A ridiculous article that, unfortunately, reflects all-too-common assumptions. "President Obama Seeks to Bridge Differences with Islam," by Jerome Socolovsky for VOA News, March 18 (thanks to Mackie):
U.S. President Barack Obama has again postponed his trip to Indonesia because of pressing issues in the U.S. The trip is part of his ongoing effort to reach out to Muslims worldwide. Last year, he gave a speech in Cairo that was considered a landmark in the effort to bridge differences between Islam and the West. Many Muslims believe he should do more [sic]
No one seems to think that Muslims have any responsibility to "bridge differences between Islam and the West." No, everyone, from Barack Obama to Jerome Socolovsky, and everyone in between, knows that the conflict is all the West's fault. Note how Jerome Socolovsky frames the conflict:
Frictions between Islam and the West often flare up - like when when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed - or when Muslim girls in Europe went to school wearing veils, or new minarets in Switzerland were banned.
Note that he mentions nothing about, say, "frictions" "flaring up" when Muslims, acting in the name of Islam and jihad, murder thirteen Americans in cold blood at Fort Hood, or murder two American soldiers in Little Rock, Arkansas, or murder one and wound five in a Jewish Community Center in Seattle, or plow into a crowd of students, trying to murder as many as possible, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Etc.
No, none of that makes "frictions" "flare up." Instead, "frictions" only "flare up" when a Danish newspaper has the temerity to publish cartoons of the "Prophet Mohammed" -- as the mainstream media universally designates him these days, as if we're all Muslims now. Jerome Socolovsky gives no hint that he, or any reasonable person, may think that it's sheer madness or worse to go around murdering innocent people, or even demanding free speech restrictions, because of a few cartoons. As far as he is concerned, the cartoons -- not Islamic jihad mass murders -- make "frictions" "flare up."
And as if cartoons of Muhammad weren't bad enough, Europeans -- xenophobic and benighted as ever -- get angry when "Muslim girls in Europe went to school wearing veils." See how Jerome Socolovsky loads the dice? No mention of jihad terror attacks -- oh, no. Instead, "frictions" only "flare up" when poor little Muslim girls in Europe simply want to live according to the tenets of their own culture. How cruel and ethnocentric those Europeans are! They even banned "new minarets in Switzerland" -- no mention, of course, of how much more severely restricted is non-Islamic religious practice all over the Islamic world.
And then there comes this sage observation:
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have also complicated America's relationship with the Islamic world.
As longtime Jihad Watch readers know, I have never favored the foredoomed democracy projects-cum-social work exercises in Iraq or Afghanistan, but Jerome Socolovsky's assumption here seems to be that the adventures in both countries were some kind of unprovoked provocation. He makes no mention of 9/11, or of the Taliban's depredations, or of Saddam Hussein's reckless belligerence.
Last year, President Obama went to Cairo hoping to change that. He extended the traditional Muslim greeting, and said while he is a Christian, his father's family includes generations of Muslims. "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning, between the United States and Muslims around the world," he said.He declared that the U.S. is not at war with Islam, but is against violent extremists who exploit the tensions between Islam and the West.
Those tensions go all the way back to the Crusades - when Christian armies invaded the Holy Land.
True to form, Jerome Socolovsky makes no mention of the 450 years of jihad attacks that had conquered and Islamized over half of Christendom long before the first Crusade was even called, and to which the Crusades were a late and small-scale defensive reaction.
But there have also been times of harmony like in medieval Spain....
Even Maria Rosa Menocal, in her hagiographical book The Ornament of the World, admits that "times of harmony" went only so far in Muslim Spain, which institutionalized discrimination against Jewish and Christian dhimmis: "The dhimmi, as these covenanted peoples were called, were granted religious freedom, not forced to convert to Islam. They could continue to be Jews and Christians, and, as it turned out, they could share in much of Muslim social and economic life. In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax -- no Muslims paid taxes and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals." (Pp. 72-3)
So much for a paradise of tolerance and multiculturalism. Historian Kenneth Baxter Wolf observes that "much of this new legislation aimed at limiting those aspects of the Christian cult which seemed to compromise the dominant position of Islam." After enumerating a list of laws much like Menocal's, he adds: "Aside from such cultic restrictions most of the laws were simply designed to underscore the position of the dimmîs as second-class citizens."
But Jerome Socolovsky, ignorant of all this, goes on to say that Obama needs to hop to it, abandoning Israel and stopping defending ourselves against the global jihad:
Professor Ahmad El Tayeb of Al Azhar University in Cairo said the President's speech there was a landmark. "I was there, and I admired that speech very much. But we are still waiting to see practical results," he said.He says the U.S. shouldn't side with Israel or fight wars in Muslim countries....
Yeah, that'll fix it.
"Note that he mentions nothing about, say, "frictions" "flaring up" when Muslims, acting in the name of Islam and jihad, murder thirteen Americans in cold blood at Fort Hood, or murder two American soldiers in Little Rock, Arkansas, or murder one and wound five in a Jewish Community Center in Seattle, or plow into a crowd of students, trying to murder as many as possible, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Etc."
and that "ETC" list is very long and covers incidents from almost every place on the globe where Muslims congregate...and the frequency and severity of these incidents is increasing...the rule of Islam seems to be "My way or you die".
as usual, the speakers supporting Islam always play the "Muslims are vicims" card...they never point out the actions taken against Muslims are not actions at all...they are reactions....
Yes, such guilt-ridden, appeasing remarks show little understanding of the history of Islamic imperialism. There is a danger that an Islamic version of history will become the norm for many 'politically correct' commentators in the West.
This is politically irresponsible when there is a growing library of excellent books and articles (e.g., referenced here at 'Jihadwatch'), which have trenchant criticisms of such misguided sychophancy.
"I was there, and I admired that speech very much. But we are still waiting to see practical results," he said.
Don't worry, the checks in the mail...How long do you think it will take these people to realize that Rasulullahaha Obama, makes a lot of promises he can't keep, and usually has no intention of keeping...I'm waiting for Ahmadinejad to issue the big challenge to Rasool...'the sixty four dollar question'...'We want to make sure we are negotiating with an authentic government, so please show us your birth certificate'...I don't think it would take much to turn Ahmadinejad into a 'birther'...Just a little nudge in the right direction...The Ayatollah in charge should have thought of that already...A way to give America a crushing blow would be to give Rasool a crushing blow...No one fires a shot...
A perfect set up...The guns loaded but so far no prominent figure has the intestinal fortitude to pull the trigger...The Ayatollah has no intestinal fortitude so he would pull the trigger...All it takes is for Allah to put the idea in his head...
A ridiculous article that, unfortunately, reflects all-too-common assumptions. "President Obama Seeks to Bridge Differences with Islam,"
What raw material is this bridge to be made of? Who's gonna pay for it? Will it be a one-way bridge? And where will it be headed.
*** 92:8 ***
Tolerance. Interfaith dialog. Understanding. Outreach. Diversity. Multiculturalism.
Let's add bridge building to our list of queer and distrubing words.
Do people that write drivel like this actually believe it? Can they really be so ignorant of the truth about islam, when it is shoved in our faces day after day, year after year?
Saddam Hussein's reckless belligerence.
He went beyond belligerence when he had his boys blow up the Murrah Federal Building down in Oklahomastan.
*** 8:7 ***
If saying that makes me a conspiracy theorist, fine. But until Jayna Alexander's 12 questions are satisfactorily answered, it is absurd to believe anything else.
It was remarkable how the Clintonistas in the media served up the plate of patent bullcrap they did just after Murrah. Were they too stupid to see the plain truth, too incompetent to do a little investigative reporting?
*** 7:3 ***
Was 9/11 too obvios to be explained in the same way? Osama's taking credit must have scared away even the most intrepid of Pulitzer Prize winners, thighs quaking with desire to blame the mass murder that day on Americas and not a gang of multiculturally diverse persons acting on the tenets of one of the world's great religions, an Abrahamic religion.
*** 8:12 ***
Rosie O'Donnell wasn't intimidated, though. And the all- female audience in the studio of the View had the courage to applause her.
No one seems to think that Muslims have any responsibility to "bridge differences between Islam and the West."
A tacit admission that Moslems simply won't build those bridges on any but Islamic terms?
The problem is that there are too few Muslim voices calling for reaching out--although I note that there are a handful.
Perhaps the Western Left abuses Paul's instruction to "seek peace with all men, as much as it depends on you" (Rom. 12:18--Kepha's paraphrase). Unfortunately, it's too wrapped up in its domestic squabbles with Western conservatives and traditionalists to note when it's facing an existential threat itself. Perhaps Jimmy Carter summed up the problem back in 1979, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when he said that he'd learned more about the true character of the Soviet Union in three months than he had in the last three years--by which time it was way too late.
I'm by no means against seeking peace. But it cannot be done unless we're ready to recognize that there really are people out there who wish us ill, and nothing we can do will placate them.
@Kepha
"But it cannot be done unless we're ready to recognize that there really are people out there who wish us ill, and nothing we can do will placate them."
---- I just want to say that I never understood why the Judeo-Christian West have considered the Muslim world as a complete alien for all these centuries and still does ?
Kepha,
What happened?
Chinese wing dings not working today?
Debanjan,
Another clean up ... aisle 15.
Whos is this treasonous, debased non-entity Socolovsky anyway?
Spencer notes reasons why Islamic Spain was not the paradisaic Convivencia Socolovsky and other millions of PC MCs think it was. Another reason to add to the list: Christians in Islamic Spain were beheaded for the "crime" of saying bad things about Mohammed, or for merely publicly denying that Mohammed was a divine prophet and subsequently refusing to recant. The historian Kenneth Baxter Wolf (whom Spencer mentions) wrote a study of these episodes of beheading -- Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain -- and even against his own PC MC inclinations, reveals details between the lines about the Hell-on-earth existence for Christians under Islamic Spain. Here's a link to the book, available to read online for free:
http://libro.uca.edu/martyrs/martyrs.htm
No, you wouldn't understand why the Judeo-Christian world has considered the Muslim world a complete alien, would you, because you understand so little. Here's a small sampling of reasons: 1) a vastly superior ethic to that which Muslims proffer; 2) no romantic love in Islam; 3) no fun in Islam; 4) no death for apostasy in Judeo-Christian doctrine, contra re Islam; 5) real achievement in the Judeo-Christian world as opposed to borrowed or little achievement in the Islamic world; 6) no psychopaths or sexual perverts among prophets in the Judeo-Christian world (Muslims just don't get how disgusting Mohammed comes across to informed Jews and Christians). How's this for starters? As Paleologos already noted, you've got another clean-up job. Hop to it.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had just spoken about the West being in denial about what it was up against, was asked a question by someone from VOA (with a Middle Eastern accent) that suggested that all the blame is on the U.S. and the West for our conflicts with Muslims. She said (I'm paraphrasing) something to the effect of: "You're from the VOA? That explains the problem."
Banerjee and Paleologos:
The computer I'm on today doesn't have Chinese WP. I was just snooping if anyone else out there uses the language. As for you Paleologos, zai jian.
Debanjan: Actually, I do not recognize Islam as completely alien. Nor do I recognize Buddhism and Daoism as such, either. Man is a worshipping creature, and even when he pretends to be a complete "atheist" he prostrates himself before the mummified corpses of Mao Zedong, Yodor Dimitrov, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, and the like, calling them saints of a fictitious goddess called "Historical Necessity". More later.
From the article - "Professor Ahmad El Tayeb of Al Azhar University in Cairo said the President's speech there was a landmark. "I was there, and I admired that speech very much. But we are still waiting to see practical results," he said.
He says the U.S. shouldn't side with Israel or fight wars in Muslim countries....” '.
Now, Ahmad El Tayeb of Al Azhar was one of the 138 Islamic 'scholars' who signed off on the sinister 'A Common Word' da'wa letter to Christian leaders, which was posted by the Muslims in October 2007. Indeed, the only useful thing about that letter was its list of signatories...fodder for endless googling fun, especially when one begins by running the names through the MEMRI sieve.
Here is a small part of Al/ El-Tayeb's 'record':
"...the rector of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad al Tayyeb, [aka 'Prof. Dr. Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Al-Tayeb, President of Al-Azhar University, Former Grand Mufti of Egypt']
who on April 4, 2002 said: “The solution to Israeli terror can be found in suicide attacks that will sow terror in the hearts of the enemies of Islam.” – as reported by Magdi Allam, Corriere della Sera: 22.1.2008, in his article – La Fatwa dell’odio anti-Israele che condiziona anche i. ‘moderati’."
In other words: Ahmad El Tayeb supports the 'murder-"martyr"' bombing mass murders of Jews.
*Of course* he wants the USA to betray Israel.
Debanjan Banerjee wrote:
--- I just want to say that I never understood why the Judeo-Christian West have considered the Muslim world as a complete alien for all these centuries and still does
...............
Umm—perhaps because even most unobservant and incurious Westerners have noticed the horrific stream of Jihad terror issuing from the Muslim world, including plane hijackings, suicide bombings, and 9/11?
Perhaps because Muslims intend to force subjugation to their repulsive creed, either through conversion or dhimmitude?
Perhaps because any Westerner can see with their own eyes what a horror of oppression, violence, inequality, backwardness, ignorance and poverty Dar-al-Islam presents?
My question for you is this: consider, please, not why "the Judeo-Christian West" considers Islam alien, but why you do not.
I would presume from your name that you are likely of Indian heritage. Are you aware of the horrific history of Islam in India, and the millions of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains that Muslims have slaughtered there over the centuries?
Historian Will Durant noted in his 1935 book "The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage" (page 459):
"The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period."
One might indeed consider the creed that spawns such horror as "alien". At least, I hope one would.