Where are the Liberal Muslims?

[Warrior-Mentor]

Where are the Liberal Muslims?

By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Since 9/11, many of us have wondered: Where are the moderate Muslims? If they are out there, why are we not hearing more, and getting more help, from them in the fight against our common foe -- the totalitarian Islamists?

In recent weeks in this space, I have chronicled the saga of an effort to answer that question. It took the form of a 52-minute documentary I helped produce for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's "America at a Crossroads" series. The film, entitled "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," features compelling stories of anti-Islamist Muslims who have had the courage to stand up to co-religionists who are using faith to accomplish political ends.

The documentary makes clear why the moderates are not more in evidence. Observant Muslims who dare to challenge the Islamists over ideological agendas pursued in the name of religion are shown being subjected to ostracism, intense coercion to conform and, in some cases, death threats. As long as these anti-Islamist Muslims are rightly seen as isolated, vulnerable and powerless, it would be foolish to believe that many of their co-religionists will want to emulate them.

Such a conclusion is especially likely to the extent that fence-sitting moderate Muslims perceive those repressing the anti-Islamists to be what Osama bin Laden calls "the strong horse." The success of organizations supportive of the Islamists and of their efforts to exploit real or perceived Muslim grievances and civil liberties to create "parallel societies" in Western democracies will, inevitably, attract more adherents to the former's ranks.

Unfortunately, what has happened to "Islam vs. Islamists" can only compound this perception. The Public Broadcasting Service and its Washington flagship station, WETA, refused to air this film. While a number of explanations have been given for that decision – including demonstrably false claims that the documentary was not submitted on time, was too long, was unfinished, the officially stated reason is that it was: "flawed by incomplete storytelling, a limited focus that does not adequately corroborate the film's conclusions, and a general lack of attention to the obligation of fairness, which requires that viewers have access to additional context and relevant information about a complex subject."

In other words, PBS/WETA judged our film to be "unfair" to the "conservative imams" and fellow Islamists shown denouncing, threatening and, in one case, proposing to murder the moderate Muslims we profile. Unless our production team, which included a number of world-class journalists, agreed to change not the "storytelling" but the story, "Islam vs. Islamists" was going to be suppressed.

Interestingly, PBS and WETA were untroubled by the manifest lack of fairness in a film on much the same subject entitled "The Muslim Americans," produced by Crossroads series host Robert MacNeil. This documentary amounted to a love letter to the Islamists and like-minded organizations in America. It helped legitimize a number of their most prominent spokesmen and agendas, in the process virtually ignoring easily ascertained records of troubling statements, behavior and/or affiliations.

It is bad enough that the public airwaves were used to disseminate only one rendering of the state of Islam in the West – and a highly misleading one, at that. The process whereby the voices of anti-Islamist Muslims were silenced by PBS and WETA was also characterized by egregious behavior, some of which would typically evoke howls of outrage from American liberals.

These included: attempts to blacklist producers on political grounds; outlandish conflicts of interest (notably, MacNeil's self-dealing and his film's featuring of two Islamist-sympathizing Muslim "advisors" recruited by WETA to help determine which documentaries were aired); and one of those advisors' unauthorized preview of a "rough-cut" version for representatives of the Nation of Islam, a subject of the film – in clear violation of the most basic tenets of journalistic ethics.

The question occurs: Where are the liberal non-Muslims in the controversy over "Islam vs. Islamists"? They have at least as much on the line as the rest of us in the outcome of this struggle for the soul and future character of Islam.

After all, the anti-Islamist Muslims and conservatives are not the only ones in the Islamofascists' cross-hairs. Homosexuals, women and Jews are among those whose lives will be made miserable, or simply be prematurely terminated, in the new world order the Islamists have in mind. Blacks are still being sold into slavery in Islamist nations. And, to date, the Islamists have been responsible for killing more of their fellow Muslims than any other population, not just in Darfur but around the world.

Yet, as of this writing, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Brad Sherman of California have been the only examples of individuals with strong liberal credentials who have publicly urged that the American people be allowed to view "Islam vs. Islamists." They understand the stakes if the voices of the anti-Islamists are suppressed and, worse yet, if those of their repressors continue to be amplified.

The struggle over a documentary designed to do the former is a microcosm of the larger struggle for the future of Islam and the War for the Free World. None of us can afford to be AWOL in these fights.

Read more at:
http://www.radicalislam.org/

[Richard]

Here's an interesting parallel view of what our government and universities are doing to 'support' our efforts to 'understand' our enemies during a time of war.

Richard :munchin

Islam’s War Doctrines Ignored
by Raymond Ibrahim
MESH (Middle East Strategy at Harvard)

At the recent inaugural conference for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), presenter Ltc. Joseph Myers made an interesting point that deserves further elaboration: that, though military studies have traditionally valued and absorbed the texts of classical war doctrine — such as Clausewitz’s On War, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, even the exploits of Alexander the Great as recorded in Arrian and Plutarch — Islamic war doctrine, which is just as, if not more, textually grounded, is totally ignored.

As recent as 2006, former top Pentagon official William Gawthrop lamented that “the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered.”

This is more ironic when one considers that, while classical military theories (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, et. al.) are still studied, the argument can be made that they have little practical value for today’s much changed landscape of warfare and diplomacy. Whatever validity this argument may have, it certainly cannot be applied to Islam’s doctrines of war; by having a “theological” quality, that is, by being grounded in a religion whose “divine” precepts transcend time and space, and are thus believed to be immutable, Islam’s war doctrines are considered applicable today no less than yesterday. So while one can argue that learning how Alexander maneuvered his cavalry at the Battle of Guagamela in 331 BC is both academic and anachronistic, the same cannot be said of Islam, particularly the exploits and stratagems of its prophet Muhammad — his “war sunna” — which still serve as an example to modern day jihadists.

For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s 7th century, hijacked planes or WMD by analogy today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15:4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or hudna, is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.

Quranic verses 3:28 and 16:106, as well as Muhammad’s famous assertion, “War is deceit,” have all led to the formulation of a number of doctrines of dissimulation — the most notorious among them being the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble whenever they are under the authority of the infidel. Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: “[I]n the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than [the need for] courage” (The Al Qaeda Reader, 142).

Aside from ignoring these well documented Islamist strategies, more troubling is the fact that the Defense Department does not seem to appreciate Islam’s more “eternal” doctrines — such as the Abode of War versus the Abode of Islam dichotomy, which in essence maintains that Islam must always be in a state of animosity vis-à-vis the infidel world and, whenever possible, must wage wars until all infidel territory has been brought under Islamic rule. In fact, this dichotomy of hostility is unambiguously codified under Islam’s worldview and is deemed a fard kifaya — that is, an obligation on the entire Muslim body that can only be fulfilled as long as some Muslims, say, “jihadists,” actively uphold it.

Yet despite all these problematic — but revealing — doctrines, despite the fact that a quick perusal of Islamist websites and books demonstrate time and time again that current and would-be jihadists constantly quote, and thus take seriously, these doctrinal aspects of war, apparently the senior governmental leaders charged with defending America do not.

Why? Because the “Whisperers” — Walid Phares’ all-too-apt epithet for many Middle East/Islamic scholars, or, more appropriately, apologists — have made anathema anyone who dares imply that there may be some sort of connection between Islamic doctrine and modern-day Islamist terrorism, such as in the recent Steven Coughlin debacle. This is a long and well known tale for those in the field (see Martin Kramer’s Ivory Towers on Sand: the Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America).

But consider for a moment: though there are today many Middle East studies departments, one will be sorely pressed to find any courses dealing with the most pivotal and relevant topics of today — such as Islamic jurisprudence and what it has to say about jihad or the concept of Abode of Islam versus the Abode of War — no doubt due to the fact that these topics possess troubling international implications and are best buried. Instead, the would-be student will be inundated with courses dealing with the evils of “Orientalism” and colonialism, gender studies, and civil society.

The greater irony — when one talks about Islam and the West, ironies often abound — is that, on the very same day of the ASMEA conference, which also contained a forthright address by premiere Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis (“It seems to me a dangerous situation in which any kind of scholarly discussion of Islam is, to say the least, dangerous”), the State Department announced that it had adopted the recommendations of a memo stating that the government should not call al Qaeda-type radicals “jihadis,” “mujahidin,” or to incorporate any other Arabic word of Islamic connotation (“caliphate,” “Islamo-fascism,” “Salafi,” “Wahhabi,” and “Ummah” are also out).

Alas, far from taking the most basic and simple advice regarding warfare — Sun Tzu’s ancient dictum, “Know thy enemy” — the U.S. government is having difficulties even acknowledging its enemy.

[Richard]

Where are the liberal Muslims? They're out there...but read the final paragraph of this article to see what happens to them all to often. :mad:

Richard :munchin

Clarity, Courage and Culture
Few defend the West like Somali-born Hirsi Ali.
by Bruce S. Thornton
The New Individualist

A review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (The Free Press, 2007, pp. 353).

Our most dangerous weakness in the war against Islamic terror is the failure of cultural nerve afflicting many Westerners. Faced with an enemy passionate about the superiority and rightness of his beliefs, many in the West are riddled with self-doubt and guilt about their own. Individualism, rationalism, and personal freedom and autonomy are incessantly questioned or scorned by the same people who enjoy those goods and take them for granted. Perhaps that is why the most passionate champion of the West these days is a Somali immigrant woman whose life offers powerful evidence of the oppression and misery created by a clan culture and religion that sacrifices the individual to the collective.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali details that life in her memoir Infidel. The daughter of a prominent Somali politician and writer exiled for opposing dictator Siad Barré, Hirsi Ali lived with her mother and siblings as a political refugee in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. She flirted for a while with the Islamic fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood, but her relentless reading of English literature opened her mind to the freedom and autonomy characterizing the West and evident even in children’s books like the Nancy Drew mysteries. When she was engaged in 1992 against her will to a cousin she despised, en route to join him in Canada she went instead to the Netherlands, where she was granted asylum as a political refugee. After a series of menial jobs, she earned a Master’s Degree in political science from Leiden University. Increasingly disaffected with Islam’s justification of violence against women and its oppressive limitations on freedom of thought, in 2002 she became an atheist. Her subsequent public criticisms of Islam and defense of Western freedom made her a celebrity in Europe, and in 2002 she was elected to Parliament.

Hirsi Ali’s life changed forever after the murder of documentary filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali had made a brief film called Submission, which castigated Islam for its treatment of women. A Muslim immigrant murdered van Gogh in the street, pinning to his chest a letter that threatened to kill Hirsi Ali. She had to leave the country, living in the United States for a few months, then joining the American Enterprise Institute. She returned to the Netherlands, where she now lives in hiding.

As gripping as the story of her life is, the lessons of her journey are what make Infidel required reading. The fashionable multiculturalism that idealizes non-Western cultures as more meaningful and fulfilling than our own is exploded by Hirsi Ali’s memoir. Those Westerners who grow misty-eyed over the presumed boons of communal cultures, for example, need to read Hirsi Ali’s exposure of the dysfunction, intolerance, and bigotry of the sort of clan mentality that destroyed Somalia and contributes to the current disorder in Iraq. Each of the many Somali clans was defined in terms of stereotypes that swallowed any individuality and determined how people were treated: Kikuyu “had a right to rule,” Kamba were adept at making money but “stingy,” and the Luo “considered themselves smarter than the others.” At the Muslim girls’ school Hirsi Ali attended in Kenya, she discovered that other Muslim countries were stratified by the same sorts of categories: “every ethnic group was clearly distinct and splintered along lines of class and tribe.” A Yemeni Sharif is superior to a Yemeni Zubaydi, and “any kind of Arab girl considered herself superior to anyone else.” Indeed, in Saudi Arabia, Hirsi Ali and her sister were called “slaves” and scorned because of their black skin.

This bigotry is reinforced by the ignorance and superstition rampant in the Muslim Middle East. Hirsi Ali describes how in Riyadh an eclipse of the moon caused widespread panic, as many people thought the Day of Judgment had arrived. Muezzins across the city called for prayer, and “neighbors came knocking, asking us to pardon past misdeeds.” Hirsi Ali’s father had to explain to his panicked children that a shadow had covered the moon. After she moved to the West, Hirsi Ali began to see that the affluence and freedom taken for granted by Europeans were the fruits of a rational world-view sadly absent in the Muslim world.

All these dysfunctions of clan and tribal culture are reinforced and worsened by Islam, and that is the real value of Hirsi Ali’s memoir: exploding the Western delusions about Islam that hamstring our fight against the jihadists. The treatment of women, of course, is sanctioned by numerous Koranic verses. In her work as a translator in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali encountered many physically abused Muslim women who never pressed charges: “They were convinced that by accepting systematic, really merciless abuse, they were serving Allah and earning a place in Heaven.” Genital mutilation predates Islam and is practiced by some non-Islamic cultures, but as Hirsi Ali points out, “I knew of no fatwa denouncing female genital mutilation; on the contrary, suppressing the sexuality of women was a big theme with imams.”

This tradition of misogyny is supported as well by a crippling fatalism that retards both individual and collective improvement and development. During the 1991 Somali civil war, Hirsi Ali made a dangerous journey to help rescue some family friends from a squalid refugee camp. When they found the friends, a three-year-old emaciated child lay dying in her mother’s arms. But Hirsi Ali’s urgency to get the child to medical care was met with “‘Allah has given me this child, and if He wills it, Allah will take him away.’” “She felt,” Hirsi Ali comments, “that she was being tested by Allah; she had to accept that the child would die if Allah wanted it to be that way. To show bitterness, or despair, would be to fail the test of faith.” Such faith-sanctioned paralysis of will, coupled to the subjection of individual initiative to the needs of the collective, makes it difficult for Muslim-dominated cultures to improve the lives of their citizens.

Finally, Islam’s surrender of the individual’s moral judgment to the perceived will of Allah justifies the violence against the infidel that is perpetrated across the globe by Muslims. Hirsi Ali’s own abandonment of Islam began with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the duplicitous or deluded rationalizations for them. As she pondered the attacks, Hirsi Ali realized that they arose from Islam itself and the model of Mohammed, which subject the individual to a rigid pattern of behavior: “By adhering to [Mohammed’s] rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose.” And this surrender in turn facilitated the acceptance of violence against unbelievers. Reading the passages from the Koran and Hadith quoted by Bin Laden to justify 9/11, Hirsi Ali could see the continuity of Islamic violence across the centuries, a violence justified by Islamic doctrine. Sadly she concluded that the Koran “spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war.”

After 9/11, Europe’s long appeasement of Muslim immigrant dysfunction, nourished by a refusal to acknowledge the true nature of Islam, struck Hirsi Ali as suicidal. In numerous ways, the Netherlands for years had coddled immigrants without demanding that they strive to learn and practice the values and beliefs that made Europe such a prized destination for them in the first place. In addition to generous welfare benefits, the Dutch, addled by colonial guilt and multicultural fantasies, fostered a separatism among immigrants that merely reinforced the dysfunctions of tribal Islamic culture: “The immigrants’ culture was being preserved at the expense of their women and children and to the detriment of the immigrants’ integration into Holland. Many Muslims never learned Dutch and rejected Dutch values of tolerance and personal liberty.” The result was honor killings, violence against women, genital mutilation carried out on kitchen tables, and high levels of immigrant crime and welfare dependency, all attended by a sullen refusal on the part of immigrants to take responsibility for improving their lives. But as Hirsi Ali discovered, merely stating these documented facts opened one up to charges of insensitivity and racism. When she tried to find out from the Ministry of Justice how many Muslim girls were murdered in honor killings, she was informed that such statistics weren’t kept because “‘it would stigmatize one group in society.’”

The death of Theo van Gogh and the threats against her own life crystallized for Hirsi Ali the deadly consequences of tribal and religious intolerance when it collides with a self-loathing, guilt-ridden Western culture too timid to defend its own values and beliefs. And when someone like Hirsi Ali or Dutch politician Geert Wilders do defend the West, they are met not just with death threats from Muslim fanatics, but with criticism and calumny from other Europeans who believe in nothing other than their own suicidal “tolerance.” In contrast, those who believe in the superiority of the Western way of individual freedom and autonomy — and who want it to survive — should be grateful that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the courage to defend the West.

[wallowinginfun]

"Infidel" is one of the best book's I've picked up.