Lawrence Auster challenges Daniel Pipes' view of Islam at FrontPage today, and Pipes responds. It is in some spots worthwhile reading, although in many ways they're talking past each other.
My own position on all this I have made clear many times, although it has been rather cravenly misrepresented by those with their own agenda. There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. The prospects for reform in Islam are exceedingly dim. I agree with Auster (as does Pipes, who also quotes this sentence) that "the West must confront Islam as Islam and so reduce its power to the point where Muslims have no opportunity to wage jihad campaigns against us. Under such circumstances a more decent type of Islam may arise." Or at least one that is easier to deal with. I expanded on this in a recent article.
I'm starting to wonder whether the way to combat islam is to westernize or secularize muslims (what I mean by that is give them a taste of democracy, and teach muslim children that the koran is not to be taken literally, or teach them that they have a choice whether to be a muslim or not, they don't have to follow any religion if they choose not to.Make them aware of scientific advancements that contradict their religion completely, let them see that the korans verses are just the words of a human being who died centuries ago. We must fight it at it's very roots.
By saying this I don't mean let all the muslims into the west to do so (quite the opposite, because we are just inviting the west hating extremists in to destroy us), I mean lets see how Iraq and Afghanistan turn out after a few years of democracy.... but we should also be actively involved in both places, training teachers to specialize in de-islamifying muslim children.... these are the future generation, and if we can reduce the number who are so devout they're insane with it, then this will show it works.
What worries me is that the issue of the jihadist mindset is not being raised as it should be with western governments. These are the people that are coming up with the plans on the next steps to take in Iraq after the elections. The ideas I've just stated are essential, and need to be adhered by the governments actively taking part in the reconstruction of Iraq. If this opportunity is not seized then it is a truely wasted one, and a terrible mistake.
We have a real shot here at fighting this evil, and if every measure to fighting it is not taken then we are just going to descend into another century of war, death and suffering.
My biggest fear with this scenario is that the US and UK governments are not discussing how to combat the jihad from the religious perspective.... I fear that they are not acknowledging that stopping global terrorism can only be acheived by first understanding the islamic ideology.
I think the problem with Pipes is precisely his rather impossibly hopeful central thesis that radical Islam is a problem and Moderate Islam is the answer.
Of course it is possible, but every expert on earth with an objective grasp of the issue, knows this is simply impossibility. Period.
Islam cannot change and must be held at bay or we will be conquered. Personally, I don't care if one is any of the several possibilities of Moslem offered by the academics. I only know that the real Moslems, what we have been conditioned to call "extremists" or 'Fundamentalists" are the ONLY ones that matter because they wield the authority of the Koran and that text cannot be mutated to become what as Pipes says, whatever Islam they want it to be."
It is a damaging, confusing message to promote and weakens our ability to deal with an immediate threat that will long conquer us before any "moderate Islam" ever takes root globally.
We don't have the luxury of time here to warn on one hand, the lethal danger of Islam, (in my opinion, in any form in America), then on the other place hope in scarce moderates who as Spencer says, and all right thinking men would agree, surely exist, but ISLAM ITSELF IS NOT MODERATE.
Therefore Auster is correct and his ideas reflect the reality nobody really wants to face. Islam's history, the likelihood of change within, the aspirations of the ummah and every indicator and possible scenario all point to a deadly menace that must for the sake of our nation and civilization must be isolated where it can do us no harm.
Pipes as USIP appointee cannot come out and say that even if he believed it, which I'm not sure he does. He pointed out 15 years ago in an article, "the Muslims are coming the Muslims are coming", that Europe was being islamified. He was correct. Now we are further withdrawn to the diminishing geographic safety of American soil to try to confront them and as the Coptic murder shows, we are no longer safe here.
As Auster said, Pipe's approach is ecumenical; it is too much placing hope in a fantasy of civilizational harmony that does not exist outside the looking glass. He is placing too much hope in upgrading their civilization and thinking that it is really the only chance we have. Yet if we follow his thinking, we will never in any of our lifetimes find this transformation. We will be transformed, or our cities will be smoldering ruins. We don't have time to engage in lofty thinking.
Auster realizes that what he identifies a civilizationalist approach is correctly the only genuine, viable option we really have if we want to survive. That means, restricted Moslem immigration, distancing ourselves from dependency on them in every way possible, cordoning the Islamic hot spots and removing our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan with only a small response force remaining. In Europe the same and NOT encouraging Turkey's EUrabian ambitions.
Touting Islam as a ROP and moderation and welcoming with open arms an unlimited number of its faithful while telling the world "moderates are the solution" is not helpful. Hoping to convince Moslems something they simply do not believe as a matter of religious obligation is folly.
Pipes own words (The Muslims are coming...):
“Should Muslims fail to modernize, their stubborn record of illiteracy, poverty, intolerance, and autocracy will continue, and perhaps worsen... But if Muslims do modernize, there is a reason to hope. In this case, they will have a good chance to become literate, affluent, and politically stable. ******They will no longer need to train terrorists or target missiles against the West; to emigrate to Europe and America; or to resist integration within Western societies."
This comment by Pipes alone ignores the central basic and eternal tenant of Islam, to convert the whole of humanity. Why would he think for that Moslems would no longer wish to emigrate to the west for example? Additionally his aspiration places our fate in their hands, while agreeing above that their record does not look promising. That seems nutty.
We just don't have to do this if we isolate them, it is clearly the only way to survive. This is something Bush, the knight of freedom and tyranny-slayer is rejecting in favor of another well intentioned but elusive dream, universal human rights and utopian existence with the Moslem nations.
The alternative is accept their growing presence and hope for the best.
I respect both men but I fear Mr. Auster is closer to reality and Mr Pipes view is more of a pipe dream. Islam does spread its death cult in fits and starts. The main problem is that the Saudis have the most heard voices at the mosques and the moderates if they exist can not compete against the Saudi billions. Todays so called moderates are most likely playing the deception game and Pipes is being fooled since he does not want to think he is being played the fool by the islamists. I fear his so called islamist moderates would slit his threat if the time was right. Never underestimate the guile and extremes that over a thousand years of fooling nonmuslims has taught the evil islamists. They must be stopped. I fear that when Bush fails in Iraq that we will have learned the wrong lessons and the democrats will instead make our own fall into the dark hole of history that much quicker.
I think that people seem to have missed what is really going on, and will go on more and more as the pressure of events drives everyone, willing or unwilling, in the same direction. What has already begun, and will increasingly happen, is the re-colonization of the Muslim world. Already four Muslim territories - Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan - are under varying but certain degrees of Western control. Add to this the West Bank, controlled by Israel, and Kashmir, under Indian rule. Except for Indian, which originally took over Kashmir as the result of the individual choice of the Hindu ruler of a Muslim state, all these territories have been taken under control because their instability or hostility made them direct and permament threats to the West.
However, the matter goes further than that. When the West (not only America) talks, the Muslim world listens. It has to. Repeated defeats and humiliations have taught its ruling class, if not yet its bewildered masses, that they cannot oppose the clear will of the West. Most Muslim leaderships act like the lords of an old-fashioned protectorate when the British or French Resident came to call. Musharraf gave up one of the most important foci of Pakistani foreign policy - Afghanistan - when the Americans told him to, and used the forces of the Pakistani army to pursue the very Talibaan and Al Qaida forces which they themselves had placed in power. When America told Saudi Arabia to start putting its house in order and go after "extremists", Saudi Arabia had to, however hypocritically, even though these extremists were ideologically and financially of its own making. And I believe that the Algerian military's crackdown against the victorious Islamists was at least encouraged, if not determined, by the very negative views coming from Paris. Oh yes, when it suits its interests, Paris can be far more brutal, imperialistic and interventionist than the US ever were. (Just ask the members of its former colonial empire in Africa.)
The more aggression comes from the organized underbelly of Islam, the more terrorists, suicide bombers, and indeed drug smugglers, the more the West and its allies will be compelled to take a direct interest, not only in the foreign policy, but in the internal governance, of the Muslim world. And in this, the West has most of the world on its side. China, India, the developped countries of Asia, even Black Africa, have as good reason to fear and hate Muslim expansionism as we do.
NO doubt, the increasing local intervention and involvement will take several guises. Here it may bey that the Americans or the French act on their own; there, the intervention takes the form of a peace-keeping force from NATO or the EU; there again, a new government is put in place under the auspicies of the United Nations (and with considerable amounts of Western or Chinese back-up). But what it will amount to will be an increasing tendency for Western and allied groups to not only guard Muslim governments and NGOs in their international relations, but intervene with increasing heaviness in their internal matters.
I have reread both men I feel the crux of the matter
is below taken from Mr Auster writtings.
*** quote ***
Based on my analysis of the writings of Daniel Pipes, one of the chief advocates of the moderate Islam idea, I argued in the first part of this article that moderate Islam does not and cannot exist. Yet its proponents still feel a deep need to go on believing in it, since the only alternative they can envision is unending civilizational warfare. It would be a war waged not only between the Western and Islam parts of the globe, but—because of the huge Muslim immigrant populations already sojourning in Europe and North America—within the West itself. The prospect seems so horrible that the ecumenists cling to the faith in a moderate Islam no matter how unsupported it may be by the evidence.
*** end quote ***
The facts are sooner or later we have to face Islam for the sick mental disorder it is or be assigned to the trash bin of history. The sooner the people of the U.S. and the rest of the world wake up the sooner this brain disorder can be stopped once and for all. The only altenative is death of science death of art death and of reason by a sick backward barbaric culture that will destroy mankind with its insantiy. The next few centures will make the Dark Ages seem like a picnic. If the truth of the evils of Islam are not quickly confronted.
All islamist should either be exported to the Saudi deserts against there will and be barred from the civlized world. If they have nukes we must attack for they will attack us given half a change. If it means I have to walk instead of putting gas in a car so be it.
The Germans and Japanese were definitely easier to deal with after we had reduced their power (not to mention their railroads, flight capabilities, troops, industries, cities) to the point where they no longer had the capacity to wage fascist war against us.
The quote above makes clear that something similar will be involved here. The question is, does the West have the stomach to pursue that course? If not, I fear we'll never get the job done, and the Liberal complaint that all we do in fighting jihad is to create more jihadis will be true - because half-measures, like weakness, begets contempt, and contemptuous enemies will still have the power to do us harm. The enemy needs to fear us.
I don't believe the problem is Jihad. The problem is demographics. In Europe, the situation is getting worse year by year due to immigration and high birthrates.
Ok, so living in a majority Muslim country like Malaysia may be better than Saudi Arabia, but personally, I'd prefer to live in a country where Islam has as little influence as possible.
Trouble is, I think we've gone past the point of no return already.
Celsius~ They'll keep on with the population growth until they feel safe enough to take the losses of Jihad.
While I tend to agree more with Auster's position, there are several problems I see with his solution:
1. Killing (or causing to be killed) the "top 2,000" jihadis in Muslim regimes presumes a static environment. Judging by Israel's results using a similar tactic against Hamas/Hezbollah/etc., this only creates a temporary setback. Within a short period fresh faces appear at the top, ready to go.
2. Ending mass Muslim immigration suggests we permit some Muslim immigration, but no mention is made of the criteria to be used to separate the wheat from the chaff.
3. Deporting jihad supporters implies such people can be identified. Auster himself mocks Pipes on this very issue.
God Bless Robert Spencer
To hear the muslims tell it, Daniel Pipes is Islam's Public Enemy #1, yet I have always thought he was too kind in his assessments of Islam and muslims. He very accurately portrays the history of Islam, but I don't think he expresses the threat it poses as vehemently as he could.
Islam can change or mutate when conditions demand, but these changes aren't universal. There will always be that hard core, establishment version of Islam waiting in the wings to intimidate and coerce the faithful.
Everywhere "moderate" Islam is practiced, there are fanatic Wahabis and Saudi money. When all the mosques are controlled by the Wahabis, eventually the local muslims will either stop going to the mosque, or they will become Wahabis. It seems that there is never any competition with the Wahabis; they storm an area, build mosques, spread their filthy propaganda, intimidate, and conquer.
It's a shame the world needs Saudi oil. If they were bankrupt, they couldn't pollute the world with their filthy doctrine.
It seems to me that the crux of the matter is theological. Most Christians, as I understand the case, believe that the Bible is the voice of God speaking through the various Biblical writers. Therefore the message is encrusted with the personal, ethnic and linguistic material (modes of expression, prejudices, historical material) which needs to be removed to get at the pure ore. This leaves open the possibility of re-interpretation and of adjustment to changing circumstances and developments in human knowledge, of which Christians have availed themselves from the beginning, without losing the core beliefs of their faith.
Muslims, on the other hand, believe the Koran to be the literal word of God as spoken to Mohammed. This leaves the Muslim with little if any room for movement away from the primitive theology and brutal Bedouin world view of the Koran. Thus Islam has no theology to speak of, but rather a mass of arid legalism designed to determine not what the Koran means – it is to be taken literally – but whether or not the commands and proscriptions it contains apply to the particular cases brought before the “jurists”; and if they do, how far they apply. There was once some room for interpretation in regard to the Hadiths, the sayings and actions of Mohammed, which were of course human not divine and which constitute the lesser pillar of Islamic belief. But the “gates of interpretation” have long since been closed, and in any case the Koran inevitably overrides the Hadiths where they conflict.
Therefore whereas Christianity, or indeed any other major religion and most minor ones, is capable of reform, Islam is not. To reform it would be to destroy it, something Muslims are most unlikely to be prepared to do. This being so, I think Mr Auster’s analysis is nearer the truth than Dr Pipes’s.
I think, too, that Dr Pipes’s view of Muslim history is tainted by the romantic outlook of traditional orientalism, though not to the degree that one finds among the earlier generations of orientalists, who were truly Islamophile. Thus his comparison of Mediaeval Europe and the contemporary Islamic world is wide of the mark in a old-fashioned way. Dr Pipes, turning one of Mr Auster’s phrases back on him, implies that Mediaeval Europe was "aggressive, collectivist, genocidal, and tyrannical". This is pure caricature. One wishes that Dr Pipes had got a serious grasp of the subject before venturing on such a sweeping generalisation. Yes, life in Mediaeval Europe was no day at the beach; but this was caused by the economic and demographic disarray that resulted from the massive depredations of Norsemen, Magyars and above all – yes – Muslim jihadists. The jihadists of the period were either invading armies, such as those which conquered Spain and Sicily, or slavers, pirates and raiders, the Islamic terrorists of their time, whose job was to soften up Islam’s next victims and whose reward was paradise in the next life and loot in this. Conversely, life in the contemporary Muslim world, while more felicitous than in much of Europe, was not the grand sweet song Dr Pipes suggests when he writes of it as representing “the best that humans had attained at that time in terms of learning, governance, and general advancement” - not for the downtrodden dhimmis, who until the twelfth century were the majority of the population, nor for the non-Arab converts, whom their Arab conquerors despised as ethnically inferior and as mostly peasants, people who earned their bread by toiling with their hands rather than “honourably” by the sword or trade. Indeed, the Arab word for peasant, fellah (pl. fellahin) still has disparaging overtones in the Arab world.
In conclusion, while I am grateful to Dr Pipes for all that I have learnt from him, I must respectfully disagree with him in this case.