Kathleen Parker writes in her syndicated column carried in the Houston Chronicle, with thanks to all who sent this in.
As Brits stiffen their upper lips and politicians hustle to reiterate that Islam is not the problem, cognitive dissonance grips the planet.
If Islam is not the problem, what is? And are we not inviting self-defeat by refusing to recognize that Islam is at least part of the problem?…
Our diversity training, our cultural predisposition for tolerance, our heritage of immigration and America’s characteristic good nature make criticism of minorities and minority beliefs unpalatable.
Which is why moderate Muslims must be unrelenting in eliminating “” not just condemning “” Islam’s bad actors.
When a Muslim cleric urges jihad against infidels, it falls to fellow Muslims to clean out the mosque, to rid Allah’s kingdom of radicals. Otherwise, it becomes increasingly difficult for non-Muslims to wrap their minds around “Islam isn’t the problem.”
It’s not enough to assert that 12 million hate-filled zealots who advocate murdering Americans and Europeans are a minority and then, feeling virtuous, return to the business of registering Muslim voters and issuing press releases about insults to Islam.
Fifty years ago when American “radicals” burned crosses and lynched blacks in organized, choreographed acts of terror, the Ku Klux Klan was only a tiny minority of white Christians. The vast majority of whites, like the vast majority of Muslims, would never do such a thing. And yet for too long, decent whites weren’t activist enough in purging the evildoers from their midst.
Zero tolerance is what we’re looking for here.