A little more from the Archives about Cathy Young:

"Cathy Young was given every chance to demonstrate that she would take the opportunity offered to study Islam before opening her mouth on the subject again. And of course she also had the right to remain silent. But alas, she did not, and while all of her arrows either fall far short of the mark, or sometimes behave like boomerangs, she appears to have ignored points made against her.

This business of sidewalk micturation, for example. Not Robert, but I, pointed out that the defecation and urination -- deliberately done when other places were available -- in churches (where Muslims have in the pastbeen given refuge as squatters by islamisant tiers-mondistes among Italian clergy, mocked by that old anti-clerical anti-fascist anti-Communist anti-everything Oriana Fallaci). And the particular incident that inflamed Fallaci were the streams of urine that flowed down the Baptistery in Florence, which the world-travelling Cathy Young may recall, and may also recall the effect of urine on the "Gates of Heaven," that is the doors of the Battistero sculpted in metal by Ghiberti, who famously won the commission.

Let me try to think of an analogous situation. Imagine a group of Muslims encamped near, say, the Bridge in Concord (the rude bridge/that arched the flood - that one), or possibly near the Lincoln Monument. And imagine that everyday, though there were plenty of other places to urinate, they deliberately aimed their ruder streams not into the Concord River, but right on the bridge, or on the obelisk erected in 1836 that stands right before that bridge. Or imagine that they did so, and repeatedly, to the Lincoln Monument. I offered Cathy Young the testimony of an outraged Italian at the same site -- she appears not to have paid any attention.

Furthermore, she again shows no signs of being willing to read, ponder, and assimilate, the actual texts of Islam, immutable texts, as the Word of God, or the interpretive doctrine of "naskh" or "abrogation" which makes that Qur'anic text still more dangerous for Infidels.

She, contributor to "Reason" magazine, who presents herself as owing allegiance to no cult or belief-system, as impassively just in her judgements which, after all, are based on the ineluctable modality (yes, a last, belated tribute to Bloomsday) of Reason, Reason, Reason. But it is not Reasonable, even or especially for a Contributor to Reason Magazine, to refuse to study those texts, to refuse to examine tha that history, and to remain fixated on words that are every day belied by the articles put up here, such easy dismissive words as "bigoted" and -- still worse, much worse -- that sinister one-word attempt to silence well-informed and piercing criticism of Islam, "islamophobic."

No, she does not suffer from according automatic respect to a belief-system that is customarily, and a bit too big-tentishly, called a "religion." That word may explain the automatic respect that some, such as our president, apparently feel for Islam. It is a respect the rest of us will not accord quite so easily.

What is it that Cathy Young cannot bring herself to analyze or think clearly about? Why is it so hard for her to recognize that Ibn Warraq'as formulatio -- "There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate" is a truthful summary of the situation. And then, of course, the word "moderate" really means -- lax, unobsrevant, not taking completely seriously, ignoring large parts of, Islam. It is the full-bodied enthusiast, the "immoderate" Muslim, who worries us, and should. But as the membrane separating the category of "moderate" Muslim from "immoderate" Muslim is often breached, and there's a whole lot of osmotic activity, so that one never can be sure if today's "moderate" will not become tomorrow's "immoderate," and further, one has no way of knowing when that "moderation" is
either feigned, or more a fictive creation of Infidel wishing and hoping, and hoping and wishing.

It is too bad that Cathy Young thinks of herself, not quite accurately I'm afraid, as a creature of reason. She's become sufficiently americanized, I see, ona obamerikanilas', to embrace our version of "diversity" and "everyone wants the same thing" and "everyone desires freedom" and all the rest of the secular verison of the religious bomfoggery -- brotherhood-of-God-fatherhood-of-man stuff.

What a disappointment. One expects -- yes, despite all the counter-examples -- better from the children of Soviet refugees. Amazing what a decade or two in America can do to make people unlearn what they should never forget, and what their parents felt on their own pulses."

[Posted by: Hugh at June 23, 2006 06:21 PM]

Posted by: Hugh at May 17, 2007 1:43 PM

Cathy Young just will not budge,
Despite the facts, she's making fudge,
Augmenting now her thoughts on tinkle,
Behaving like an ensconced winkle.

Can we pry her from her perch?
Make her from her tower lurch?
Towards justice! Truth! Away from lies!
This gastropod our reason pries.

Posted by: jsla at May 17, 2007 1:44 PM

Just who is Cathy Young? Tell me why I should care
what she thinks anyway? What make her an expert on
Islamic teachings? Does she actually think she knows more about Islam than Robert and Hugh?

Posted by: silent_rage at May 17, 2007 1:46 PM

These lemmings say these things against you, Robert, because the current political climate stills allow them to wallow in lies and appeasement. But trust me, when the attacks upon the Iranian dreams of nuclear weapons begin, the entire world is going to find out that a huge chunk of the American people have become aware of the real enemy on this planet.

Islamic intent is to usurp the soul of our societies through any means necessary. If writers like Cathy Young can play their role in that, the CAIR founders will happily slide her some extra cash under the table to get her books published that much faster.

We aren't fools here. The enemies from the Muslim world have their seditionist and traitorous allies here in the United States and Europe.

I hope they enjoy getting rich on lies for now, because when the Truth seeps through, they might very well end up getting "rewards" they never dreamed of when they decided to side with the enemies of the Free World. Visions of Mussolini hanging from a tree come to mind.

Posted by: Foehammer at May 17, 2007 1:46 PM

And by Robert from June 2006:

Cathy Young's jihad against "Islamophobes"

Cathy Young, a writer for the Boston Globe and Reason magazine, is waging a campaign against "Islamophobes." She attacks Fallaci in today's Boston Globe, and Jihad Watch and Hugh Fitzgerald in the June issue of Reason magazine.

Fallaci gets the treatment in "Extremism and bigotry" in today's Globe. Some extracts, with my comments:

Such labels as ``bigotry" and ``Islamophobia" are often indiscriminately slapped on all outspoken critics of fanatical Muslim radicalism. But the real thing does exist....
Does it really? I suppose such labels could be applied to vigilante attacks on innocent people, but "Islamophobia" is in fact a newly coined word, manufactured only to stifle criticism of Islamic doctrine as a source for jihad violence. Here is a fuller response to one attempt to invest the term with some substance.

Fallaci, who is currently facing legal charges of defaming Islam in Italy, has many defenders who describe her as a passionate anti-Jihadist unfairly accused of racism. Yet her recent writings do have an unmistakable whiff of racism, indiscriminately lumping together radical Islamic terrorists and Somali vendors of fake designer bags who urinate on the street corners of Italy's great cities. Journalist Christopher Hitchens, himself a strong polemicist against radical Islamic fundamentalism, has described ``The Rage and the Pride" in The Atlantic magazine as ``a sort of primer in how not to write about Islam." He has noted that Fallaci's diatribes have all the marks of other screeds about filthy, disease-ridden, sexually threatening aliens....
There are several problems with this. One is that the Somali vendors and other Muslims in the West have not made any serious attempt to root jihad terrorists out of their ranks. Another is that such people as Young's Somali vendor do exist, and while they are not members of terrorist groups, they are manifesting disrespect for the country and culture to which they have come. Is Fallaci wrong to be indignant about that? Such disrespect, of course, stems from the same sources as jihadism: contempt for the infidel and for jahili society, the non-Islamic society of ignorance and impurity. Thus one feeds into the other.

And in any case, to suggest that by being indignant at this Fallaci is echoing "other screeds about filthy, disease-ridden, sexually threatening aliens" obscures the fundamental point: screeds about "filthy, disease-ridden, sexually threatening aliens," such as Nazi anti-Semitic tracts, were slanderous not only in those particulars, but in suggesting that those aliens had any plan to dominate or subjugate the host people. In contrast, the Islamic ideology of conquest and subjugation of infidels under Islamic law is not fiction; it is constantly reiterated not by "Islamophobes," but by jihadists. To take umbrage at a rapidly growing population among whom many, if not most, hold to that ideology and are ready to advance it by peaceful as well as violent means is not bigotry; it is common sense and self-preservation.

But some of Fallaci's own words as quoted by Talbot are quite damning.
About Muslim immigration, [Fallaci] tells Talbot: ``The tolerance level was already surpassed fifteen or twenty years ago . . . when the Left let the Muslims disembark on our coasts by the thousands."

This is damning? Damning, maybe, of Young's apparent ignorance of the implications, for the present and future, of massive and unrestrained Muslim immigration into Europe. Europe has admitted an unknown number of jihad terrorists, who move about freely within Muslim communities that, despite their protestations of moderation, have done nothing to expel them. The demographic trends for a suicidally self-absorbed modern European population are dire: many European countries will have Muslim majorities by the end of this century, and then we will see civil wars and Islamic states in Western Europe.

But in the face of this and more we are supposed to tut-tut Fallaci's concern about Muslim immigration as "Islamophobia." Well, I value too much about Europe as a social and cultural entity -- too much that will be destroyed by Islamization -- to accept that.

She rejects the idea that there can be a moderate Islam or moderate Muslims: ``Of course there are exceptions. Also, considering the mathematical calculation of probabilities, some good Muslims must exist. I mean Muslims who appreciate freedom and democracy and secularism. But . . . good Muslims are few."
As I have written many times, there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. All the orthodox sects of Islam, and all the schools of jurisprudence, teach the subjugation of the infidel, by violent means if necessary. This puts "good Muslims," even if they are a majority, at a distinct disadvantage when jihad recruiters come around preaching "pure Islam." They can mount, and have mounted, no serious Islamic response to the mujahedin -- and thus young men who want to serve a great cause and be serious about their religion join the jihad groups, and the "good Muslims" can do nothing to prevent this.

She claims, in a rather blatant distortion of history, that since its birth Islam has had a unique propensity among all religions to slaughter or enslave ``all those who live differently."
A blatant distortion of history? History, perhaps, of the Armstrong/Esposito whitewashed variety, but not the real thing. Islam is indeed unique among the religions of the world in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system mandating warfare against and subjugation of unbelievers. If Cathy Young believes that other religions have such doctrines, theologies, and legal systems, or that any sect or school of traditional Islam does not, she should produce evidence.

The planned building of a new mosque and Islamic center near Siena enrages Fallaci so much that she promises Talbot that, if she is alive at the time of its opening, she will blow it up: ``I do not want to see this mosque -- it's very near my house in Tuscany. I do not want to see a twenty-four-metre minaret in the landscape of Giotto. When I cannot even wear a cross or carry a Bible in their country!"
These are ugly words, based on the bizarre assumption that the West must respond to religious intolerance in many Muslim countries with religious intolerance of our own.

Here again, if we were talking about refusing to let a band of Amish build a church in the landscape of Giotto, that may be "ugly" religious intolerance. But Young thinks Fallaci's statement is "ugly" because she is unaware of or indifferent to the deep roots that the jihad ideology has within Islam. In light of that ideology, and its deep-rootedness, Fallaci's rhetorical excess is simply an expression of the will of one European to defend Europe. Would that more Europeans felt that way.

Despite its manifest problems, Islamic culture today is not monolithic. There are regions, such as Bosnia, where the Muslim populations are modern and moderate; there are progressive and reformist forces within Islam. In the United States, where the social and economic structures are far more flexible and more conducive to the integration of immigrants than in most of Europe, Muslim radicalism has not been a serious problem. (In the United States, all Muslim protests against the publication of the infamous Danish Mohammed cartoons have been nonviolent.)

Bosnia is a prime example of what I noted above: that cultural Muslims have no way to defend their communities from jihadist recruitment. And the fact that "Muslim radicalism has not been a serious problem" in the U.S. doesn't mean that it doesn't exist here, or that the overall goals of the mujahedin are not shared even by some who profess Islamic moderation.

The problems posed for the West, from within and without, by radical Islamic fundamentalism need to be honestly addressed.
Yes, they do. But Cathy Young has yet to do this, despite some close brushes with clear thinking.

But if this response turns to anti-Muslim bigotry -- which on some ``anti-jihadist" websites turns to defending Slobodan Milosevic's genocide against Bosnian Muslims -- it will leave us with little reason for hope. Fallaci's passion ultimately leads to a dead-end.
Has Fallaci defended Milosevic? If not, what is this paragraph doing in Young's story?

Of course, in this she may be speaking of this website, although any support for Milosevic that may have been expressed here came from unmoderated comments, for which I cannot coherently take any responsibility: if I did, I would have to take responsibility for all of them, and that would make me simultaneously an anti-jihadist and a jihad sympathizer, since many of the latter group have posted here. Or if Young or anyone else wishes to hold me responsible for only some of the comments here, then let them establish my sympathy with the views expressed by the commenters by reference to my own writings -- but that is something that neither she nor anyone else can do.

She may not be referring to Jihad Watch there, but she certainly refers to us (and Milosevic) in "The Jihad Against Muslims: When does criticism of Islam devolve into bigotry?" in the June issue of Reason.

...In some “anti-jihadist” circles, the Butcher of the Balkans was mourned as a misunderstood hero in the war against the Muslims.
On March 12, the group blog Infidel Bloggers Alliance ran an item titled “Memorable moment in the Milosevic trial.” It described, without further comment, an episode in which Milosevic tried to portray himself as fighting the same forces of terrorism now threatening the West. Co-bloggers chimed in with such comments as “Wouldn’t it be strange if Milosevic ends up being remembered by history as a hero and a kind of prophet?” and “Ever since 9/11, one question after another about whether we were on the wrong side in the Bosnian conflict has come up. The only thing you can trust a Muslim to be is a Muslim.” (Including, it seems, the famously secularized and nonradical Bosnian Muslims, some 100,000 of whom died in Milosevic’s assaults of the 1990s.) Similar attitudes, somewhat less stridently expressed, could be found on Jihad Watch, FrontPage, and other popular right-wing sites.

Once again, as the great avant-garde saxophonist Charles Gayle once responded to similar criticism, "Man, I ain't got no wings." But anyway, let Young produce any statement by me or Hugh Fitzgerald expressing support for Milosevic. If she cannot, then her mention of Jihad Watch in this context makes about as much sense as saying that Jihad Watch is an Islamic apologetics site, since some comments here have contained Islamic apologetics.

Words like "Islamophobia" and phrases like "anti-Muslim bigotry" are bandied about too liberally, often applied to those who merely criticize fanatical Islamic radicalism or point out the deep-seated problems in much of Muslim culture today. But the real thing does exist, and it frequently takes the cover of anti-jihadism.
Whoops. Recycled column alert! (I think the Reason piece came before the Globe one, actually.)

Jihad Watch—a fixture on the blogrolls of MichelleMalkin.com and Little Green Footballs, two of the most popular right-wing blogs—traffics fairly openly in such stuff. After the sister of Mohammed Taheri-Azar, the Iranian-born young man who had plowed his car into a crowd of students in North Carolina this March, expressed shock at her brother’s act, contributor Hugh Fitzgerald commented, “Why should Infidels take a chance, if the likelihood of their being able to distinguish the ‘moderate’ from the ‘immoderate’ Muslim is even slimmer than that of the closest relatives of those Muslims found to have engaged in…acts of terrorism?”
Fitzgerald’s phrasing may be fuzzy, but his sentiment is clear: All Muslims are a threat. Indeed, in another post Fitzgerald asserted that any Muslim who claims Islam’s teachings have been distorted by terrorists is “objectively furthering the Jihad”—and that a moderate Muslim who has not renounced Islam is still dangerous because his children may revert to the extremist form of the religion.

Fitzgerald's phrasing isn't fuzzy in the least. If Young thinks he is wrong, she should produce evidence of a clear distinction within the American Muslim community between those who support the global jihad and those who abhor it. Since she criticizes him for criticizing deceptive and factually wrong declarations that Islam teaches peace, she should produce evidence of a mainstream Islamic sect or school of jurisprudence that rejects the idea that the Islamic social order must be imposed upon non-Muslims. If she cannot do that, and she cannot, then her criticism of Hugh Fitzgerald is wrong on all counts.

Is Islam inherently more intolerant and violent than other faiths? That’s a complex question that many scholars, and many Muslim reformers, have grappled with for years. Because of the historical circumstances in which Islam emerged, its scriptures include many passages mandating armed struggle against “unbelievers,” ostensibly in response to oppression or persecution of Muslims. Other parts of the Koran, however, explicitly discourage aggression and counsel moderation in the struggle.
Here Young demonstrates that, while she may be aware of the distinction between the relatively (but not completely) peaceful Meccan suras and the more violent Medinan suras, she does not realize that traditional, mainstream Islamic sects consider that the Medinan suras supersede the Meccan ones.

The truth is that the canonical texts of every major religion are full of contradictory statements that can be cherry-picked for a variety of messages. The Bible contains expressions of intolerance, from divine commands for conquest and genocide to the mandate of death for anyone who tries to lead a Jew astray from the worship of the one true God. The Gospel of John literally demonizes Jews who do not accept Jesus as children of Satan, and while the gospels promote peaceful evangelizing, Christian doctrine for centuries mandated Christian rule by force.
Here we go again. Dhimmis never seem to tire of moral equivalence arguments, however empty. In the first place, it isn't cherry-picking when one realizes that not only are there violent texts in the Qur'an, but that these texts are merely one foundation, along with numerous passages of the Hadith, of a broad legal system mandating war against unbelievers. No other religion has this, or ever has had it. The Bible's "divine commands for conquest and genocide" have never been understood by any Jewish or Christian group as an open-ended mandate for the subjugation of unbelievers. Even the Crusades, which dhimmis like to invoke erroneously in this connection, did not proceed on the basis of such passages. Why do so many Muslims take violent passages of the Qur'an very seriously indeed, while Jews and Christians have never viewed supposedly equivalent passages of the Bible in the same way? That is not to say that Christians have never been violent -- obviously they have, but Young is flat wrong when she says that "Christian doctrine for centuries mandated Christian rule by force." She should produce such a doctrine, but she can't, because it doesn't exist. (And by the way, the Gospel of John says that about the Jewish leaders, but not Jews in general -- and it was written by a Jew, which further complicates the picture. Nor does it ever mandate violence against any group. But I digress.)

I’m not an expert on Islamic teachings. Then again, neither are the people convinced that Islam is a violent death cult.
Since in this Young is possibly referring to me, although I have never used such language, I wrote to her -- twice -- asking how it is that she came by her knowledge of what I know and don't know, and inviting her to a friendly debate with me on the content of Islamic teachings and their role in today's global jihad. No response. Maybe the name of the magazine should be changed from Reason to Prejudice.

What seems evident is that in much anti-Muslim rhetoric, criticism of the religion is enmeshed with cultural and ethnic hostility that extends to largely secularized immigrants from traditionally Muslim countries.
When mostly North African youths rioted in France, columnist Mark Steyn compared the rioters to “the Muslim armies of 13 centuries ago”; others spoke of a “French intifada.” Yet by all indications, the riots were driven by resentment about unemployment, discrimination, and the generally marginalized status of ethnic minorities in France. In one news report, an 18-year-old rioter named Ahmed was quoted as saying, “You wear these clothes, with this color skin, and you’re automatically a target for police.” He and his friends were not wearing traditional Muslim garb but polo shirts, sneakers, and T-shirts.

By all indications? And the evidence for this is that they were wearing polo shirts? The rioters were shouting "Allahu akbar." They attacked churches and synagogues. They attacked no mosques. But apparently Young would have us ignore all this because they were wearing polo shirts. Ralph Lauren may be pleased by this. I think it's irrelevant -- it manifests ignorance of how jihadists interact with Western society.

To the extent that many disaffected young North Africans and Arabs in France have been drawn to a radical Muslim identity, it seems to be the vehicle rather than the cause for their anger.
In other words, give them jobs, give them a role in French society, and they will be fine. It's all about assimilation. Young no doubt does not know that Muslim leaders in Europe have been preaching against assimilation for decades -- and now Europe is reaping the fruit of that preaching.

Likewise, the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci’s 2002 book The Rage and the Pride makes hardly any distinction between radical Islamic terrorists and Somali street vendors who supposedly urinate on the corners of Italy’s great cities. Christopher Hitchens, who described the book in The Atlantic as “a sort of primer in how not to write about Islam,” correctly notes that Fallaci’s diatribes have all the marks of other infamous screeds about filthy, disease-ridden, sexually threatening aliens.
Recycled Column Alert #2.

Yet The Rage and the Pride received only slightly qualified praise in conservative publications such as National Review and Commentary. Writing on National Review’s staff blog, The Corner, the neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen hailed it as “a terrific book” and commended Fallaci’s “wonderful way with words, as in 'the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day.'"
Uh oh, he's a "neoconservative." This is Young's way of signaling to her readers (and Young is by no means alone in this) that Ledeen is a bad guy, not to be trusted. But of course it has nothing to do with the substance of Fallaci's critique.

Young goes on to bash Mark Steyn and praise Irshad Manji, but the drumbeat remains consistent: jihad is bad, but so are those who resist it. That way, she says, lies Milosevic. Well, I'm not buying. And my invitation to Ms. Young for a public discussion of these issues remains open.

[Posted by Robert at June 12, 2006 06:01 AM]

Posted by: Hugh at May 17, 2007 1:48 PM

And another article by Robert on Young (worth dealing with because she is a representative, a type):

Forever Young

The last time I replied to Cathy Young, several people asked me why I bothered, and advised me against replying to any and every attack from anyone with a weblog. And of course that is true. Recently someone sent me the URL of a weblog of someone who had fabricated an entire dialogue with me -- with no indication, of course, that the exchange was fictional. And another site purports to catalog my enormities, but its operator has proven to be just a liar. That sort of thing is not worthy of any reply, but Cathy Young still writes for the Boston Globe, as well as Reason magazine, and while it is increasingly clear that she is impervious to logical argumentation on these matters, I reply again not only because of her ability to disseminate her views widely, but because no doubt people of good will who, like her, have not sufficiently informed themselves on these matters, think the way she does. If they see our exchange, perhaps some of them will come to perceive some realities they have hitherto not noticed.

Anyway, her latest, "JihadWatch.com and anti-Muslim bigotry," is here.

In it, she again takes up the irrelevant question of comparative knowledge of Islam, stating, in contradiction to her earlier statement, that I know more about it than she does, which may or may not be true, and then concluding:

Just as clearly, a lot of people who have at least as much knowlege of the subject as Robert Spencer does, or more, radically disagree with his interpretations.
I wish she would be specific on who she means here. The only people she mentions in the rest of the piece are Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes. If she means them, she will run into difficulty. More on that later.

On the subject of Oriana Fallaci's preoccupation with Somali street vendors in Italy, and her failure to distinguish between those vendors and Islamic terrorists, Spencer asks if I think it's inconceivable that jihadist terrorists could be recruited among Somali street vendors. Of course I don't think so. I do, however, think it's absurd to excoriate those vendors, as Spencer does, for failing to "make any serious attempt to root jihad terrorists out of their ranks" (a task that the average immigrant surely doesn't have the time, the resources, or for that matter the guts to undertake).
Here Cathy Young is adopting an extremely narrow and restrictive interpretation of what I said, in order to portray my statement in the worst possible light and simultaneously avoid dealing with the point I was actually trying to make. I was not actually calling upon Somali street vendors in Europe to begin engaging in energetic anti-jihad activities within Muslim communities there, although of course I and any sane person should welcome their doing so, if they found the time, the resources, and the guts. The actual point I was making was that the aggregate of moderate Muslims in Europe, among whom surely there must be a few who do have time, resources, and guts, there is no concerted or organized effort to combat the spread of the jihad ideology. This is a grave and telling omission. Cathy Young has ducked out of dealing with its implications by focusing on Somali street vendors.

Then Young jumps back to another red herring, public urination by Muslims. She ignores the point that was being made by Oriana Fallaci, and by Hugh Fitzgerald in the comments field to my last reply. The point was not that only Muslims urinate in public, but that they have targeted places of significance for European culture. As Hugh said during the last go-round:

Not Robert, but I, pointed out that the defecation and urination -- deliberately done when other places were available -- in churches (where Muslims have in the pastbeen given refuge as squatters by islamisant tiers-mondistes among Italian clergy, mocked by that old anti-clerical anti-fascist anti-Communist anti-everything Oriana Fallaci). And the particular incident that inflamed Fallaci were the streams of urine that flowed down the Baptistery in Florence, which the world-travelling Cathy Young may recall, and may also recall the effect of urine on the "Gates of Heaven," that is the doors of the Battistero sculpted in metal by Ghiberti, who famously won the commission.
Let me try to think of an analogous situation. Imagine a group of Muslims encamped near, say, the Bridge in Concord (the rude bridge/that arched the flood - that one), or possibly near the Lincoln Monument. And imagine that everyday, though there were plenty of other places to urinate, they deliberately aimed their ruder streams not into the Concord River, but right on the bridge, or on the obelisk erected in 1836 that stands right before that bridge. Or imagine that they did so, and repeatedly, to the Lincoln Monument. I offered Cathy Young the testimony of an outraged Italian at the same site -- she appears not to have paid any attention.

But to this Cathy Young replies only:

I'll leave it to the reader to decide who is veering toward the ridiculous. Spencer's "logic" seems to be that even if Muslims and non-Muslims are equally likely to pee in public places, when Muslims do it it's different and hostile toward "infidel society." And the evidence is .... ? (By the way, ranting is not quite the same thing as documenting.)
Well, the evidence was presented. If she may be excused for not reading Hugh's comment (although she read, and tried to use for her purposes, comments on previous posts), she likewise ignores this statement in my main reply: "Does the existence of public urination among non-Muslims somehow mean that public urination by Muslims is not ever and cannot be an expression of contempt for infidel society? Even when that urination targets landmarks of that society, as Fallaci has documented?" Fallaci was ranting, and not documenting? But Fallaci likewise lists specific incidents of these acts of contempt. Yet Young is evidently sure, despite the widespread presence among Muslims in Europe of an ideology that justifies such contempt, and the ready presence of facilities that would make this targeting of monuments unnecessary, that these acts have no significance. Why? Because non-Muslims urinate in public also. For someone who writes for a magazine called Reason, this is a disheartening incidence of narrow dogmatism and unwillingness to consider evidence.

Spencer also disputes my claim that JihadWatch has labeled Bernard Lewis, the eminent historian of Islam who warned about the danger of Islamic radicalism all the way back in 1990, a "dhimmi." He says that the article I linked does not support such a claim. Never mind that it appeared in the "Dhimmi Watch" section of the site.
We have never called Bernard Lewis a dhimmi. We have disagreed with certain elements of his analysis. The articles about him appeared at Dhimmi Watch because Dhimmi Watch, as the explanation on the left side of the page should make clear, deals not only with outright dhimmitude but also with academic distortions of the elements of Islam that give rise to fanaticism and violence. For Bernard Lewis to engage in some of these distortions, as in his dismissal of "dhimmi-tude" and of the Islamic grounds for suicide attacks, and for us to speak about it here does not make him a dhimmi. It had to be posted either here or on the Jihad Watch side; I suppose that if I had posted it there Young would be saying I called Lewis a mujahid. I don’t have a “Great and Renowned Professors of Middle East Studies With Whom I Largely Agree But With Whom I Have Some Disagreements Watch.” Perhaps I should register that domain. But until then, appearing in the New York Times does not make one a New Yorker; appearing in Time magazine doesn’t make one a wristwatch (and no, I am not comparing us to the NYT or Time mag). In employing this Argument By Masthead, Young is once again grasping at straws, apparently so intent on portraying us as wicked Islamophobes that she cannot even take my avowal of the importance of Bernard Lewis' work and denial that we consider him a dhimmi at face value.

Finally, Spencer takes issue with this passage:
...honesty about the harsher and darker aspects of Islam and Islamic history is not the same as tarring all of Islam with the same brush and denying that the moderate strands even exist.
Spencer calls this a "little calumny," and asserts that he does, in fact, acknowledge the existence of moderate Muslims and moderate strands of Islam.

Cathy Young has misread what I wrote. I said that "I have discussed (and Hugh Fitzgerald has as well) the issue of moderate Muslims and moderate Islam at great length, again and again." I did not say that I "acknowledge the existence of moderate Muslims and moderate strands of Islam," although of course I have said many times that the existence of moderate Muslims is an obvious fact, while moderate Islam remains elusive. There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate: all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence and all sects generally recognized as orthodox teach, with some variations, violent jihad and the necessity to impose Islamic law over the world.

What I took issue with as a calumny was Young's assertion that I tar "all of Islam with the same brush and [deny] that the moderate strands even exist." If I could not adduce evidence of the jihad ideology from all the madhahib, and were misrepresenting the teaching of some "strands" of Islam as the teaching of all of them, Young might have a case. But she is assuming I am doing that without evidence, and assuming that moderate Muslims represent an established tradition within Islamic theology and law -- again without evidence.

As an example, he cites this item, about a Muslim named Souleiman Ghali who has been fighting a battle against more hardline Muslims in San Francisco (and has lost some court battles when a radical imam accused him of wrongful discharge). All right then, a few questions: Does Spencer believe, as his website argues, that a moderate Muslim like Ghali is still a danger to the West because he has not renounced Islam and because his children may yet revert to a more militant form of it?
I thought the story of Ghali, who lost battles again and again against jihadists in San Francisco, was extremely revealing of the sensibilities of American Muslims. I never said or suggested that Ghali himself is a danger to the West. I would like to know, however, how Cathy Young can guarantee that Ghali's children will not "revert to a more militant form" of Islam. We recently saw that Nada Farooq, the wife of one of the suspected Canadian jihadists, is much more militant than her parents, who left Saudi Arabia to escape strict Islamic law. This is a phenomenon that needs to be acknowledged; no amount of scorn that Cathy Young can heap upon it will make it go away. Can she point to programs in mosques designed to keep this radicalization of youth from happening? Can she bring forth textbooks and seminars conducted by Muslims for Muslims, to counter the jihad ideology? She cannot. Yet she still attempts to suggest that even raising this question is somehow prima facie evidence of bigotry.

Had he pointed out the existence of Muslims like Ghali to his friend Oriana Fallaci, who is very vocal in her assertion that there is no such thing as moderate Islam, there is only one Islam?
Oriana Fallaci and I have talked extensively about these matters, in fact. But here Young is confusing the existence of moderate Muslims with the existence of moderate Islam. There is not only one Islam; there are many Islams, but none of those Islams that are generally considered orthodox reject jihad and Sharia supremacism. If Cathy Young thinks I am wrong in this, she should adduce some actual evidence to that effect.

Does he find it troubling that on his own site, the commenters on the item about Ghali put the word "moderate" in scare quotes and argue that Ghali needs to convert to another religion?
No more than that it troubles me that at my own site, Islamic apologists attempt to convert people to Islam and defend jihad violence. Unlike some vanity bloggers who allow only comments telling them how great they are, I allow virtually unrestricted commenting here. Comments are unmoderated, although if someone calls my attention to a post that is abusive or genocidal or obscene, I will remove it. As I said before, and as Cathy Young seems to have some difficulty grasping, if she thinks I agree with any given comment, let her establish that I believe what that comment said from my own writings. But of course, that she cannot do.

Spencer links to several other items in which he discusses moderate Muslims. The first two are attacks on moderate Muslims. The third asserts that while there are some moderate Muslims, they are not true Muslims at all because the essence of Islam is militant, and all attempts to reform Islam are quixotic. Indeed, Spencer specifically states:
Some analysts have maintained that to note the existence of moderate Muslims is to assume the existence also of moderate Islam, but there is no reason why this must be the case, and the analysis itself betrays an awareness of the contents of the texts without a concomitant awareness of the realities of Islamic history and culture.
Yet, in response to my assertion that he does not recognize the existence of moderate Islam, he points to an item in which he mentions a moderate Muslim.

Sleight of hand, anyone?

No. Her assertion, as I explained above, was actually that I tar "all of Islam with the same brush and [deny] that the moderate strands even exist." I was responding to that, and showing her that I had discussed the problem of Islamic moderation in some detail and on many occasions. If she thinks my conclusions are wrong, let her bring evidence. But that she cannot do.

The she goes on to criticize an Andrew Bostom piece I posted here a few days ago, in which he says that "the Koran’s 'verses of peace', frequently cited by both Muslim and non-Muslim apologists, most notably verse 2:256, 'There is no compulsion in religion', were all abrogated by the so-called verses of the sword...":

But here's the curious thing. The "Jihad Watchers" claim that Islam is uniquely impervious to reformation because its adherents regard all of its dictates as the absolute word of God, beyond human interpretation or reinterpretation. Yet here, Bostom is, in fact, talking about human interpretation by "classical Muslim Koranic commentators." What man can interpret, man can reinterpret.
In fact, I have never said that Islam is "uniquely impervious to reformation," although I have pointed out that such reformation will be extremely difficult -- precisely because mainstream Islamic thought on those "classical Muslim Koranic commentators" is that their interpretations cannot be challenged. Cathy Young has evidently never heard of the gates of ijtihad -- that is, open interpretation of Islamic texts in order to formulate laws -- or of the fact that they were closed a thousand years ago, and that mainstream Islamic sects and schools teach that all major questions have long been settled.

She then adduces Daniel Pipes, who points out that the Qur'an can be interpreted. Of course it can. The question is to what extent, and to what end. Young repeats Pipes' discussion of the thought of Mahmud Muhammad Taha, without pointing out that Taha was executed in 1985 for heresy, and his followers compelled to renounce his teachings. So this sterling example of a Muslim reformer is actually an example of the difficulties reformers face. But we don't hear that from Cathy Young.

Anyway, before she goes too far in putting a white hat on Pipes and a black one on me, Cathy Young also may be interested in what Pipes said about my book Onward Muslim Soldiers:

To understand the ideological sources of the terrorist enemy, read Robert Spencer's succinct, knowledgeable, and important book, Onward Muslim Soldiers. His systematic survey of such vital topics as radical Islam's aspirations, its unlikely alliance with the far left, and the need to encourage a moderate Islamic alternative are all valuable. But Spencer's signal contribution is his focus on the 'global threat to the West' that so many Western analysts and policymakers persistently refuse to see: jihad, or sacred war for Islam. There is no more important topic for citizens to comprehend.
Back to you, Cathy:

Spencer argues that Islam, unlike Christianity, has a specific theological mandate to expand by force and to convert, kill or subjugate nonbelievers. To this I can only say that, mandate or no, historically Christianity (until relatively recently) does not seem to have been far behind Islam when it comes to forcible conversion, slaughter or subjugation. Christianity has modernized; Islam, by and large, has not. The theological and cultural causes of this can be debated ad infinitum. Islamic reformation may well be more difficult than Christian reformation. It does not follow that it's impossible.
Right. But why will it be more difficult? Why has Christianity modernized and Islam has not? I am not going to be cowed by Cathy Young or anyone else into not daring to investigate these questions, and I am not going to shrink from pointing out that Islam has a doctrine of violence and subjugation while Christianity does not. The existence of such a doctrine is a matter of fact, not bigotry. Let Cathy Young prove me wrong if she can. Anyway, this question is distinct from that of what evil has been committed by Muslims or Christians or anyone else. No group has a monopoly on evil. But if Islam has a doctrine of violent jihad and subjugation, peaceful Muslims must confront and repudiate it. Accusing those who point this out of "Islamophobia" is not quite the same thing as genuine reform.

Theological debates aside, the incontrovertible fact is that many so-called "anti-Jihadists" use well-founded concerns about Islamic radicalism to promote bigotry and paranoia. The false alarm about the alleged "Jihadist connection" in the suicide of a University of Oklahoma student last fall was one such example.
Lots of strange questions about that one. Perhaps Cathy Young would be so kind as to provide answers to them -- answers free from "bigotry and paranoia."

The blog rumors about a "Jihadist connection" in the murder of a Coptic Christian family in Jersey City, were another. (JihadWatch continued to stoke these suspicions even after the alleged murderers were arrested and the case turned out to be a "simple" robbery.)
In that case, I was approached by a Copt who said he was a close friend of the murdered family. He gave me names and addresses, as well as a motive, of the people he said committed the murder. His story was confirmed by other Copts in New Jersey. I turned this information over to police. When others were arrested in the case, the Copts who had contacted me and some others had some lingering questions. Those questions have never yet been answered. If Cathy Young or the Jersey City police would care to answer them, I would appreciate hearing the answers. I don't know what motive the Copts with whom I spoke could have had in passing on false information to me, and I think there is much more to this case than meets the eye -- which is not to say that I think at this point that it was a jihad slaying. In any case, I never presented the material I had been given as certainly true; in fact, I never published here or anywhere most of what I had been told. For Cathy Young to present all this as continuing to stoke suspicions simply ignores a good deal of what happened. But it doesn't seem from her whole reply that sticking to the facts is very high on her list.

And here, again courtesy of JihadWatch.com, is the latest example: a news story about a Safeway clerk in Denver, Colorado, Michael Julius Ford, who went on a shooting spree at work and was shot dead by a SWAT team. Ford's mother and sister said that he had been teased at work about being a Muslim -- a fact that is duly highlighted by JihadWatch.com...
All right, Ms. Young. It was reported that his mother and sister said that. Did they not say it? Should I have ignored that they said it, despite the fact that it was the only actual clue presented as to the shooter's motive? They denied saying it later, in fact, and I reported that too. In any case, Young's coup de grace follows that:

Because, as we all know, non-Muslims never snap and go on shooting sprees at work or at school.
But, of course, when Muslims do it, it's different. Just like public urination.

Were there no jihad ideology or impulse toward Sharia supremacism, were there no deeply inculcated contempt for unbelievers, Young's point would hold: human nature, after all, is everywhere the same, and people of all kinds snap. It would be absurd to assert that evil is the province of only one group, and of course I never have, despite Young's attempt at a reductio ad absurdum here. The problem is that she seems adamantine in her unwillingness to acknowledge the possibility that something is known as a religion could teach anything but general benevolence, and to point out otherwise could be anything but bigotry.

It is this kind of willful ignorance that leaves us so vulnerable to continuing jihad activity in the West.

[Posted by Robert at July 6, 2006 06:53]

Posted by: Hugh at May 17, 2007 1:52 PM

And one more posting anent Cathy Young by me at a previous thread that shows how well-intentioned and sweetly-reasoned we were prepared to be, toward the person who, despite the connection to "Reason" Magazine, turns out to be the terminally confused Cathy Young:

"But Cathy Young has yet to do this, despite some close brushes with clear thinking."
--- from the article above

Clicking on the link brings a JW piece (Sept,. 19, 2005) by Cathy Young that appeared in The Boston Globe; it is favorable, and so are the comments. In my second posting (I include the first because it serves as glossing antiphon to Robert's allusion to Back Bay readers of newspapers (or as Cathy Young, remembering her Tsvetaeva, might put it, those "chitateli gazet," who become one entire newspaper "so lba do pupa"):

"Boston Globe: 'For a variety of reasons, the bigotry and hate in Islam are perilously close to the mainstream'

"The readers of the Boston Globe sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn, for their paper sways dizzily from dhimmitude to anti-dhimmitude -- attempting to be even-handed, I guess. When evening quickens faintly in the street, wakening the appetites of life in some and to others bringing the Boston Globe, mount the steps and ring the bell, turning wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Hugh Fitzgerald, if the street were time and he at the end of the street, and tell Cousin Harriet to take solace in this piece:

"Muslims and the Holocaust," by Cathy Young in the Globe, with thanks to Scaramouche:

RECENTLY IN England, four Muslim-staffed committees appointed to advise Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Cabinet on issues related to Islam have come up with a recommendation: Get rid of an official event viewed as offensive to Muslims. What event would that be? A celebration of the Crusades, perhaps? No, Holocaust Memorial Day.

In the words of one committee member, ''The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims. It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one people are to be remembered more than others."

That ''one people," of course, are the Jews.

The committees aren't exactly proposing that the Holocaust commemoration be scrapped outright. They want it to be folded into a ''Genocide Memorial Day" that will also include such crimes as the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda and the massacres of Bosnian Muslims by the Milosevic regime.

Unfortunately, even against the bloody backdrop of the 20th century, there are strong reasons to regard the Nazi extermination of the Jews as a unique atrocity. It was the first, and so far the only time that, as Cornell University historian Stephen Katz put it in his 1994 book ''The Holocaust in Historical Context," that ''a state set out, as a matter of intentional principle and actualized policy, to annihilate physically every man, woman, and child belonging to a specific people."

But the problem with the proposal goes far deeper. The other ''genocides" for which they want recognition include the Israeli killings of Palestinians.

Clearly, Palestinians have suffered under the occupation. Over 4,000 have been killed since the renewal of violence five years ago. Some of these dead were completely innocent victims; others were fighters, violent protesters, or suicide bombers. (Nearly 1,000 Israelis have died as well.) This death toll is tragic; but to call it ''genocide" is to cheapen the word.

This is inadequate. It is true that some were fighters, violent protesters, and suicide bombers. It is also true that some were innocent victims. But the number of those innocents was inflated by the Palestinian Arabs themselves, by their deliberate practice of staging attacks from civilian areas, so that when the Israelis retaliated they would kill civilians -- and thus provide useful propaganda.

But in any case, read it all."

Posted by Robert at September 19, 2005 08:30 AM

Posting 1.

"Robert---

If you feel the need to employ The Boston Evening Transcript again, try the anecdote about the Harvard entomologist correctly identifying its flapping pages in "Speak Memory" -- it's a much funnier use of that most Boston-Brahmin of papers, the S. S. Pierce of papers, than anything thought up by that humorless son of a St. Louis furrier whom you insist on liking.

[Posted by: Hugh at September 19, 2005 09:17 AM]

Posting #2

"Catherine Young, a contributing editor at REASON Magazine, for some unfathomable reason managed to be hired by the Op/Ed editors at The Boston Globe. Unfathomable, because she is perfectly sensible, and has not panned out, I am sure, in the way that those editors who control that page expected she would -- with something like their opinions and their take on the world. They assumed she would be a voice of their kind of "reason" and would end up echoing their views -- and hasn't. Ooops. Won't make that mistake again. For Young turned out to be just a little too -- well, a little too much a voice of REASON, and not merely the "voice of a woman." So she is one of those who manages to balance such incurably misleading commentators on the world as the now-retired but still odiously Israel-bashing H. D. S. Greenway (who never referred to, in all of his years of heading the Globe's Middle East Bureau in Jerusalem, the matter of Islam, and seemed a year ago genuinely surprised to learn that the Copts were having any difficulties in Egypt -- Peroncel-Hugoz Greenway isn't), and the outside contributors from sophisticiated Europe we are all supposed to enjoy, such as Jonathan Powers and earlier, William Pfaff -- both of them absolutely predictable in their views of Islam (positive), America (negative), Israel(unspeakable).

Young is asymptotically approaching the truth about Islam, but as Robert notes above, not fast enough, and not close enough, for some of us. And it is clear she hasn't yet gone to the texts, but I suspect she will. REASON Magazine is connected to people such as the Humanist Society (which rings quaintly), and the Humanists are the kind of people whose once-newfangled skepticism about religion now seems to some so old-fashioned. Still, in the context of the Globe, where the Israel-bashing H.D.S. Greenway comes out of his bow-tied, Chinese-vased retirement once a week to spread his venom, and over on the editorial page (which isn't bad sometimes) that cluck-clucking over the sensible remarks of Romney about mosque-monitoring (which should be taken note of by those for whom a candidate's attitude toward Islam is the single most important determinant of their support), Young is a welcome addition. She also knows Russian and the Soviet Union, two points in her favor. She has to tread warily, no doubt. And hasn't yet focussed as much as she should on the teachings and history of Islam. But let her read a few books by Bat Ye'or, and Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim" and his essay on Islam and Fascism, and she will be up to speed, and smuggling more and more of the truth in. And The Globe would be far worse than it is, without her."

[Posted by: Hugh at September 19, 2005 09:19 AM]

When I wrote the penultimate sentence to that ultimate posting, on September 19, 2005, I assumed that Young had endured a Soviet childhood, which not always, but often, leads to a higher incidence of political common sense, because one, or one's parents, have lived through the dying days of a totalitarian belief-system, and therefore one is less likely to smilingly accept the most naive views of other imperfectly understood belief-systems that claim to offer a Total Explanation of the Universe and, in the case of Islam, a Complete Regulation of Life as well.

I assumed she would, as a contributor to Reason Magazine, study Islam through the intelligent offerings of defectors from it, much as one would study the Soviet System through the works of those who had never accepted the system (for example, Mark Aldanov -- ne Landau -- in his early work "Lenine" written in 1919, or Bunin, or Nabokov, or any of the millions of highly intelligent exiles from Russia who lived in Paris, Berlin, Prague, Shanghai, Harbin, Buenos Aires, New York, and places in between, trying to get the message out to a largely uncomprehending world), or who had been raised in it (Yelena Bonner, Andrey Sakharov, Yuli Galanskov, Andrey Amalrik, Edward Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Solzhenitysn, Joseph Brodsky, and many others).

I assumed she would want to read Ibn Warraq's essay on Islam and Fascism, would want to read "Why I Am Not a Muslim," would want to read the testimonies of former Muslims collected by Ibn Warraq in "Leaving Islam." I assumed she would want to read what Irfan Khawaja and Azam Kamguian have written, or a thousand other highly intelligent people born, through no fault of their own, into Islam, and who found their way out of it, and have carefully identified the way in which it continues to exercise its hold on the minds of men. I assumed she would want to visit the website of Ali Sina, www.faithfreedom.org, to find out what another ex-Muslim, tireless in his debates, and generously receptive to posting the articles of other ex-Muslims, had to say. I assumed she would be reading, with great interest, the scholarship of Bat Ye'or on the treatment of Christians and Jews under Islam, beginning with "The Dhimmi," and proceeding to "Islam and Dhimmitude," and then to "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam." And then I hoped she would read Bat Ye'or's work on the fate of Europe -- "Eurabia." I thought she might visit www.dmimmitude.org for other articles. I thought that Cathy Young might take time from her not-terribly-taxing schedule at "Reason" Magazine (and the quasi-reprinting of pieces at The Boston Globe) to really investigate what is in the Qur'an and Hadith, and not rely so much on the anecdotal evidence of nice Muslims she has known -- whose ability to misrepresent either their own views, or the contents of Islam -- whether out of nothing more sinister than filial piety or embarrassment hardly matters in the end -- to unwary Infidels, who do not know enough, have not studied enough, to judge for themselves.

I thought that she would read "While Europe Slept" and "The Legacy of Jihad" -- that compendium of useful scholarship that has been carefully covered over by current apologists for Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim who have assumed power over many academic departments, including most famously that of Columbia.

I had assumed all kinds of things, because I thought Cathy Young was a believer in skeptical inquiry. I thought she might actually come to the same conclusions as Hume and Bertrand Russell (who surely must be a tutelary spirit at "Reason" Magazine, and whose scathing remarks on Islam in both "The Theory and Practise of Bolshevism" and in his "Unpopular Essays" perhaps need to be read by Cathy Young), as Pavel Kohout and Yelena Bonner, as Ibn Warraq and Oriana Fallaci and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, all those famous skeptics in the history o philosophy, or former dissidents in the Soviet Union, or former Muslims, who have shown a spirit of inquiry and analysis that, I'm afraid, Cathy Young has not emulated -- not even tried to emulate.

A melancholy sight, the spectacle of someone who should have studied and thought more, but failed to do so, before passing hasty and ill-founded judgment.

Having failed to do so, Cathy Young is now unlikely to respond to the criticisms here by now engaging in that further study once suggested to her. Or if she does, it will likely be in a spirit of looking for justification for what she hastily concluded (about Oriana Fallaci, about me, about Islam), rather than in a spirit of starting over, rethinking the whole matter of Islam, its tenets, and its history, and trying to discover the truth. Someone suffering from wounded amour-propre can as a result have his reason clouded, even if that someone is a Contributing Editor to "Reason" Magazine.

[Posted by: Hugh at June 12, 2006 12:44 PM]

Posted by: Hugh at May 17, 2007 1:58 PM

Finally, there is one last posting, which is largely a refutation of Cathy Young's nastiness about Oriana Fallaci. I didn't translate it then, and I don't have time to translate it now, but perhaps Stefania (I hope others noted her link, yesterday, to Magdi Allam's speech about Israel) will do it:

"Here is a report, at "Sto Con Oriana" ("I'm With Oriana") on Florence today, which shows that the "lumping together" of the Tribe of Vu Cumpra (the largely, though not exclusively, Muslim immigrants who sell their counterfeit wares, blocking historic sites and entire narrow streets, with their blankets of goods spread out, as they sell (i.e. cheat) visitors, mostly tourists, and create an atmosphere of aggressive bustle and violence that have transformed so many sites of artistic interest, especially in Florence, where every street, every alley, every corner contains something of interest -- now often blocked by the Vu Cumpra.

The author also notes that in "The Rage and the Price" (pages 120-126) Oriana Fallaci had objected not to "urination in Italian cities" as a general, Bowery-bum problem (of the kind known everywhere), but specifically to that of Muslims aiming direclty at or on works of Christian significance. She deplored, for example, the way in which a group of Somalis, without any papers, simply set up a tent in the very heart of Florence, at the Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), and proceeded to live there for months. They urinated on the Baptistery (Battistero), even on that most famous sculpture in the history of Western art, the Doors ("of Paradise"), that Ghiberti made for the Battistero, depicting scenes from both the Old and New Testaments. There was no reason to urinate on the Battistero, or its doors; there were plenty of other places to urinate, and certainly even if there had been none, why deliberately direct one's stream against a monument of Western art?

The article below notes that even today, the yellow streams of that urine are still visible on the Battistero.

Cathy Young, however, did not read Fallaci with care. Cathy Young appears unaware of what happened to the Battistero in Florence, or to many other churches used by squatters, or to the statuary (both Christian and pagan) in public places, from the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, to small Umbrian towns. Perhaps Cathy Young doesn't want to hear about what Muslims do to statuary, to paintings, or the rest of it. For if she did, if she took it all in, and understood it, then she would be able to make more sense of more things She would have realized, for example, realized that the blowing up of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban with technical help from Pakistani and Saudi engineers, was not an exception, but part of a 1350-year pattern, this one made possible by the wonders of modern explosive technology. That pattern of behavior, prompted by Islam, also explains the kind of destruction wrought on temples, stupas, statues of Buddha or Hindu gods, in Central Asia, Hindustan, and south Asia -- the common lot of non-Muslim artifacts.

Here is that report:

"Firenze, bella, bellissima come sempre! Ore 10.00 del mattino di un giorno qualsiasi di Maggio. Piazza Duomo brulica di turisti, gruppi ordinati con i loro cappellini calati in testa che seguono la guida, fanno la coda per entrare in Duomo o per salire sul campanile di Giotto o per accedere al Battistero. Imbocco via dei Calzaiuoli, pochi minuti e sono in piazza della Signoria, praticamente un museo a cielo aperto; due passi più in là ed ecco la Galleria degli Uffizi. Ai lati un’umanità varia fatta in prevalenza di africani e magrebini vende di tutto: cianfrusaglie, cd contraffatti, stampe, occhiali, borse e borsette taroccate. Quando cammini devi stare attento a dove metti i piedi per non calpestare le mercanzie; mi metto in disparte sotto la statua di Dante ed osservo. All’improvviso con gesti fulminei, due o tre secondi al massimo, i venditori abusivi raccattano tutto e si dileguano ai lati della piazza come tanti topi che abbiano intravisto un gatto all’orizzonte. Il gatto, nella fattispecie, è rappresentato da un’auto della polizia che sta arrivando a passo d’uomo; giunta in fondo alla piazza si gira e riprende la marcia in senso contrario. Pericolo passato, i venditori abusivi ritornano e in modo altrettanto fulmineo riespongono la merce. Il gatto è lì a circa cento metri, una accettabile distanza di sicurezza. Mi sposto di poche decine di metri ed ecco l’Arno, svolto a destra in Lungarno Anna Maria Luisa Dè Medici e subito dopo ecco Lungarno degli Archibugieri. Sia sul lato destro che sinistro della strada ovvero sui marciapiedi, camminare è difficoltoso; per terra ogni genere di mercanzia ti costringe ad uno slalom continuo fino all’imbocco di Ponte Vecchio. Qui i venditori abusivi sembrano più distesi e per nulla preoccupati di eventuali “gatti” che pure sono a poche centinaia di metri. Allungo il giro ed arrivo in Borgo S.Lorenzo; lo spettacolo è lo stesso, decine di extracomunitari con i loro banchetti mobili fatti di cartone occupano buona parte della strada; pochi metri ed ecco S.Lorenzo.
Ore 21.00. Mi dirigo verso S.Maria Novella, davanti al sagrato e nei giardini prospicienti una ventina di persone bivaccano, non capisco la lingua, ma potrebbe essere slava o albanese. Sul lato della Chiesa, invece, stessa scena, ma qui il gruppo è fatto di africani. Mi azzardo a chiedere da dove provengono, mi guardano storto, ma poi qualcuno azzarda un “Somalia”.
Non posso fare a meno di ricordare quanto Oriana Fallaci racconta in “La Rabbia e l’Orgoglio” ovvero di quando i musulmani somali tirarono su una gran tenda e per mesi oltraggiarono piazza Duomo perché il governo non rinnovava i passaporti. Una tenda posta di fronte alla cattedrale di S.Maria del Fiore e al lato del Battistero per di più fornita di corrente elettrica (gratis) da parte dell’Enel. E insieme alle loro radio con la voce sguaiata dei muezzin, le strisce di urina sui marmi del Battistero e il fetore dello sterco che bloccava il portone di San Salvatore al Vescovo. Ma ce le ricordiamo queste cose? I fiorentini se le ricordano queste cose? No? Allora fate un piccolo sforzo, rileggetevi “La Rabbia e l’Orgoglio”, da pagina 120 a pagina 126. Si racconta anche dei venditori sui marciapiedi, delle prostitute, degli spacciatori, della loro arroganza, dell’arrendevolezza del Comune. Affretto il passo e tiro avanti. Il mio giro mi ha riportato dalla parti di Ponte Vecchio; giro per via Por Santa Maria e qui lo spettacolo è tale e quale a quello del mattino. Venditori ovunque, un taxi tenta faticosamente di passare, ma loro non fanno una piega, non si spostano di un millimetro; il taxi ce l’ha fatta, ma dopo di lui eccone un altro: sarà altrettanto abile a districarsi tra i banchetti? Il passeggio mi ha condotto di nuovo in Piazza della Signoria; percorro via dei Calzaiuoli che al mattino appariva stranamente sgombra. Ora le cose sono cambiate, anche qui decine di extracomunitari si sono piazzati ai lati della via pedonale; arriva un’auto della Polizia Municipale e loro raccattano tutto in un baleno (scena già vista). L’auto procede lentamente con il finestrino abbassato, sopra due vigili, il maschio guida mentre la femmina siede accanto. Una signora si avvicina all’auto ed inveisce contro i vigili:”Vergogna, questa è una vergogna. Guardate come è ridotta la città? E voi cosa fate? Nulla! Io pago le tasse e voi non fate assolutamente nulla!”
“Va bene signora, anch’io pago le tasse esattamente come lei” si limita a rispondere il vigile. Io sto ad un paio di metri, mi avvicino all’auto.
“Prego, anche lei deve fare le sue rimostranze?” mi chiede il vigile. E come potrei? Sarebbe come sparare sulla Croce Rossa. Il mio analogico è conciliante:”E’ così tutte le sere?” chiedo.
“Sempre” risponde il vigile “La gente protesta, ma noi che ci possiamo fare? Il problema sta a monte. Quando arrivano a centinaia o migliaia se fossero rimandati a casa loro anziché accolti, forse non saremmo in queste condizioni, e questo non vuol dire essere razzisti” aggiunge.
“Certo deve essere frustrante per voi?” incalzo io.
“Altroché e poi, se nessuno comprasse nulla anche loro forse se ne andrebbero. La colpa è anche di noi italiani che compriamo e ancora di più di quelli che gli forniscono la merce” risponde “Ogni sera è la stessa storia, spariscono per pochi secondi, aspettano che ci siamo allontanati di 50 metri e poi tutto ritorna come prima”.
“Tutti abusivi?” domando.
“Tutti!” è la ovvia risposta.
“Con regolare permesso di soggiorno?” chiedo.
“Quasi nessuno” è la risposta altrettanto ovvia.
Sarà provocatorio, ma gliela butto lì:”Chissà cosa direbbe una vostra famosa concittadina se fosse qui a vedere”.
“La Fallaci?” questa volta è la donna che ha parlato “Grande Oriana, c’è una mia amica che stravede per lei” aggiunge.
“Ma il vostro sindaco mica tanto” faccio io.
Sorridono. “Per nulla” dice sempre la donna “Proprio per nulla”
“Allora una statua non gliela fate?” azzardo io.
“Finchè ci sarà Dominici no di sicuro”.
Mi congedo con un “Allora buona serata” . Loro sorridono, hanno capito che è una battuta e riprendono la marcia. Domani sarà un altro giorno. Uguale. Ma la cosa che più fa male è che a Torino, a Genova, a Venezia, a Roma, a Milano la situazione è la stessa!"

[Posted by: Hugh at June 12, 2006 11:00 AM]

I just noted Dan's kind words 38 minutes after this post. Thank you, Dan.

Posted by: Hugh at May 17, 2007 2:05 PM

CNN has a video up today showing the bloody public stoning of a teenage girl for dating a boy not of her particular muslim sect.

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2007/05/17/black.iraq.stoning.cnn

This was in Kurdish territory with onlookers snapping shots on their cell phones, and security guards just standing by.

Let Cathy look at scenes like that and try to say Islam isn't violent!

Posted by: elcordobes at May 17, 2007 2:05 PM

Regarding Robert's pointed question about Christopher Hitchens: Bob Novak, a well-known Catholic commentator, has a piece in today's NRO

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDRhYTc4N2IxMDEwNTY2Zjc3Y2NlNDIxYTc4MWQ2MmI=

that praises Hitchens while taking exception and gently remonstrating with his fanatical hostility to all things religious. I agree, from my perch in the protestant fundamentalist world. Hitchens is a superb essayist, and a clear thinker on most subjects, but he becomes unreasoning when he encounters theism of any kind. Many earnest Christians will pray for Hitchens' redemption, while it seem probable to me that many earnest Muslims will pray for his death on account of his blasphemy that "God is not great." And each will do so fully in keeping with the historic teachings of the respective religions. Another illustration of how it is that, in the real world, Christianity is a religion of peace, and Islam isn't.

Thanks, Robert, for your superb work.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite at May 17, 2007 2:21 PM

Though vaguely and briefly mentioning "modernization," hoping that Muslims will embrace it, Cathy Young fails to provide any constructive suggestions as to how we (everyone; humanity) might deal with the problems in Islam. Her article again, like her previous ad hominem and misrepresentations of Robert's views, contains little more than posturing and preening with no substance, no evidence, no research. Young fails to tell us how criticism of Islam should be done. The fact that she has, repeatedly, been unable to specify what she thinks is an acceptable way of criticising Islam raises the distinct possibility that she believes that Islam should not be criticized at all by non-Muslims. If that is the case, then she should come out and say so explicitly.

Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at May 17, 2007 2:27 PM

Elcordobes:

In this case, the girl was from the Yazidi religion, which, while peripherally influenced by other religions in its surroundings (e.g., connection with the name of Yazid, a Sunni caliph), is quite different from Islam:

http://lexicorient.com/e.o/uyazidism.htm

Yazidism is against intermarriage, and this girl was actually killed for converting to Sunni Islam and marrying a man from that sect. We covered that story here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016162.php

What would still be interesting to examine is when and how the notion of honor killings, and the choice of stoning as an execution method, became a Yazidi practice.

And, of course, there's the fact that stoning is sanctioned by Islamic teaching and still practiced in the region by Muslims. So, there's a double standard to be addressed, such as why this girl's stoning was "not ok," with violent reprisals against Yazidis, while so many others supposedly are, and why stoning continues to occur in the first place.

But I don't think we'll get an answer from Cathy Young on that, either.

Posted by: MarisolJW at May 17, 2007 2:39 PM

Like all good liberals, Ms. Cathy Young does NOT know what the he++ she is talking about with regards to Islam but is too naive by light years to realize this is the case. Maybe one day she will look into the Kuran and read some historical accounts as to what it is like for non-Muslims to live under islamic rule.

Being against Islam is not really a RELIGIOUS issue as the liberal PC idiots would like Ms. Young like us to believe!

HERE ARE SOME OTHER REASONS WHY CATHY YOUNG IS A big-mnouthed moron:

First of course, Islam is essentially a POLITICAL IDEOLOGY that controls every important decision that is made within a nation state. That is why nearly all Islamic nation-states are dictatorships--the kuran leaves little room for anything else.

Islam teaches first degree murder by dint of Kuranic verse: "And when the forbidden months have passed, slay the idolaters everywhere they are found; besiege them, capture them,prepare every stratagem of warfare against them; levy the tax upon their conversion to the ways of allah." That is first degree murder a capital crime under US law.

Islam practices "cruel and unusual punishments" which are against the US Constitution. Islam for example practices beheadings (a practice tsught in the kuran), amputations,stonings, whippings, beatings, and whippings. And for what in any western democracy would be considered trivial "offenses" (a woman can be whipped for being in the same room as a man at any time deemed inappropriate--Ms. Young had better watch what she is advocating as some day it could be HER on the receiving end of some of these cruel and unusual punishments). These are practices Muslims believe to have originated from al-lah and are non-negotiable under Islam!

Islam is anti-individual. The liberty enjoyed by Americans under their constitution do not exist in Islam or any islamic states. Ms. Young had better watch her step as she would NEVER be permitted to write so freely as she now is under any Islamic government. And never will be.

I challenge anyone to find an Islamic-run state with a human rights rating of over 60 on the Amnesty International index. Nearly all of them will be under 50. "plucky little Kuwait scored a 31 some years back"!. A western democracy will score 85 or better typically, the US ranked at least a 90 the last time I checked (fluctuations are possible with this). What sort of ideological flexibility does this leave an individual worshiper?

It is worth noting in addition, that nearly all Islamic states practice shariat. The political institutions of nearly all Islamic states, especially in the Middle East, have virtually always upheld the literal interpretation of the Kuran and put it into practice. Alternative interpetations rarely if ever see the light of day in any Islamic state and never have. This should give us an insight into the the nature of Islam. Brutality cannot be an aberration in Islam if EVERY Islamic state in the world is (and always has) practicing at least some of the brutal practices presecibed in the Kuran. These teachings are held by Muslims to come straight from al-lah via the Kuranic pipeline. Islam leaves no room for arguing any of this. take it or leave it and thus become an 'apostate' with a price on your head.

Has it ever occurred to Ms. Young that no Islamic nation-state has ever produced anything comparable to the US Constitution or the Magna Carta (even after 13 centuries of Islam being on the world stage). If not, it should be brought to her attention. Then she can sit down and figure out why this might be so.

Posted by: pythagoras at May 17, 2007 2:43 PM

whew, hugh!

inasmuch as i DO appreciate all the evidence you provide, even in italian, for us to read (and read i have), i find this buried in the one of the last posts:

"cathy young still writes for the boston globe..."

THAT was all i needed to know to understand her major malfunction!

see how much easier that would've been for your poor little fingers??!?

:D

ps - i'm really not a leninite! it was that easy!

Posted by: Miss_Anthrope at May 17, 2007 2:55 PM

I have had the misfortune of experiencing the same sorts of things -- that is, I write X, only to be accused (falsely) that I wrote Y. It is extremely annoying. And, of course, no matter how many times you repeat yourself, the accuser will insist: "You wrote Y." (without bothering to proffer proof, of course).

I chalk this behavior up to a "mental problem." I believe there may be psychological factors in operation which prevent the accuser from seeing "the truth." (Thus there is full-fledged denial, in addition to having created in their warped minds a kind of "boogeyman" whom they can then attack and feel superior to).

Another thing, though (what I've noticed from personal encounters), it's like circling the drain...you'll never get anywhere, yet if you do not confront and reiterate your position, they'll assume that they are "correct" and they will go on to spread their lies (in a kind of triumphalist fashion -- believing they've scored some kind of victory -- so, Robert, fight on, fight on! And "no" it has nothing to do with your writing abilities. You make yourself very clear...We know what you have written.)

Finally, another brief note -- the people who distort (again based on my personal encounters) they tend to draw up the world into two opposing sides (Manicheanism) -- they are dualists of a radical variety. Then, they project their dualistic views onto everyone else. (In a way, it also reminds me of Islamic "thinking" of dividing the entire world into "the believers" and "the non-believers"). Anyway, I suspect that those who do this find some sort of psychological comfort -- but, the casualty will, of course, be truth, and unfortunately so many others (too lazy, too uncritical, too lax) will fall for their distortions.

Posted by: J.S. at May 17, 2007 3:15 PM

Lets just make sure I am clear on this concept ok. You are an Islamophobe if you notice and comment upon common sensory input relative to what is being done and said in the name of Islam. In order to not be an Islamophobe you must not hear what Muslims are saying, you must not see what the Qur’an is preaching, you must not speak about Islam. Three monkeys see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. Well unfortunately for Islamists the only monkeys are them if they believe this is going to happen.

Posted by: Ameriki at May 17, 2007 3:40 PM

Robert,

I think that rather than outright malevolence what is involved in Ms. Young's incoherent reasoning is an attempt, on the part of academia, to try to make the slothful claim about some consensus, "middle ground" being the more reasonable alternative. It's slothful also, because these are people who, in an irritating repetition of this nagging phenomenon, do not deign to go and read the Qur'an and some ahadith. They get their information about Islam from second-hand sources, probably from their professional peers in Middle East Studies and Religious Studies departments. Much of what passes for scholarship there has been corrupted by Saudi money.

Four years ago, when I first began to read books by you, by Serge Trifkovic, by Andrew Bostom, and by Bat Ye'or, I was struck by how much more intensely immersed all of you were in Islamic scripture and theology. And by how amazingly shallow AND LAZY were the views of mainstream academics on this subject.

I think many of these people have too much invested in getting mileage out of paths they've already chosen. And because what you have produced is a scorching challenge and critique of the mainstream opinions about Islam, you have a bulls eye on your back. There seems to have been an uptick in a counteroffensive by these people recently. It means that their insecurity is translating into a weird abreaction.

Posted by: FredIsinglass at May 17, 2007 4:01 PM

Professors Spencer and Fitzgerald!

You, gentlemen, are excellent prose stylists. Have no fear. I have been reading history for over 50 years, and you and most who contribute here are very, very good indeed.

Remember, the more inane the criticism, the more Spencer and Fitzgerald are succeeding. Spencer and Fitzgerald are like a thorn in the side of Islam. Every day that they publish and every rejoinder that they make just sharpens the thorn. In other words, you gentlemen are like a mirror placed before Islam in which it cannot bear to look.

Every person who comments here is just another dart tossed at the crescent and star.

But the danger is that all these efforts will be given up. Never, never flag in your efforts all.

God bless!

Posted by: Crusader at May 17, 2007 4:23 PM

Cathy is trying to squeeze an oversized square peg into a mouse hole.

Posted by: champ at May 17, 2007 4:27 PM

'neoconservative webzine FrontPage'

So much more lowly than the wouldn't-know-its-arse-from-its-elbow magazine Reason (we print stuff on paper, see).

Posted by: Dane at May 17, 2007 4:50 PM

She won't respond Robert because she is empty,out of ammo.

She fears further debate because she knows nothing more of islam.

People who like to throw in the Crusades lose credibility in my book anyway.

To compare Christianity to yesteryear and today,there is a big difference.

Besides the reasoning of the Crusades was brought about by the actions of the Caliphs,once again by the dominance and supremecy of teh arab or muslim.

The comment she made that christianity causes more misery than it provides goodness (something like that)is absurd.She should check around and see who feeds and clothes and educates all those in the destitute nations on this planet.

You won't find muslims doing it.They only move in to weaken and give the final push and claim the souls and lands for allah.All while exterminating ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that made the people of those nations who they are or were.

It's obvious she doesn't know what she talks about.

I challenge her to imagine a world dominated by islam by the way it dominates states and nations and then the world dominated in the way it is today by the west.

Today people are encouraged to remain who they are,we don't send millions over into islamic lands to be the majority.Under islam thats all there will be.....islam 5-24-7-365,five times a day twenty four hours a day seven days a week all year long.

Islam is the killer of all things peaceful or not.Becuause it has to dominate and all others under it are not worth spit.

Chew on that Mrs. Cathy Young.

Posted by: Dar al-harb at May 17, 2007 4:55 PM

Wow, I grew ten grey hairs reading all that.

These kinds of people dont want to debate or learn anything. Thier minds are already made up. Based on what? Apparently not much. Because they present thier erronious opinions as facts, and because they talk incessently about what they dont know about, they must be liberals. They all suffer from the same malady, called Michael Moorephism. A peculiarly incedious mental condition. Rosy O has it, Sean Penn has a huge dose. You can see it in the thoughts and writings of K Armstrong, D.D. Esmay, mow Cathy Young...and lots more...some of them have political power, Pelosi, Hairy Reed, and the gang of hundreds who frequent political places of power. Michael Moorephism, is not a product of Islam, but Islamophrenetics will use it as a tool, and view those infected liberals as useful idiots...

Posted by: duh_swami at May 17, 2007 7:25 PM

MarisolJW,

CNN has reported on the stoning of the Kurdish girl. According to CNN she had not converted to Sunni Islam, someone had simply claimed to have seen her with a Sunni boy.

Toning comes from Sharia law...(I've read how it's done -- along, of course, with its endorsement -- from Muslims living here in Canada and who want stoning..they state that Canadians who oppose stoning are just "intolerant.")

I suspect that the reporters who noted the violence against Yazidis (apparently, Yazidis were dragged from a bus and executed/murdered in cold blood by Sunnis affiliated with Al-Qaeda), the reporter (to make the killings "understandable") suggested that it was in reprisal to the girl's stoning... My hunch, is "no" -- it's not anger that the girl was stoned, it's anger that the Yazidis refused the marriage to a Sunni -- Sunni "honour" was tarnished. (There's no way Sunnis would be at all opposed to stonings, per se...again, I suspect it's a false interpretation being applied by a Westernized reporter.)

Posted by: J.S. at May 17, 2007 8:18 PM

to dar al-harb - re the conspicuous absence of Muslim charity in the world's poorest regions.

I remember reading a while ago (sorry I can't give the precise reference) that in some place like Malawi, the Muslims decided to imitate the Christian charity organisations by digging wells.

One small difference, though.

Whenever Christian NGOs dug a well for a village...once it was done, everybody and anybody got to use it. You lived in the village, the well was yours.

BUT when the Muslim NGOs dug wells, ONLY Muslims were permitted to use them. If you wanted to use the well the Muslims had dug, and you weren't a Muslim, you had to convert to Islam...or else go on walking ten km to the nearest waterhole, like before.

Kinda makes nonsense of Muslim claims that Christians use bribes to convert people...

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 17, 2007 8:58 PM

The Title of the Magazine must give Blanket Credibality to what ever is in between the Advertismants.

Listining to Fundimentilist for 30 years, from the likes of Jerry Fallwell to Robert Schuler and all the screeds in between. Never gave me the notion that Jesus wanted me to kill anybody. Let alone convert someone by force.

But I have certinly heard all the, I want to kill you for Allah, I can stomach.

If a Fundimentilist has proof of something in scripture, you can rest assured they will follow it. to the letter.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 17, 2007 9:02 PM

What the hell is Cathy Young defending Islam for?

Doesn't she understand its central misogynistic dogmas?

As a woman, I would think she would consider it a piece of patriarchal presumptuousness deserving of a major slap-down.

What is this brand of intellectually-superficial and suicidal silliness from these "thinkers" in the West who would hoot such a violent, homophobic and tyrannical "religion" out of town if it went by any other name BUT Islam?

But, because it IS Islam, it gets every apologistics trick in the book to excuse its intolerance, depredations, crudity, absurdity, anti-intellectuality, fallacy and foolishness.

(Its decent aspects, like helping the poor- since they do not threaten- are irrelevent to the curent argument. Mussolini made the trains run on time, Hitler built the autobahn, but so what?)

I don't 'get' what Young and her kind want?

A theocratic global gulag?

Because, by neing so fatally naive, that is what they abet.

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 17, 2007 9:12 PM

I used to subscribe to Reason Magazine, but canceled about a year ago. Under Nick Gillespie they have become a "we are not Republicans" movement and have changed their focus from what is true to what won't turn off Democrats. They are searching for "the middle way". Cathy Young was always a very weak writer (and worse thinker) who was tolerated; now she's the leading light.

Posted by: Brett_McS at May 17, 2007 11:45 PM

Reason magazine has published a couple of good articles, but on balance, many of the writers are trapped in a very rigid secular/objectivist/Ayn Rand mindset that thinks Christianity is a bigger threat to freedom than Islam.

Posted by: JSobieski at May 18, 2007 1:47 AM

I still subscribe to Reason magazine and made mention of this specific article to Mr. Spencer when it came out. I was utterly astonished at the outright lies in it when I first read it, and even sent a letter to Reason defending Mr. Spencer from it. Sadly, I doubt my letter will be published. As JSobieski and Brett_McS make clear, Reason is a libertarian magazine with some very good writing on the whole, but they do occasionally turn to the stupidity of decrying Christianity (a religion I'm not an adherent of, by the way) as the greatest threat to freedom and Western values, despite Christianity being the very basis for it, alongside Judaism and Greco-Roman philosophy.

Posted by: Jonas Salk at May 18, 2007 2:21 AM

Cathy Young is Back!

Another lame attack.

No wiser than before,

Her argument is poor;

Still a clueless hack.

*

Like Brett_McS I dropped my subscription to Reason about a year ago.

Posted by: alexon at May 18, 2007 2:41 AM

The basic flaw in Young's method of reasoning is nearly universal among both the jihad apologists and the "religion-of-peace-is-hijacked" proponents.

It involves reasoning from specific particular (generally unrelated) concretes, rather than from principles.

For example. Young argues that:

... Spencer cites the atrocities perpetuated by medieval Muslim armies ... without acknowledging that the Christian crusaders’ actions were at least as bad

So what is being compared here (in her line of reasoning) is atrocities and actions.

But RS is not primarily concerned with specific particular atrocities and actions -- but rather, (if I'm understanding any of this), with the culture, doctrines and history of mohammedansism as a guide to what is reasonable to what to expect.

More particularly the question is asked, what is the underlying significance of particular acts, against the background of doctrine and the culture from which they issue -- and how consistent has this been over time.

Young asserts:

... Spencer cites the atrocities perpetuated by medieval Muslim armies ... as evidence that barbaric “jihadism” is endemic to Islam , without acknowledging that the Christian crusaders’ actions were at least as bad

The imbalance in the argument is clear.

Try viewing it this way:

... evidence that barbaric “jihadism” is endemic to Islam ... Christian crusaders’ actions were at least as bad

RS is emphatically not comparing the inherence of jihaddi barbarism to the badness of the crusader's actions -- which by the way would be an apples-to-oranges comparison in any case.

RS is comparing the inherence of mohhamedan barbarism to the inherence of Christian barbarism.

RS does not simply

... cite[s] the atrocities ... as evidence that barbaric “jihadism” is endemic ...

Quite on the contrary. RS cites that barbarism against the background of doctrine, culture and history to say that mohammedan and Christian barbarism have a different valence when considered in the full context of their respective cultural environments.

But Young seems to be unable to perceive the conceptual principles involved. She can only see physical concretes.

Young's reasoning is more or less at the level of a 5 year old's literalism.

Momma: Freddy, don't put your hand in the toilet!
Freddy: No fair! Danny put his hand in the toilet!!!
Momma: Yes. But Danny was taking his glasses out of the toilet. That's different.

And then Momma has to explain the difference between play and necessity.

In a 5 year old it's cute.

In an adult it's lethally stupid.

Posted by: joeblough at May 18, 2007 2:04 PM

A GOD OF REASON AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM
A DECLARATION OF UNIVERSAL RELIGIOUS RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
AN ISLAMIC REFORMATION

Moderate Muslims are engaged with the Islamic fundamentalists in a life and death struggle for the heart and soul of Islam. We need to form an alliance with moderate Muslims in their historical struggle to dramatically reduce recruits for terrorism. Such an alliance will lead to a Reformation of Islam. The Equality of Women and the Renunciation of Religious Violence are essential cornerstones in the Reformation of Islam. There can be no polite political correctness here. Tolerating - intolerance is no longer an option.

Islamic Fundamentalists have taken Islam and turned its teachings into a murderous medieval ideology – that the killing of infidels in the name of Allah will be rewarded in heaven - allowing the Islamists to sexually molest for all eternality 72 virgins, in 72 mansions, and 72 beds – that the murder of millions of non - believers is a religious duty, women are inferior to men - their virtual slaves to be denied education, beaten, killed for adultery or other sexual transgressions (real or imaged), covered from head to toe, people can be butchered, mutilated and tortured, barbers giving hair cuts killed, music and movies banned, women practicing folk dancing murdered, teachers murdered, schools teaching young girls blown up, anyone who believes in a different interpretation of Islam to be killed and on and on. Muslims have paid a terrible price at the hands of these Fundamentalists. Children massacred. Grand parents brains scattered all over the street. Men, women, children, old and young. Over one hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been slaughtered in the most horrid, grotesque, unimaginable ways since 9/11.

Against these ridiculous crazy teachings, the Western World is intellectually collapsing – freedom of speech is collapsing. Anyone who writes or puts on a play exposing these teachings can be killed. In the face of this onslaught, moderate Muslims are being pushed to the background and running for cover. Western Governments are running for cover. Mosques are being taken over by radical Islamists from the Saudi Arabian Wahhabbi sect.

There is a disaster that awaits the world’s nations if religious extremism is not defeated. The fact that people believe that they will go to Heaven as a reward for mass murder is truly frightening. It’s just a matter of time before one of these religious maniacs straps a nuclear weapon on their back and blows up an entire city.

The Pope in his recent speech on God and Reason has shown the way forward. A very important event occurred recently when 36 Islamic Scholars sent the Pope a communication in which they agreed – that in Islam, Allah is – “A GOD OF REASON.” This important declaration - perhaps one of the most important by a group of such eminent Islamic scholars must be seized upon. The Pope should call for a world religious conference on the scale of Vatican 2 bringing together all the top religious leaders and scholars from EVERY world religion to draft a DECLARATION OF UNIVERSAL RELIGIOUS RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS. This Declaration will form the basis of an historic alliance between Christianity and Islam to turn the murderous fundamentalist tide before it is too late. Again - before a nuclear weapon is exploded in the Name of Allah in a Western City killing millions.

Following would be the format of this Universal Religious Declaration.

DECLARATION OF UNIVERSAL RELIGIOUS RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

There is only one God
God is God
God is a God of Reason.
God is not an irrational being. If God is irrational then God is not God.

Ordinary people on the street understand the words – “reason” and ‘irrational”. Any such declaration must be kept simple - not an intellectual rambling on of the Philosophy of Reason. (For a very important article on the Philosophy of Reason and Pope Benedicts controversial speech I draw your attention to article – “Socrates or Muhammad?
Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason” by Lee Harris.)

God Being a God of Reason Therefore:

All violence in the Name of God/Allah is the GREATEST evil anyone can commit. Suicide is an evil act in every religion. Suicide bombers killing themselves and others in the Name of God/Allah – this is the Supreme evil act. The second most evil act is killing, maiming, and torturing others to the Greater Glory of God/Allah. The evil concept of Jihad as religious holy war must be condemned. It must be declared that all references to violence in any holy book/text are not the word of God/Allah but the word of man. No God/Allah who is God/Allah would ever instruct anyone to commit acts of violence against any other human being. Violence in religion must be totally and completely renounced – WITHOUT EQUIVOCATION. There is no heaven for these murderers. No mansions. No virgins. Just the black hole of eternal damnation. You cannot climb to heaven on the corpses of the murdered. If God /Allah believes in violence, believes in killing, torture, maiming then God/Allah is irrational and therefore God/Allah is not God/Allah but the incarnation of evil.

God Being A God of Reason Therefore:

Women and men are equal in the eyes of God/Allah. Women are the equal of men. Women are not valued by God/Allah as worth 50% of men. God/Allah did not create women to be the chattel or slaves of men. Females have full rights in society before the law, under the rule of law, can dress any way they freely desire without fear of death, walk the streets without a male relative escort, do any occupation, have the right to vote, the full right to participate in the governance of any society, be the leader or member of government of any country, receive all educational rights, drive planes, trains, automobiles, fly to the stars, choose their own husbands, do not have to accept arranged, forced or child marriages etc. No man whether husband, father, brother, relative, boyfriend, or stranger has the right to beat or mistreat a woman. Men who beat women are the lowest of the low. No woman can be forced to endure female circumcisim. The right of women to complete educational, economic, legal, and political equality. These equal rights of women in society are very important. Their exercise without fear of violence - without the fear of being victims of Honor Killings must be declared WITHOUT EQUIVOCATION in any such declaration. All references to the inferiority of women in any holy book/text are not the word of God/Allah but the word of man. If God/Allah is a sexist then God/Allah is irrational and therefore God/Allah is not God/Allah.

God Being A God of Reason Therefore:

There are many ways to God/Allah. Each individual has the total and complete right to find his/her own way to God/Allah or not. Religious freedom is the right of all mankind. The right to build churches, mosques etc. To practice ones religious beliefs non – violently is a corner stone of all civilized societies. The right to change one’s religion without fear of death. The right to freely preach and practice one’s religion without coercion or intimidation but with liberty and tolerance in any country. The right to explore the truth of any religious question, the truth as to the origins, sources, and teachings of any religion. The unqualified liberty to question and descent from any religion and its teachings. The right to condemn all religious practices that violate human rights. The total and complete rejection of teachings of intolerance and bigoty. The right not to believe in God/Allah. Only an irrational God/Allah would order people put to death for not believing in religion or deciding to change one’s beliefs from one religion to another, or believing in a different religion. God/Allah is a God of Peace and Love for all mankind. Any religious teaching that preaches hate, inequality, bigotry, war, death and destruction – that orders people killed, maimed or tortured as punishment are the teachings of an irrational God/Allah. If God/Allah is irrational then God/Allah is not God/Allah. Religious freedom is an unimpeachable right. It must be declared WITHOUT EQUIVOCATION.

God Being A God Of Reason Therefore:

All human beings are created equal. All races are created equal. God/Allah does not wish that any human be a slave. No one person is the lesser of the other. All human beings (no matter of their race, color, creed, ethnic origins) have the full right to protection of their human rights and human dignity. To use religion to spread hate against other races, religions in places of worship, employing television or any other medium, teaching hatred to the young in schools – this is evil incarnate. To use religion as an instrument of persecution and violence stands as an affront to the very concept of a God of Reason. If God/Allah is a racist, believes in persecution and violence then God/Allah is irrational and therefore God/Allah is not God/Allah.

God Being A God Of Reason Therefore

God/Allah blessed man with an intelligence to reason, to explore, to seek the truth of any question – total freedom of thought. To think and reason without fear of jail/death. It is against the will of God/Allah to threaten anyone with death, torture or prison for freely exercising his God/Allah given brain. The human brain is the greatest gift God/Allah has ever bestowed on man. It was given to mankind to purse - the arts, literature, sciences, intellectual pursuits.