Who you gonna believe? Andrew McCarthy has some clear-eyed analysis over at National Review Online:
So here we are again, a dazed planet brushing ourselves off and surveying the wreckage from the worst spree of Islam-inspired rioting, bombing, murder, and mayhem since ... well, since the last one. And the one before that.The ongoing one is over offensive cartoons published by an obscure Danish newspaper. That's a step down from the one over a tall tale about Koran-flushing in a Guantanamo Bay toilet. Not to mention the one over infidel troops stationed (to protect Muslims) in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, the one over the Occupation, the one over the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the one over the Crusades, and the one over that time in 680 A.D. when some scion of monkeys and pigs allegedly spied a bare ankle under someone's sister's wind-swept chador.
You get the idea. The cartoon caper, though, has been singular — there hasn't been such an outpouring on the "Arab Street" since that heroic martyrdom operation against the Great Satan a little over four years ago...
Nonetheless, the contemporary vision of "moderate Islam" as a meaningful force for good is a mirage. Certainly there are moderate Muslim individuals. Large pockets of them, there and there, who have assimilated to the modern world and want only to live in ecumenical peace. But many of the people we call "moderates" are flat-out phonies, the bag-men who rise on the shoulders of the leg-breakers.
The authentic moderates, meanwhile, tarry in muted resistance to the domineering strain of their faith. The strain we like to tell ourselves is a mere fringe. The strain that has just managed, yet again, to unleash untold thousands (not handfuls of militants, but transcontinental thousands) to maraud over a trifling affront. The moderates must carry on by pretending, much like the State Department pretends, that the commands of their scriptures — toward brutality, beheading, conquest, death to unbelievers, eternal damnation to apostates, the subjugation of women, the dehumanizing of non-Muslims, and so on — either do not exist or have somehow been superseded (even though the Koran is said to reflect the words of Allah Himself, and even though much in it of a threatening nature actually comes later in time than the passages bespeaking moderation and tolerance).
Meanwhile, as we prepare to spend yet another $120 billion on a novel brand of democracy building — one which establishes Islam as Iraq's state religion and enshrines the inequities of sharia as a source and measure of its fundamental law — our wildly premature birthing of the nascent Palestinian "democracy" has just resulted in the rise to power of Hamas, an entity the U.S. officially designates as a terrorist organization. (To be fair, its competition was Fatah, an entity successive U.S. administrations spent the last dozen or so years deluding themselves was not a terrorist organization. In the event, these legatees of Yasser Arafat were, of course, the "moderates.") This result means that if American citizens did what our government is right now continuing to do — namely, contributing funds we well know Hamas will soon be controlling — they could be indicted under our antiterrorism laws. There are, as we speak, several defendants under such indictments in this country.
All of this intellectual and moral confusion — the disintegration of the Bush Doctrine, the compromising of our conception of democracy, the strange deference to charlatans spewing seventh-century venom, the pressure on our government to violate the very laws it enacted to choke off the funding that underwrites our enemies' butchery — all of it is based on a single conceit: That there is a flourishing moderate Islam. One worth looking beyond all the menacing verses and countless atrocities to find.
Okay, where is it?
Please read it all. This is an excellent piece.
Perhaps it would help if the term 'moderate muslim' was adequately defined.
'Moderate' in islam means you refuse to hack off an infidels head, but you have no problem dragging the body through the streets.
No wonder we havent heard from them, and would we really want to?
Robert: Excellent peice that you found and posted. Well said.
-MikeMontana@Hotmail_com
Even more amazing was that this was published on NRO, whereas NR has been scared to publish anything contradicting the official White House line on the ROP. Perhaps some more changes are coming...
As for moderate Muslims existing, I sincerely fear for the handful of European Muslims who have spoken up recently. Yesterday I saw a piece with (IIRC) an Austrian Muslim who challenged Ahmadinejad to come visit Auschwitz and then try to deny the Holocaust ever occurred. Likewise the few in Denmark and Norway who have defended the publication of the cartoons and condemned as infringements on free speech the attacks on the right to publish them. Seriously, they are fighting on the right side, for what reason I don't know. Poor, brave bastards.
Moderate muslims...I dont think there are any shades of grey. One is either a muslim, or one is not. Since 'all' muslims are 'obligated' to participate in, and support jihad, where are the moderates? A muslim who calls himself a moderate, is either lying or confused. I'm sure that there are some who rather stay away from the rough stuff, and may not be of a violent nature themselves, but ideologically these people are on the edge of apostacy, if not already over the edge. Muslims are supposed to be 100% Islamic. Not 98% or 67%...100%. Anything less than that is apostacy. You are either dead or you are not. You cant be 67% alive. (although I might make an exception for some people). You also cant be partly pregnant...One is either a muslim or one is not...there are no real moderates...that is blue smoke and mirrors...
Moderation does NOT exist within Islam, certainly not according to our understanding of this word. An inherent implication of this is that a "moderate" Muslim is a Muslim conforming to non-Islamic perceptions of what Islam SHOULD be or should NOT be (which would include the characteristic of being non-violent).
In order for a Muslim to conform to a non-Islamic ideal of non-extremism or 'moderation' what he essentially must do is DELETE the more violent aspects of Islam (and along with them their source in Kuranic verses) in his practice.
The problem with Muslims doing something like that is not merely that they can be subjected punitive measures for this (although of course they CAN and ARE and I am not trying to minimize this danger) but there is also no real way to establish this as a permanent practice within Islam. Again not merely because they are, through the act of doing this, tampering with al-lah's commands to humanity (and are thereby inviting the wrath of felow members of the ummah)but also because what any Muslim who attempts to delete violence from the Qur'an can and always will face is stalemating by those who in response will put the violence BACK INTO Islamic practice. In short, moderation, since it is NOT a part of Islam and not a command of al-lah's, will always be subject itself to being deleted from Islamic pracatice by Islamic religious leaders who will maintain that Islam is meant to be practiced by the book (the Qur'an) and the Qur'an will back them up.
And the Qur'an WILL NOT back up those who advocate non-violent Islamic practice.
Sufi Islamic practice, for example, never managed to get the violence out of Islam although it clearly attempted to do this. Look at allegedly "moderate" Sufist Chechnya today.
The moderates in Islam, it can be surmised, are destined to lose their bid to defang Islamic ideology, by ideological stalemating. It is therefore a manifestly lost cause from the start no matter how good the intentions are of those advocating "moderation" in Islam.
We wish someone would explain that to the likes of Jane Fonda and Al Gore.
A moderate muslim is like a moderate member of the inquisition back then. And that's not unjust to compare it like this because Islam has the same problems as Europe had before the century of enlightenment. So if we don't want to fall back into dark ages we have to defend this freedom against Islam (and the Christian Church if necessary).
I'm not sure if the last three posters meant to educate me on "moderate Muslims," but I'm going to let my ego run wild for a moment and assume they were. Read my words carefully--I never said there was such a beast. But I will say there is, with the caveat you've already noted--to the extent they are moderate, they are not Muslim.
That said, did any of you read the Bruce Bawer article linked on the Dhimmi side? "To meet Yusuf al-Qaradawi under the present circumstances," the Norwegian-Iraqi writer Walid al-Kubaisi told Aftenposten yesterday, "is tantamount to granting extreme Islamists and defenders of terror a right of joint consultation regarding how Norway should be governed." Based on this, al-Kubaisi certainly seems to be a moderate, recognizing the consequences of the Norwegian action, and he doesn't seem to think they are good consequences. Nor can I speak for everything that the one I read yesterday (regret I can't find the link) believes, but he's openly challenging Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust. I read another in Denmark, plainly appalled that any European would surrender his right to free press to agitations from Muslims. It could be that all these men are apostate, or are Muslims In Name Only, or misunderstand the nature of the religion to which they belong. What I see, though, is that each of them is defending the West against Islamic nutjobs, and probably at considerable personal risk. I think that's noteworthy, even though each was relegated to paragraph 20 (more or less) of each story they appeared in.
Read JUDGEMENT DAY...That will show you the difference between Moderate and Radical Islam.
Which is no difference at all. They are called sleepers. The fox is guarding the henhouse.
Of Questions and "Thinkaphobia"
".....a flourishing moderate Islam. One worth looking beyond all the menacing verses and countless atrocities to find. Okay, where is it?"
Serious questions are thought, but many "liberals" have been trained not to think. They have been trained to be "open," not to make judgements about good and bad (based on reason) in cultures, behaviors. They (and we) are often told to judge such questions as "hateful, intolerant."
But the human mind(its a law of our mind) must answer every serious question put to it-and it will not rest until it finds a reason (or faith) that answers every question put to it. That law of the mind (and humor-also an intellectual quality) distinguishes us from all other species.
This question "where is it?" is powerful-more powerful than any dogma or ideology that we are told to accept without questioning it. "Okay, where is it?" Inquiring minds would like to know....
Another qood question: what is time? That and "Where is it?" will keep us thinking about things for awhile...
Definition:
"A Moderate Muslim is one who has not yet tried to slit your throat."
"This result means that if American citizens did what our government is right now continuing to do — namely, contributing funds we well know Hamas will soon be controlling — they could be indicted under our antiterrorism laws. There are, as we speak, several defendants under such indictments in this country."
Confound it George! I don't care who you have in the oval office with you -- tell the senator he can wait!
I want you up here in my office right away; bring Dick and Rice with you!
We're cutting loose our US staffers and replacing them with HAMAS' people before the next quarter starts as a cost cutting measure.
What? I don't care what they're saying in the press George; just as long as our numbers look good to investors. Now get over here!
Oh, by the way; on your way up, I want you to stop downstairs by the elevator and pick up my mail from security. And for pete's sake, while your at it, sign up Dick for some shooting lessons!
The "moderate" Muslims are those who only cheer and laugh during a beheading but don't join in.
(Some may not want to risk the expensive drycleaning bills that could result and thus would not be technically "moderate" but just cheapskates.)
BY THEIR FRUIT YOU SHALL KNOW THEM.
(Or in this case, their nuts.)
This is something I have never understood about the "bumper sticker" philosophy we tout about nation building with reguards to "Democracy". I think we have to ask ourselves, what is democracy??? What does it mean? is it multifaceted? Does it mean "constitution" or protection of minorities or is it merely "the mob rules"??? FOr Americans it means a whole lot of things so much so that millions of theses' have been wrttien about it by lawyers and students and what not and it is STILL misunderstood by most Americans. For Middle eastern Muslims it is even more inpossable to comprehend!! With their slavish devotion to allah and their hierarchial Patriarchial societies, the concept of Freedom and democracy just blows thier mind. Even Germans and Italians and Spanish have only had it for about 50 years! SO I must say that to Muslims, democracy can only mean one thing, 1 Person = 1 vote, and that is all. They dont seem to understand that 1 person 1 vote is only a means to an end. For them to vote in a Sharia law Govt is a perfectly legitimate form of democracy! For them to create by law a "dhimmi" status for infidels is perfectly legal, i mean, hey, we all voted for it right?? So why do we try to engage in Nation building? WE'll only allow them to "vote in" Theocratic gov'ts! that is NOT democracy, though to the islamic mind it IS. It seems that the only route possable is with the style of Turkey or Egypt or even SADDAM HUSSEIN! A secular dictator who, with political elites, guides the ignorant masses to their destiny. What ever that destiny is. And of course isolation of these dangerous countries from the west and the asian east. Let them solve their own problems. If we interfere we'll only get blamed in the end for all their own disasters.
Definition:
"A Moderate Muslim is one who has not yet tried to slit your throat."
You forgot the other half of that definition:
..,but they will hold you down or film the murder of infidels."
This is no doubt a great piece by NRO that will get quite a few eyes rolling over it to see the double speak going on in the admin.,; however, it does not go into the likely hood that political rhetoric is a common tool for use when dealing with touchy issues. In this case, MIS-leading the general population will have very dire consequences should the people find out about the lies.
There is a a link in the articale that I find extremely disturbing.
Here is an excrept:
"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.
Thank God he's a FORMER-CIA official. I pray that his cavalier approach to the MB lies only with him.
So here we are again, a dazed planet brushing ourselves off and surveying the wreckage from the worst spree of Islam-inspired rioting, bombing, murder, and mayhem since ... well, since the last one. And the one before that.
Reminds me of an old line - i forget the source - "Many ppl will in their lifetimes stumble across the truth. Most however will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and continue on as if nothing had happened."
Western politicians know that electorates have a short memory. Islam however doesn't seem to credit us any faculty of recollection at all. As Spencer wrote, "the world stretches, yawns and starts to wake up"...
Islam is like a car that either is completely stationary or goes 200 kilometers per hour. It makes ordinary civilized activities, such as parallel parking, a real challenge.
NOTE: "This is a WAR?" and For those us confused citizens not burning flags or advocates of Muslims for Murder Inc., the business of switch hitting 2% Moderate Muslim terrorist maybe found breeding in small closets and minds, of excited Liberal Academics giving Acting lessons to flying future leaders of the New World Order of Islam,(I believe those are the ones that haven't bought guns, fitted with a parachute or body bombs, because the line is so long).
You well find some have moved to breed, colonize EU, US and to educate infidels. So, what's left are really die hard's on Drugs & Arab TV with guns burning Israel, US, et al, flags and I guess that makes takes care of 100%+/-. It appears some moderate Muslims do need more modivation or just a normal Muslim urge to rage, rape or murder, perhaps, to be inspired by reading the all perfect and sanctified hate of Mo-Allah.
OT comment:
In attempting to debate a lady over at Chip Bok's blog (he drew a cartoon for the Akron-Beacon Journal that drew the ire of CAIR and other Muslim groups), I received this reply:
There's no point in discussing this with someone who gets (dis)information from Robert Spencer. For anyone who actually wants accurate information, though, I hope you look for it from someone else.
That was it. Not "truthful" sites for information. I believe we are starting to win the information war. Well, as long as we don't surrender before we win.
From the article: "Indeed, with moderates like these abounding, how surprised should we be to find Secretary Rice herself — while very publicly hosting an Iftaar dinner to mark the end of the "holy month" of Ramadan — bestowing a federal promotion on the Muslim Umma, whose creed, she announced, is now the "religion of love" as well as the firmly entrenched "religion of peace." (The ACLU was evidently unavailable for comment.) "We in America," Rice effused, "know the benevolence that is at the heart of Islam.""
Every time I hear Condi or George wax effusive on the peaceful nature of Islam, I keep hoping that it's all part of a carefully-considered strategy. Sure, in public they'll lull their enemies into a false sense of security by calling them "peaceful" and "benevolent". The better to keep the Muslim street from going ape-shite (or should that be "shiite"?) In private, though, they know the real lay of the land and are even now drafting plans to save Western civlization from its age-old enemy, adherents of an inherently war-like and malevolent faith.
Hey, we're all entitled to have our fantasies, right?
l say better to try a "Democracy" than what do you have in its place? l think with the Kurds playing a
major force in Iraq, the Arabs wont have total contro, and Sharia law will not stand. yes George and Condi are not the best, but look at the other side of aisle, what inspires you a wee bit?
I honestly believe the best way to look at moderate muslims is:
Keep one eye on his and the other behind his back.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH - USE IT OR LOSE IT
The authentic moderates, meanwhile...
Authentic moderates. So, who appointed Andrew McCarthy the World's Biggest Dumbass. And, does he have a prestigious degree from a finishing school like maybe Harvard or somesuch? No, I mean does he have a degree from a prestigious finishing school or... hell, I get so flustered even thinking about our Ruling Elites, but anyway thanks for spotting that Unicorn, Andrew.
"So if we don't want to fall back into the dark ages we have to defend this freedom against Islam (and the Christian Church if necessary.)"
Al Capone
You need to fast forward up to modern times. The Christian Church in 2006 is not beheading, raping, murdering, terrorizing, leaving body parts around, stoning women for adultery while teaching men how to work the oh so many loopholes so they can get laid pretty much anytime of the day that the urge strikes. Islam on the other hand shows us a myriad of examples of the above behavior day in and day out, ad nauseum.
You need to figure out who the enemy is here. We wouldn't want you to shoot yourself in the foot in your confusion.
Message to poster Al Capone:
Islam ABSOLUTELY IS NOT like Christianity before the Reformation for one simple reason: Islam has behaved EXACTLY in the manner its sources commanded it to behave at its inception; whereas Christianity on the other hand, prior to the Reformation, was conducting itself OUT OF LINE with its own teachings (often draconianly so).
I hope you see what I'm saying because this is why NO ISLAMIC REFORMATION IS POSSIBLE NOW OR EVER!!!!!!
Prior to the Reformation, the Christian Church particularly the Roman Catholic Church committed murder for political reasons (to keep outspoken and/or pesky Christians' mouths shut, eliminate opposition, etc). The 10 Commandments clearly include the command "Thou shalt NOT COMMIT Murder." How could any religious body sincerely believe it was administering its religion decently when it INTENTIONALLY DISOBEYED its own religious principles??? Here is one of the basic reasons why a reformation of Christianity was necessary.
Islam ALREADY acts in accordance with its founding princliples: obeying al-lah's commands to the letter, such as slaughtering the 'unbelievers,' reducing the human female to the role of a portable vagina for men's sexual pleasure and a beast of burden, (one Palestinian woman bragged that a woman's reproductive system belonged to the mosques because bearing warriors was her duty as a female Islamic jihadist).
Islam is built on the principle that the Kuran is the immutable word of al-lah, Islam's creator. Islamic leaders will not stand for any tampering with it as they see it as already perfect and their behavior as in strict 'sibmission' to al-lah.
Nice try.
Some Muslims interpret the Qur’an and the Sunna in a way that is compatible with liberal democracy. Islam, thus interpreted, cannot be described as evil. It may take some imagination, but religion has often been an imaginative process. The Torah contains many outrageous laws, like one calling for the execution of children who talk back to their parents. Through millennia of study and tinkering, Jewish scholars have found a way around these laws. Conservative Jews do not consider these laws as a reason to leave Judaism or to doubt the divine origins of the Torah.
By seeking knowledge as they are commanded to do, Muslims will encounter new ways of looking at religion. Some may leave Islam, but many will reinterpret Islam in a way that reflects the realities of our changing world. Instead of demonizing people like this, we should be engaging them in a dialogue.
Berut Goldstein was motivated by his understanding of Judaism to empty an entire clip into a crowd of unarmed Muslims as they prayed. His Jewish friends were motivated by their understanding of Judaism to build him a shrine.
Many Muslims are motivated by their understanding of Islam to condemn terrorism, and to support democracy and human rights.
http://www.jamaat.org/islam/HumanRightsBasic.html
Conservative Jews see the Torah as "immutable". If they could get around all the nasty stuff in Deuteronomy, then so can Muslims.
CrusadorForAmerica,
Your understanding of Islam seems pretty weak.
The comparison with Jews (I think you meant
Orthodox, not Conservative) seems weaker; a
better comparison would be with Christianity,
since the two religions can be said to have a
founder who's behavior is a model of "right
behavior", and as others have said, the
comparison shows to anyone that Jesus had morals
moe in accord with what most people (including
non-Christian Infidels) would find "good".
Also, American Muslims are sometimes Muslim in
name only, meaning they're human and humane.
The ones who aren't aren't aggressive because
they know we'll kill them if they act like
Muslims in France.
Conservative Jews see the Torah as "immutable". If they could get around all the nasty stuff in Deuteronomy, then so can Muslims.
Your assertion of equivalence between Deuteronomy and the Koran is at once silly, childish, ignorant, and extremely dangerous --- in a self-delusional and suicidal sort of way.
A Moslem can possibly do only one of two good things, either a) renounce Islam, or b) commit suicide, preferably by taking a massive transfusion of pig's blood directly into the Cephalic Vein.
If a moderate Muslim is someone who decides he can accept some parts of Islam and reject others, and he accepts only what supports liberal democratic tenets, there are definitely moderate Muslims -- just very few of them, or at least very few willing to speak out. See, for example, www.frontpagemagazine.com, where there is a link to the work of lonely liberal Muslim reformers.
CrusadorforAmerica, in theory an Islamic Reformation is possible, but you are wrong to suggest that the obstacles facing Muslim Reformationists are similar to those that faced Jews and Christians. McCarthy, in another place, explains why:
The above is from a symposium at
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21247
If a moderate Muslim is someone who decides he can accept some parts of Islam and reject others.
This is the point of liftoff for the flight of fancy that'll be the death of freedom.
To believe in any part of Islam, you must submit. You submit, then you've bought into the fabric of this hyperagressive political ideology (global conquest, hatred of all outsiders, endorsement of theft and murder, etc.)
It might be best if we henceforth use the English translation of the term Islam, which would entail using the word Submission to identify this fake religion.
Alarmed Pig Farmer said,
This only makes sense if you mean, "The reality is that most Muslims can't take just a part of Islam -- the part is too bound up with the whole." Or if you mean: "To believe in any part of Islam, one must believe in the whole of Islam."
If that's what you meant, you are probably right that most Muslims cannot just take a part of Islam, cannot take Islam as just a collection of parts -- it is a unique synergy of those parts, a certain theme that merely varies in each of its parts.
But if, Alarmed Pig Farmer, you mean purely literally what you said, "To believe in any part of Islam, you must submit" -- that is surely a mistake. Though it doesn't happen that often, a person can reject the underlying unity of Islam and at the same time extract and accept parts that are good or harmless -- and there are parts that are good and harmless. Just as an orange can be mostly rotten, yet still have a few good segments.
What I mean is that Islam is a movement with express goals. Given that God himself calls for mayhem and conquest in the Koran, hundreds of times in the most explicit terms, it is not possible to use Islam as a vehicle to find inner personal peace without also having signed onto its war concept.
In other words, to use the "good" parts of Islam you must accept the evil parts, its central tenets.
The idea of a moderate Moslem is patently absurd. It is also accepted uncritically by 99% or so of the world's population. This is a recipe for disaster, the beginnings of which we are seeing unfold before our very eyes. A lotta progress has been made during the last generation or two. On a roll, the Moslems are agitated and cocky. But not moderate.
Eduardo:
Islam is a totalitarian ideology. Those who administer it predicate their draconian actions on the understanding that the Kuran is a direct pipeline from the creator al-lah. No part of it may be excised and/or modified merely because it is violent. To do so would be to invite the wrath of the creator of the universe--and damnation. Certainly, the violence inherent in Islam is no LESS apocryphal than the rest of it.
Islam was conceived as an organic whole in its present form and thus sent to earth by allah. It may not be tampered with whatever YOU may think personally. Accept it or reject it. There is no middle ground. (I 100% reject it, but that hardly matters here).
And that is one reason why after all these centuries it remains so violent. But........
Did it ever occur to you Eduardo that it is the slaughtering part of Islam that constitutes the actual religion and is not merely an incidental part of it which you don't particularly like? The rest of the ideology of Islam could all have been made up as a camouflage. (And it likely was). Think about it.
Crusador for America:
You can bet that those Muslims adjusting islamic ideology will have no lasting impact on Islam.
The reason is that there will be those Muslims who will practice Islam straight from the book. The Kuran, as all of us who have read even parts of it know, is inherently violent and those who practice violence in Islam are practicing it correctly (in accordance with Islamic ideology). Those who advocate no-violence and democracy in Islam are not supported by anything in Islamic source material (scant as it is). This is not true of Judaism and Christianity.
What you fail to understand Crusador is that Islam is violent at its CORE. Its killing is NOT random or incidental. Islam's violence is inherent and wanton, and as far as I know the Jews were NEVER anywhere near as violent as the average islamic society is. The Islamic world has never been anything BUT violent in fact and it has given mankind NOTHING. Perhaps because it puts so little value on human life. The same cannot be said for Judaism. I think your comparison is well-intentioned but misguided.
The violence and totalitarianism ARE Islam. It's not going to change. Truly you are expecting a leopard to change its spots with this.
Pythagorus said:
Uh, yes, it did, and uh, yes, I agree that the slaughtering part is not merely incidental to it.
Uh, yes, I agree with that...
Well, yep, basically agree with that too...hmm, wondering if you read my earlier post a bit too hurriedly...we don't seem to disagree about much. I was talking about a mere logical possibility that exists, and that was missed, I thought, by Alarmed Pig Farmer -- the possibility to reject the totalitarian core, while yet retaining any remainder of good elements -- like respect your mammy, give to the poor, celebrate holidays with your family, etc. I would agree with you that retaining such things after rejecting the totalitarian core doesn't make much sense, but it is possible, and that is all I was saying. I admit the only reason I can see why someone would bother with such a possibility is because of internalized family and social ties. One either cannot, or does not wish, to entirely reject one's Muslim family and one's Muslim society, so, while rejecting, at least inwardly and in one's thoughts, the totalitarian core, one learns nevertheless to enjoy whatever remains over that can be enjoyed. I did not say this happens much or ever will happen much -- only that it can happen. A not entirely trivial point.