In "Obstacles in Liberating Islam" at Hudson NY, September 3, the heroic Wafa Sultan explains why Sharia must be resisted by all free citizens -- and why the politically correct dhimmis are as much an obstacle to preserving our freedoms as the jihadists are:
As an Arab woman who suffered for three decades living under Islamic Sharia, it is clear to me that Islam's political ideology and Sharia must be fought relentlessly by Western civilization to prevent its application in a free society.However, I have found myself fighting on two fronts. The first front is against Islamists, a daunting fight indeed. But the other front is one shaped by too many uninformed individuals who like to view themselves as open minded "progressives".
They seem to somehow claim superiority on compassion, on peace, on open-mindedness and on appreciation of other cultures. Regarding themselves as tolerant, free thinking individuals, they avoid questioning Muslims' harmful intentions. They restrict themselves to self-criticism, and make politically-correct excuses for Islamism. Regrettably, they show their indisputable acceptance of 'others' at the expense of the public's responsibility to learn the truth about Islam's detrimental tenets.
It is crucial for these so called "progressives" to realize that Islam is indeed based on an anti-liberal system. They need to awaken to the inhumane policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism oppose the liberal values they cherish. And equally important, they must not take for granted the respect for human rights and dignity that we experience in America, and in the West, today.
For me, confronting those who adhere to multicultural relativism is a most painful battle. Their standpoint makes the efforts of Muslim reformers more challenging. When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, it actually suppresses and weakens my voice and that of others who are in this fight....
" But the other front is one shaped by too many uninformed individuals who like to view themselves as open minded “progressives”.
..like most news "reporters" and "journalists" who print asinine editorals in magazines, newspapers and on television..and don't forget those morons running the government and the country.....
Wafa! She is never intimidated and never wrong about Islam or its apologists. One of my favorites.
I wonder how Progressive cult hero, Barrack Obama, would respond to Wafa Sultan's most cutting commentary. I would love to see how his smooth talk would stand up to the turbulent truth that comes out of Wafa's experience and study of Islam. He would need another retreat to Martha's Vineyard.
I love Wafa. However, I think her use of the terms Islamism and Islamist serve to confuse. They are often used to describe people who have "hijacked the religion of peace". I think Wafa is using those terms to mean those who espouse political Islam, but as we know, Islam is political by its nature. So I think she'd be better served to use the terms Islam and Muslim, rather than Islamism and Islamist.
Was Wafa at Obama's Ramadan dinner?
Or did he have waffles instead?
This was an excellent article by Wafa Sultan; she keeps it simple and easy to understand for anyone who reads it.
Though we all appreciate any media coverage that has come forward these past weeks on the Rifqa Bary case that Wafa Sultan is watching closely. It is very clear on how so many in the media demonstrate their ignorance and understanding of Islam as they report on the case from Orlando.
No doubt Wafa Sultan is reflecting on that 2nd battlefront, that of trying to educate the media in understanding Islam. Too many in the media are drawn to the masters of taquiya on the scene and easily allow themselves to be deceived by their positions on the case of Rifqa Bary. We have already seen CNN,and FOX News reporters clamoring for, and toting the comments of those representing Muslims and running fully with their opinions while dismissing those like Wafa Sultan,Robert Spencer,Pamela Geller,and a host of many more who out there defending this 17 year olds concerns for her life within the Muslim community.
Of course there are those in the media who have taken the time too read and understand the inner workings of Islam and sharia law such as Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant from Canada. But Steyn and Levant where chastised and sued through the instrument of of Canadian Human Rights Organization that became a tool of Muslims. At least they are waking up to what Islam is about, finally giving a victory for free speech to both gentlemen. But that battlefront of media ignorance and the perversion of multiculturalism remains one of our greatest weaknesses.
But trying to suppress voices like that of a Wafa Sultan,Ayaan Hirsi,Bridgett Gabriel,Ibn Warraq, and so many more is a much more difficult task because she has lived in the backward and suppressive world that is Islam.
"backward and suppressive world...."
Wafa Sultan's understandable confusion(as a non-native speaker of Englsh) in her article for the Hudson Institute, of "suppressive" instead of "oppressive," is probably best not emulated.
Haste makes idiocy, I see from my own solecism above. To wit: "confusion of 'suppressive' instead of 'oppressive'" is not English.
So let me rephrase it:
Wafa Sultan's understandable confusion (as a non-native speaker of English), in using "suppressive" for the idiomatic "oppressive," is probably best not emulated.
Petard. Hoist. My. Indeed.
Hugh:
You are correct: The word "Oppression" is clearly the correct word to have been used with its fully encompassing definition.
Re: that confusion: We can retain both.
Sultan's own division of the problem into Islam and the PC MC West provides us with apportioned spheres for the one and the other: Under the rule of Islam, people are oppressed; while under the rule of PC MC in the West, the fact of Islam's oppressiveness is suppressed.