New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman toured the frontlines of clashing civilizations in Iraq, Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan last month. The opening paragraph of his report ends with the line: “The bad guys are losing.”
If so, jolly good. But is it so? I haven’t travelled anywhere outside midtown Toronto lately, but to me it seems the bad guys are holding their own.
Friedman and I may not see eye to eye on all things, but we’d agree on who the bad guys are. They’d include Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda and Taliban disciples, as well as the ruling theocrats of Iran. But when Friedman implies the followers of political Islam are losing their grip on the hearts and minds of the Arab/Muslim world, I’m reduced to making bewildered noises. How? Where? What’s the award-winning journalist talking about?
Going beyond Friedman’s opening paragraph reveals that the columnist is more nuanced than it first appears. He realizes the bad guys are hanging on, but believes they’re doing it through main force rather than persuasion — which he thinks somehow counts for less. “Having lost the argument,” Friedman offers, “the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels.”
[More]
Allowing terrorists to get away with calling themselves “Muslims,” “Martyrs,” isn’t helping – it just plays into their hands to put the blame on Muslims for terrorists. I am married to a Muslim – who thinks it’s really unfair when other Canadians expect him to personally do something about terrorism that claims to be in the name of Allah. “They are not Muslims,” is his reply. As for those who expect peaceful Muslims to take up arms “in defence of Islam against terrorists,” I have one question: How’s that expectation working out for you?
P.S. It’s not true that there is no secular democracy in the Muslim world. Turkey is a highly successful secular democracy.
http://fakirscanada.spaces.live.com/
Marnie: I’ll buy your husband’s argument, right after there is an interview with the radical Lutheran “Freedom Fighter”, or the next news report on the dreadful carnage caused by the devout Anglican … (Yes, it is an old comparison. That unfortunately does not make it less valid.)
And with your statement “As for those who expect peaceful Muslims to take up arms “in defence of Islam against terrorists,” I have one question: How’s that expectation working out for you? “ I’d have to respond “about as poorly as I have come to expect”.
But be of good cheer, at least you and I can agree on Turkey.
Good points Marnie.
Indonesia is also a huge Muslim country that sort of works.
The key in Turkey was excellent leadership from Ataturk in the 20’s who set the army up as an enforcing mechanism to separate Mosque and State. Without the army I’m not sure it would hold. However, as you say, it seems to work so far.
There are nut cases in all religions. The trick is to marginalize them before they can hijack the religion. Having seen undercover YouTubes in Mosques in the UK, I frankly think more could be done by Muslims within a Mosque to marginalize the nutjobs.
The reality is that Iran is run by mad Mullahs. Is Muslim Pakistan a friend or foe? They seem to be aiding and abetting the Taliban who are killing our soldiers. The religion is all wrapped up in the politics.
But we need to support people like you who are willing to step forward and enter the controversy. Maybe the Muslim religion should go through a reformation that makes it crystal clear to “render under Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto Allah that which is Allah’s.” It took Christians about 1500 hundred years to enact the original pronouncement, so we have to be patient.
Without flaming Marnie, her arguments are the same tired arguments used to defend that which is a murderous death cult that encourages slaughter of those that oppose it’s global domination plans.
Any statements that try to take Islam and it’s followers away from what is written for the Devout to do, is just smoke and mirrors. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck. There has been no change in Islam for 1000 years and a thousand years ago it was a bad thing. Still is!!
“Islam ….a thousand years ago it was a bad thing”
Actually it worked at 1000 years ago in small, nomadic, pastoral tribes, where the men wandered for days and women stayed back with the kids and the rules of the Koran were suited to tribalism which can work in small populations. Like it did in Canada, tribes were separated by distance. No more. Only democracy can work in large “industrialized” populations which allows for the equality of women and the clear separation of Mosque and State.
Pat, does that just apply to Islam, or does it also apply to the religion whose devout followers were successful in conquering and enslaving most of the world?
reply to Bozo: Sure, no problem. Look up the following words in wikipedia: “inquisition, crusades, KKK, Nazis, white supremacists, holocaust-deniers,’yellow peril.”
@ nomdeblog: I like your comments, and your very cute nom de guerre. With the greatest respect, however, for your views, I wish to point out that: you would probably resent the hell out of a demand by your fellow citizens that you “clarify for the world that the KKK, Nazis, white supremacists, etc” do not represent you, your religion or your culture” – wouldn’t you? Well, that’s how Muslims feel about being asked to take up arms against al Qaeda & Co ideologically, “in defence of Islam.” To them, it’s obvious that murdering terrorists have nothing to do with them or their religion. And they’re right. The only people who thing that bin Laden is a “Muslim extremist” are those with extremist tendencies themselves, – and that includes some particularly virulent anti-Muslim commentators I’ve read on this volatile subject.
““clarify for the world that the KKK, Nazis, white supremacists, etc” do not represent you”
Well why would I have to do that? I’m a Christian with relatives in graves at Vimy who died fighting Nazis.
Those Nazis and KKK extremists were not fighting under the banner of a religion to take over the world. Morever, millions of them were killed by…Christians!
Unfortunately, this is a problem you are tagged with. I don’t envy you, nor Muslim friends of mine who are actually more worried about Muslim extremists here in Toronto than I am.
Muslim extremists are not going to take over the world for the simple reason that like all fascist movements it won’t work
I never said “to take up arms against al Qaeda & Co”
I suggested to marginalize the nutbars in your Mosques, I do it my church, we don’t let them move to the centre of it, they are discretely shunted aside and never get into the management of the church. Not that those nutbars in my church are threatening to behead anyone, they are just nutbars. They exist in every walk of life but are particularly evident in the tribalism of the Middle East which is going through a massive transition as its population explodes under the rule of despots with oil funding…from us.
Re “Those Nazis and KKK extremists were not fighting under the banner of a religion”
Actually, they were, among other things. Check your history texts.
re Terrorism in the name of Islam “is a problem you’re tagged with.”
Or what, you’ll hate all Muslims? Terrorism is everybody’s problem, and until we recognize that, bin Laden & Co win the spiritual war and so does their master – the aptly-named Adversary of all mankind.
“The tribalism of the Middle East” is just that – tribalism – not Islam.
No Marnie, now you are projecting, you are doing to Christians what you claim to be unfair to Muslims … and it is indeed unfair to all Muslims to lump them in with Muslim extremists.
Hitler didn’t take over Poland to make it Christian, it was already Christian. The KKK was not a global movement of a Christians, they were simply evil bigots. Which is what Muslim jihadists are.
Christianity had an enlightenment , a Reformation, Christinaity is no longer about ruling in a political sense like the Holy Roman Empire did. When that ended it allowed for the rise of the middle class and the decline (not elimination unfortunately) of elitists that want to rule us. What needs to happen in the ME is the rise of the middle class, but first there is a need to rid itself of despots and political Islam.
Marnie, I’d suggest that you read a regular Saturday column by Salim Mansur, a very very courageous Muslim from Calcutta who teaches Poli Sci at Western.
Today he comments:
“The reality I am observing while among Algerians is the irreversible process of modernization and how volatile it can be. The certainties of the past, most importantly religion, are under siege, while the future is confusing to many.
Change breeds apprehension, and politically speaking the ready answer has been the elite preference for order.
Gaddhafi is one face of this order. The other is offered by political Islam.”
Read the whole thing:
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2009/08/08/10398381-sun.html
reply to nom de blog re ” indeed unfair to all Muslims to lump them in with Muslim extremists.”
Terrorists are not “Muslim” extremists, okay? They are no more Muslim than the KKK were Christian, which is what you say in your next point:
“The KKK was not a global movement of a Christians, they were simply evil bigots.”
What does the KKK have to do with Christianity? Nothing. What do murdering terrorists have to do with Islam? Nothing.
Muslims already know that. Many Westerners can’t be bothered to learn it. It’s easier to shunt the blame – and the hate – onto “the foreigners,” – one of the Devil’s favourite temptations.
I think it’s sad that good and well-intentioned people can’t see how it plays into the hands of bin Laden & Co, to refuse to accept that terrorists are never about religion, not really. It’s just a very convenient excuse. And it works for them. It provides a rallying cry and a red flag at the same time.
Marnie, the theocracy running Iran is a bunch of Muslim Mullahs who are extreme. We need to support the brave Muslim people resisting those Mullahs who have arrested more prisoners than their jails can hold, and must therefore herd the new ones into such places as sports arenas — inside which there are chants of “death to Khamenei,” “death to the regime,” and “God is great”. Let’s support that.
Salim Mansur in his column and many Mulsim writers also refer to political Islam .. .it exists.
Yes it is OUR problem and I’m glad we are able to talk about it here. I’m also glad our Canadian forces were able to free up Afghanistan enough so that several million little girls could go to school for the first time in that “politically Islamic” country.
I am also glad that Premier McGuinty a couple of years ago finally listened to some brave Muslim women who caused him to resist the former NDP Attorney General who was recommending Ontario allow a parallel Sharia law to be set up here which would send us back centuries.
Nom de blog: You are right, the Iranian Mullahs who are oppressing the protestors are extremists, arguably, Muslim extremists. (And you do know, right, that many of the Mullahs, esp. in Qom, have spoken out in support of the protestors?) But I was not talking about the Iranians. I was talking about terrorists. The Taliban, who have taken to attacking little girls and blinding them with acid, are not considered by most Muslims to be Muslims. The Iranian Mullahs consider the Taliban to be Muslim extremists, which proves my point that only Muslim extremists consider terrorists in the name of Islam to be “Muslim” extremists. The Taliban, which use violence against unarmed civilians to extract political concessions, are terrorists. They are not Muslim, and their claim to be attacking little girls in the name of Allah is true spiritual blasphemy.
It has nothing to do with religion in my mind, Marnie. It has to do with power and money (and lack of knowledge in the Muslim world). My view is that it won’t last as the net intrudes on daily life in places like Iran.
I hope you’re right, Jack, but it’s going to take time and many good people will die before the mad Mullahs and their insane Imams are finally pulled down…