Khomeini in Dallas

Some fascinating exchanges, including some excellent observations by Rod Dreher, at the Dallas News blog (thanks to R. Solomon), some of which indicate that many Americans, even those who should know better, have no clue what Khomeini was all about, or the significance of the pro-Khomeini conference held recently in Dallas. For chronological accuracy, read from the bottom up:

Re: Rod, get it right Rod, You wrote Jim, in yesterday's board meeting, you suggested that we should try to consider the good side of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his teachings.

Again, I didn't say we should look for the good in the Ayatollah. But is there a Islamic context that views the Khomeini as --- I don't know, a George Washington, for lack of a better example, due to his overthrow of the Shah.

Frankly I don't what most defines Khomeini in the Islamic world, the overthrow of the Shah, fundamental adherence to Allah, the American hostage drama or something else. That's the reason for my question.

posted by jim mitchell @ Dec 16, 3:58 PM

Re: Rod, get it right

Jim: Rod, First put me back in context, before you attack me.

I wasn't "attacking" you. I was asking you to explain your comment. If I didn't understand you correctly, I apologize, but that's why I asked you to explain your point.

Let me make it really clear for you this time. What I asked was whether there is another context --- namely a non-American, perhaps Islamic context, that can be instructive in understanding Khomeini and why muslims might praise him or attend a conference honoring his memory. (Like his overthrow of the Shah, who wasn't exactly a human rights advocate, perhaps.)

I consider Khomeini evil, and the American hostage crisis is prime evidence for me. But parts of the Arab world would call George Bush evil. For me to mention that perspective doesn't mean I believe or endorse it, think Bush is evil or Khomeini harmless.

I don't know the answer to the question I posed. That's why it's a question.

This is helpful to me in understanding what you were getting at, and I don't think I accused you of thinking Khomeini was good, or harmless. I thought you were saying that to some Muslims, Khomeini is a positive figure for whatever reason, and we need to try to understand why that is. That can be a useful exercise, but there is always the danger inherent in that French proverb, "To understand all is to forgive all." I cannot imagine any context in which the Ayatollah Khomeini is a figure worth paying tribute to. Perhaps in the year he overthrew the shah, or the year or so after that. But given what he turned Iran into, and the incredible evil he has spread in the world, there is absolutely no sense in which going to a pro-Khomeini "tribute" conference can be condoned. If they call him good, then they are calling evil good.

Hitler, after all, ended inflation in Germany, and built the Autobahns. It is important for a student of history to understand why he appealed to ordinary Germans. It would be inappropriate, it seems to me, for editorial writers to stop to consider why people in this country who went to a Hitler tribute conference might have had good reasons, from their own perspective, for doing so. We would condemn it outright. I see little difference between Khomeini and Hitler, except Hitler killed a lot more people. We shall see what the contemporary followers of Khomeinism in power in Tehran do once they get the atomic bomb.

posted by Rod Dreher @ Dec 16, 3:35 PM

Rod, Get it right first

Rod, First put me back in context, before you attack me.

I did not say consider the good side of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his teachings. Maybe that's what you wanted to hear, but that's not what I said.

Let me make it really clear for you this time. What I asked was whether there is another context --- namely a non-American, perhaps Islamic context, that can be instructive in understanding Khomeini and why muslims might praise him or attend a conference honoring his memory. (Like his overthrow of the Shah, who wasn't exactly a human rights advocate, perhaps.)

I consider Khomeini evil, and the American hostage crisis is prime evidence for me. But parts of the Arab world would call George Bush evil. For me to mention that perspective doesn't mean I believe or endorse it, think Bush is evil or Khomeini harmless.

I don't know the answer to the question I posed. That's why it's a question.

posted by jim mitchell @ Dec 16, 3:18 PM

Rod and Muslims

Rod, thanks for the post explaining your conviction on the subject of radical Islam. Odd, I sit 25 feet from you and I didn't know this.

Beating the drum on the subject keeps us awake to a phenomenon many of us don't deal with because of its complexity and unpleasantness.

I can't think of another separatist group in modern U.S. history with a stated goal of destroying the larger society -- especially when you factor in seemingly limitless support from around the world.

Coming to grips with this is like dealing with cancer. You want to deny it and ignore it. It's mysterious and largely unseen. But it won't go away by itself.

posted by Rodger Jones @ Dec 16, 11:32 AM

Harun Yahya's idea of love

Harun Yahya is the pen name of a prolific Muslim author who wrote a book called "Only Love Can Defeat Terrorism." Yet as Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org points out, he is also the author of this disturbing Islamic catechism for kids, which is linked to off the MOMIN website in Irving (the host of the pro-Khomeini conference). Here's the part of Yahya's teaching to children that worries me:

Having even a little bit of love towards the unbelievers would never be a proper attitude for a believer. Believers are seriously warned in the Qur'an as below verse expresses:

"O ye who believe! Take not my enemies and yours as friends (or protectors),- offering them (your) love, even though they have rejected the Truth that has come to you, and have (on the contrary) driven out the Prophet and yourselves (from your homes), (simply) because ye believe in Allah your Lord! If ye have come out to strive in My Way and to seek My Good Pleasure, (take them not as friends), holding secret converse of love (and friendship) with them: for I know full well all that ye conceal and all that ye reveal. And any of you that does this has strayed from the Straight Path."
(AL-MUMTAHINA 1)

So which is it? How can "love" defeat terrorism if Muslims, according to Harun Yahya, quoting the Koran, are not supposed to have "even a little bit of love" towards non-Muslims? Somebody please clear this up for me.

posted by Rod Dreher @ Dec 16, 11:20 AM

The good side of Khomeini

Jim, in yesterday's board meeting, you suggested that we should try to consider the good side of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his teachings. I've heard that from another DMN writer since we talked, and I'm struggling to understand this point. I think that what y'all are getting at is that there is conceivably some positive aspect to Khomeini's vision, and that that might be what attracted local Muslims to the "tribute" this past weekend. To me, though, that's like saying, "Well, Hitler did build the Autobahn, so let's get together to praise him for advances in transportation technology."

I'd appreciate it if you could explain what you meant. Thanks.

posted by Rod Dreher @ Dec 16, 9:55 AM

Re: Muslims and 9/11

(Before anybody accuses me of trying to pull emotional rank on anybody else in this debate, I want to make clear that I'm not trying to claim that having been present for 9/11 and its aftermath gives my arguments more legitimacy. If I'm wrong on facts or logic, then that's true no matter where I happened to be on that day. I was just trying to explain to blog readers who might not know this about me why I'm passionate on the subject of Islamic extremism.)

posted by Rod Dreher @ Dec 16, 9:52 AM

Re: Muslims

I've thought about this overnight, and it seems to me that for the benefit of readers, I should explain why this issue means so much to me personally. It certainly has nothing to do with Islam per se; I moved to Dallas from a New York neighborhood that had a fair-size population of Muslims. I never had any problem with them, and in fact had gotten to be friends with some Muslim merchants, who were very kind to me and my family. If I still lived there, I'd consider them friends to this day.

It's not Islam itself, but radical Islam that concerns me. I stood on the Brooklyn Bridge and watched thousands of people die in a matter of seconds, thanks to radical Islam. Among those who died were seven or eight firefighters from our local firehouse -- men who used to let my little boy climb into their firetruck and play around. Eight people from my church died that morning, too. We had a memorial service on 9/12 at the parish; there were many people in the parish who had grown up in Beirut during the civil war, and they pointed out to me that the sweet smell lingering in the air was the aroma of roasting human flesh. I went into a church in another part of Brooklyn the next day (the smoke was still coming over the harbor into our neighborhood), and saw it full of New Yorkers praying, while the dome of the church inside was filled with that sweet smoke. They were breathing in the remains of human beings while they wept and prayed. All because of radical Islam.

I went to several firefighters' funerals that autumn. I saw wives and children, their hearts ripped out, mourning their husbands and fathers. All over New York there were "missing" posters put up by desperate people who hoped against all odds that their loved ones had survived. But almost no one survived. All because of radical Islam.

About a mile from my neighborhood in Brooklyn sits the al-Farooq mosque. It was once an al-Qaeda recruitment and fundraising center. It is still a center of Islamic radicalism. I've shopped in the bookstores around the mosque. I have on my desk at work a book I bought there, advising Muslims that it is their solemn duty before God to have no love for Christians, Jews and other infidels. Maybe if we had all paid closer attention to this sort of ideological cancer spreading among us, and stood up to it in every possible way, 9/11 might not have happened. We'll never know. But because of what I lived through and saw with my own eyes, I have this deep determination not to be silent when I see Islamic radicalism at work. Like Tony Blair said, if the 9/11 hijackers could have killed 30,000 of us, they would have.

It is not enough to hold disapproving opinions of Islamic extremism. You have to be prepared to do something about it. A long face is not a moral disinfectant.

posted by Rod Dreher @ Dec 16, 7:25 AM