the religion as a whole, but only the political ideology. He didn’t ask Muslims to leave Islam, he asked Muslims to reform it.

Will this movie solve anything? On the long term, maybe it will. While most politicians in Europe kept denying that there is a problem, Wilders shows that Islamism isn’t only a problem in some mountain huts in Pakistan. It is also a major problem in The Netherlands and other European cities. Denying that, isn’t going to solve anything. But this film opened a discussion. A discussion that will force our politicians to investigate the problem of Islamic radicalisation and to come up with real solutions. I don’t think Wilders has any good solutions to the problems we face. I don’t think anyone has those solutions at the moment. But I do hope that the discussion Wilders started, might get people to think about the problems we are facing." --from Holland

There is much discussion to be had, but none of it will be useful in a climate of fear and appeasement. the appeasers no more want to make life better for muslims then neville chamerlain wanted to help the czech’s.

Either you frame, explain, and disucss the "Real" religion of Islam to the world, or others with political agenda will define it for you. It is up to you muslims.

Muslims have been the largest contributors in the "dehumanization" of Muslim. They sit on there hands, and stick their heads into the sand. If they want the rest of the world to change our perception, it is up to muslims to do so.


Abarmard

Very nice article

by Abarmard on

I feel the same as you. This is nicely written with honesty and simplicity. I enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately the west is falling into another trap, and the people might not know that the victim of this kind of mentality is themselves. I think though, that majority of the westerners are more intelligent than the warmonger and Jew hating politicians who are diverting their hate into another religion. Muslims are the new Jews and it's sad to see that some Jews are encouraging this kind of thoughtless mentality.

Thanks again and I will be waiting for your next article.

 


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Wilders did nothing more

by Anonymousk (not verified) on

Wilders did nothing more than hold up a mirror to Muhammad’s Islam. As there are Muslims of all races, there is nothing racist about it. Islam, like any other ideology, can be discussed freely. If not, then it only proves the totalitarian nature of Islam.

...shifting the blame from Islam to man himself, instead of pointing out that the hideous actions of Muslims are not something for which they find “justifications” in the Quran because they have developed a talent to find phony justifications for their actions, but actions which are in most cases mandated by their religion, and which are logical and natural consequences of them being devout Muslims. By obscuring this fact and shifting the blame away from Islam, we become, in effect becomes an Islam apologist.

"What is the difference between Islam and Islamism??"
//hnn.us/articles/1671.html


Mohammad Jahan-Parvar

Well done!

by Mohammad Jahan-Parvar on

Very well written piece. I love the way you reason, and I find your writing beautiful and lucid. Nice job!


Bahram

Nice piece, Khodadad

by Bahram on

Very thoughtful and well written. For some reason, few people seem to see the parallel with the Jewish experience in Europe. They seem to think the holocaust was a "Jewish" tragedy, rather than a "human" tragedy. So the lesson would appear to be: don't single out the Jews, but singling out other religions/ethnicities is o.k.? What a grave misinterpretation of history.

Anyway, I haven't check up on Iranologie.com in months, so it was nice to see you on these pages! Hope you are well.

Bahram

btw - politicians are definitely androids -- how else could they hate humans so much?


Iranian-

Ugly minded people want to have it their way

by Iranian- on

They wish so hard to change the holy Qur'an, but it will not. It is like a thorn in their eyes and will remain there for all time.

So as much as they like to eliminate the truth, it will pop back up like a fresh tooth and bite them in the back.

Just as it has been said before, if you don't agree with them, then they consider you an Islamist or a Hardliner. Too predictable!


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Islamic Hardliners are just like shark teeth;

by Truthseeker (not verified) on

They keep poping back up.

by Ahanin (not verified) on Tue Apr 01, 2008 07:20 PM CDT

"Out of necessity and for love of human beings (enough blood shed), can you all moslems get together and write/publish a new Quran conforming to 21st century laws. In this effort, leave amendment option open for people in next century."

Original comment source:
//iranian.com/main/2008/hate-vs-hate


Iranian-

Moderates, Islamists, terrorists ... How do we define?

by Iranian- on

The problem with asking this question is that we get different answers depending on whom we ask.

Group 1:

There are some who think that the Holy Qu'ran is just too harsh as it is. So a Moderate Muslim is the one who should tear up pages of Qur'an that refers to punishment for sinners. "It should be more like other mild religions" they say. "Forgive the sinner, let them be. Let the law of the land decide."

To the same group, you will be an Islamist if you don't agree with them. You can even be a Terrorist if you try to take action to stop them.

Group 2:

These individuals accept you as a Moderate Muslim if you do agree with all of Qur'an but simply refuse to do or encourage the 'punishment' part. They would consider you an Islamist if you blindly follow the holy book and do not think or judge for yourself on each individual occasion where a 'punishment' is required. You can be a terrorist if you kill innocent people for any reason at all.

Group 3:

These people don't appreciate the 'moderate' concept and think that the holy book should be followed to the letter without any judgment on behalf of the Muslim individual who follows it. They have a specific mindset of what Islam should be and even look at another Muslim who practices a different version with suspicion.

 

You can also divide each of these groups in to sub-groups or create interim groups in between. So when Wilders thinks of a moderate Muslim I think he assumes you should be from Group 1.

Also another problem that the likes of Wilders (Muslim haters) have is insecurity. In other words he and the like of him suffer from the following: (Inadequately guarded or protected; Unsafe; Lacking stability; Troubled; Lacking self-confidence and plagued by anxiety). If these people did not suffer from the above, they would not be fearful of Islam and Muslims.

Unfortunately he is not the only one with a weak mind and the likes of him are many. The only way to confront this is first all the concerned people (Muslims and non) to actively demonstrate in the streets, write articles to show to the public that all is not okay. The next step is to select leaders who are less likely to inflame the Muslims (means vote Bush and the likes of him OUT of the office). When the fire in the Muslim world is settled down, then eventually extremists will vanish too and hopefully maybe we will have peace in a decade or so.


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Job one

by sz (not verified) on

Until and unless moderate, non practicing, level-headed, secular and all other likeminded hyphenated Muslims make it their job one to unequivocally and repeatedly condemn what has been and is being done in the name of their faith others with differing agendas in the manner and form of their choosing will do it for them. Finessing the issue by downplaying the threat and sophistic comparisons more than anything else is part of the problem; it is not enough to condemn the condemners for they base their fright on verifiable corpora delicti strewn about them. The very first step to any reformation is acceptance of the fact that one is needed, making excuses and blaming other factors for ones situation only prolongs the agony and raises the eventual cost.


Amil Imani

The Missing Moderate Muslims

by Amil Imani on

“I am already against the next war,” read the bumper sticker on a car ahead of me. I long to tell the driver: the next war is already here; Islamists are waging it in every corner of the globe and the “moderate Muslims” are either actively supporting them, placing the blame on the West, or simply looking the other way. This war aims to wipe out everything that free people cherish, including the right of expressing their sentiments. Banishing war has been the perennial dream of mankind’s best, while its worst have been frustrating its realization. To renounce war unilaterally and unconditionally is surrender and death.

Humanity has suffered horrific wars in the past. Yet, the present multi-form and multi-front war waged by Islamists has the potential of inflicting more suffering and destroying more lives than any before it. Ruthless Islamic forces are advancing rapidly in their conquests while those of freedom are acquiescing and retreating. Before long, Islamism is poised to achieve its Allah-mandated goal of cleansing the earth of all non-Muslims. Any and all means and weapons are to be enlisted in the service of this final holy war that aims to establish the Islamic Ummeh.

But Islam is a religion of peace and the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals, so claim academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists. The incantation of these “authorities” is the lullaby that puts the people into a sleep of complacency. For an average free human busy with all manners of demands on his time and resources, would hardly want to worry about the threat of Islamism when those he believes are “in the know” emphatically claim that there is nothing to worry about. Some of these advocates of Islam go further by accusing those who sound the alarm as racist, bigot, hatemonger and much more.

But where are all the peace-loving moderate Muslims that supposedly are in great majority? The Muslims who are neither jihadists themselves, nor do they support them? I and others, time and again, have been calling upon them to stand up and show the world that they oppose the fanatical Islamists. It is small comfort even if the vast majority of Muslims are not fanatic radicals, when they do nothing to demonstrate their position. It is instructive to recall that it is invariably a minority, and more often than not a very small minority, that launches a campaign of death and destruction.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on the part of the non-Muslims to believe that one can be a Muslim moderate, given that Islam is radical at its very core. To be a moderate Muslim demands that the person explicitly renounce much of the violent, exclusionary, and radical teachings of the Quran. By so doing, the individual issues his own death warrant in Islamic countries, is condemned as apostate if he lives in a non-Islamic land and may even earn a fatwa on his head.

It is deadly, in any confrontation, to assess the adversary through one’s own mental template, because the two templates can be vastly different from each other. People in the West are accustomed in relativistic rather than absolutistic thinking. To Westerners, just about all matters range from black to white with an array of gray shades between the two poles. To Muslims, by contrast, nearly everything is in black and white and with virtually no shades of gray. The former type of thinking is typical of more mature minds, while the latter is that of young children and the less-enlightened.

This absolutist thinking is enshrined in the Quran itself. When the starting point for a Muslim is the explicit fanatical words of Allah in the Quran, then the faithful are left with no choice other than literally obeying its dictates or even taking it to the next level of fanaticism. Good Muslims, for instance, do not shake hands with women, even though the Quran does not explicitly forbid it. Although the Quran stipulates that men are rulers over women, good Muslim men take it upon themselves to rule women not much better than they treat their domesticated animals.

All extreme systems operate outside of the constraints of checks-and-balances and according to the principle of negative feedback loop. That is, once it starts, the extreme becomes more and more extreme until self-destructs and takes the larger system down with it. Cancer is a case in point. It begins with only a few cells. Left unchecked, the few cells continue expanding and stop only with the death of the host.

Fanatical Islam may indeed be a minority. Yet it is a deadly cancer that has metastasized throughout the body of the world. Urgent confrontation of this advancing disease is imperative to stave it off.

Dozens of Islamist shooting wars of lesser and greater bloodletting are presently raging in the world, aided and abetted by the “moderate Muslim” majority. The so called moderate Muslims, even if they exist, are complicit in the crimes of the radicals either by providing them with funds, logistics, and new recruits or by simply failing to actively confront and unequivocally renounce them.

As is the case with cancer cells, it is the malignant minority that is death-bearing.

In Germany of the 1930s, for instance, very few people were Nazis and most Germans dismissed them as a bunch of hot-headed fools. Before long, the hot-headed few cowed in the dismissive masses and as a result millions lost their lives.

The tentacles of the Islamist hydra have deeply penetrated the world. The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a clear threat in Egypt with its large block of representatives in the parliament, but also wages its deadly campaign through its hundreds of well-established and functioning branches all over the world.

The Wahabis finance thousands of madressehs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical footsoldiers for the Petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.

The end-of-the-world believers of the bomb-aspiring Iran’s Khomeinism are busy establishing the Shia hegemony in an arc extending from the Gulf of Oman to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Al Queda and dozens of its like-minded jihadists relentlessly carry their barbaric campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, the Philippines, the former Soviet Union republics, the Russian federation, Somalia, North Africa and parts of Europe, as well as other lands.

I keep hoping that the purported peace-loving moderate Muslims are indeed the great majority who would prove me right by demonstrating their peacefulness and moderation in action. Thus far, only a faint murmur of equivocation is all that I hear from these people.

Is “moderate Muslims” an illusion? The only viable alternative for peaceful people of Islamic background, therefore, is to leave the bondage of violent Islam altogether and join ranks with humanity’s free.

The selected puppet president Ahamadinejad boasts that Iran’s mullahs’ nuclear train has no reverse gear and lacks brakes. He should harbor no illusions. The non-Islamist masses of Iranians will not docilely submit to the mullahs’ maniacal plans. It is the unmatched force of freedom that has no reverse gear and it is the force fully capable and determined to bring the mullahs’ train to a screeching halt before it is armed with the Armageddon nuclear weapons they so doggedly pursue.


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I'm glad this was

by Anonymousk (not verified) on

I'm glad this was released

I'm glad this was released and have had the chance to watch it. I can't say that it's the best short film I've ever seen, but it does make many good points. I didn't see this film as anti-Islam so much as anti-Islamist. Since Muslim extremists justify their barbarism from the Qur'an I believe the verses used in this film are legitimate points to raise.

This doesn't say much about the religion itself, after all the Bible has some hair-raising verses as well, but it does in how it's practiced by many. All in all though, I really don't care if anyone is offended. I'm offended by many Muslims who use their faith to justify this savagery, excuse it or simply ignore it. Silence by moderate muslim against killing Theo Van Gogh or other vile and barbaric action by the muslims extremist tantamounts to complicity. When was a last time moderate muslims protested the militant and extremist views of Islamic Republic in the U.S.????

Turn your religion into an evil ideology and you can expect a negative reaction. Those who are Muslim and do not believe as the Islamists do have the unfortunate responsibility to turn this around. It may seem unfair but frankly TFB. If Christians were doing likewise you'd better believe I'd be holding their feet to the fire. Yet unlike Islam, Christianity went through the Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Enlightenment, etc. It's time that Islam faces the same.

P.S: You might claim you're not a muslim, but your internalization of the Islamic teachings, you haven't shaken up in your psyche...


IRANdokht

100 Afarin

by IRANdokht on

I didn't think I had time to read it all... but once I started I couldn't stop reading your article.

very nicely written, reasonable thoughts expressed clearly, flowing conversational style that makes way too much sense!

thank you so much

IRANdokht