If you listened closely during the various speeches at the RNC convention, you'll notice that the times when the crowd was most animated was when Republican rage was focused on what Sen. John McCain calls the "trancendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terorrism". Various speakers through the convention returned to this theme, which consistently galvanized the crowd. "John McCain hit the nail on the head," thundered former Gov. Mitt Romney. "Radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it." Rejecting calls to avoid using the term "Islamic terrorism" for fear of fomenting hostility towards Muslims, former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani was defiant. "Please tell me who they are insulting when they say Islamic terrorism," he said. "They are insulting terrorists."
(Note to Mr. Giuliani: Terrorists who are Muslim love being called "Islamic". It gives them legitimacy. "Terrorist" they don't like so much, because they think they are freedom fighters. You'd think this would be obvious.)
I don't have a problem with fighting radicals who manipulate Islam for violent ends. What I do have a problem with is that these Republican leaders, and the crowd they lather up, have such a vague defintion of "radical Islam" that it demonizes millions of law-abiding Muslim Americans in the eyes of their fellow citizens, few of whom could tell the difference between a radical Muslim and a peaceful one.
I have a Muslim friend who has been a Republican for 30 years (surprisingly enough, there are an embattled few Muslim Republicans) who emailed the McCain campaign to get some clarification on exactly what they define as "radical Islam". To sum up the long answer that came back: there are up to 100 million radical Islamists in the world who are determined to kill us, and the US needs to resolutely defeat them. No word on how to tell the radicals from the moderates, or if there is any solution other than a military one. Just a recipe for open-ended war against an undefined enemy.
You might think, "Well, this is all for the cameras, and they're just venting." But the crowd at the RNC (unfortunately) holds a significant amount of political power in this country. Reinforcing the theme of Islam being the enemy will seep in at the convention and emerge later in the form of discriminatory surveillance, lopsided laws that treat Muslims as guilty until proven innocent, and and increased desire to bomb the hell out of any Muslim country that doesn't toe the US line.
To tell you the truth, I don't feel personally threatened. In my experience, this country has far more reasonable people in it than the crowd chanting "USA! USA!" with anger in their eyes during Romney's speech. In the wake of 9/11, far more Americans offered comfort to the Muslims I know than offered insults. (No prize for guessing the political orientation of those two groups of people.) But I am upset that politicians feel they need to resort to declarations of war to get themselves elected, and saddened that they are oblivious to the very real damage the cause to decent American citizens who work hard, pay their taxes, and don't deserve to be lumped into the same category as those who perpetrated 9/11.
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um...this is off topic but what about ralph nader? why is no one speaking of him?
I honestly don't know what to say about this column. I am not an atheist but I reject all religions as impediments to spiritual consciousness. So I hold no special brief for any religion.
The other disclosure is that I am a political independent who has voted for Democrats or Republicans according to which candidate provoked the lesser amount of disgust and disappointment in each election.
So this column is about Islam in America and the Republican National Convention. Islam first:
I accept without question that terrorists represent a tiny portion of Islam world-wide, and that rational Muslims renounce terrorism. Fine, but facile -- that is too easy. What about those who do not commit violence but preach hatred in the mosques and schools? Where is the voice of rational Islam in condemning the hate-mongers? Have they stood up in the mosques and in the public square and condemned the hate-mongers for disgracing their faith? If the answer is that there is physical risk in taking such a public stand not only against terrorist acts but against the fanaticism that breeds terrorism, then that is an acknowledgment that Islam has, as frequently charged, been taken over by the fanatics. And I would also ask this to the rational Muslim who is intimidated by the fanatics among you: If faith is a precious thing to you, are you unwilling to risk your life to defend it? Soldiers risk their lives to defend their nation when it is under attack. If you are less willing to risk your lives to defend your faith from those who corrupting it from within, then I really don't want to hear about how precious it is to you.
I am sorry if this is not politically correct. I just see this not as a fight of east vs west, or Islam vs Christianity/Judaism/Hinduism, but as a fight between rational people and fanatics within the same faith. I still do believe that the vast majority of Muslims do not support terrorism; but silence gives assent, and silence in the face of fanatical preaching gives assent to the terrorism that inevitably follows. More than anything, I want rational Muslims to stand up en masse and shout down the fanatics within their faith; fanaticism cannot be bombed out of existence, but it can be marginalized by the rational people within that faith.
Now onto the RNC:
The most frightening display of American fascism in my memory -- undisguised hate-mongering, jeering demagogy, and triumphant no-nothingism, made all the more loathsome by of the attempt to turn it into a Christian event (those people talk incessantly about "when Jesus returns," but they would be lined up with hammers and nails in hand to crucify him all over again if he ever did return--they think the central message of Jesus was a stadium chant, "We're Number One, We're Number One!").
Now, all that stuff I said, above, about rational Muslims -- same goes for rational Christians and rational Republicans and rational conservatives. Your faith, your party, and your philosophy are all being disgraced by the fanatics who have been in power for these past disastrous 8 years, and who have decided that we need 4 more years of the same under McCain and Palin. Why aren't you standing up in the meeting halls and in the public squares shouting down these fanatics who have already turned America into a worldwide laughing-stock?
Rational Muslims, rational Christians, rational Republicans, and rational conservatives have all been guilty of giving assent-through-silence to fanaticism. Fanaticism is a cancer, but it cannot be destroyed by bullets and bombs; it can only be marginalized, and the only people who can do that are the rational people within each group.
Here's another useful exercise in empathy: have a clandestine look inside a few major, supposedly mainstream mosques in Britain, which are (of course) "committed to interfaith dialogue."
Search: Youtube, "Dispatches, Undercover Mosque" in 6 parts;
and, the follow up report which aired just last week: "Undercover Mosque: the Return"
(Since my prior comment on this subject was apparently consumed by the BNET filters, I've decided not to risk an actual link.)
Heretic for Christ: In response to your questions about moderate muslims vocalizing their denunciation of terrorism -- first, have you ever listened to a sermon in a mosque? I invite you to go one day. Especially this month. Especially on the eleventh. See what they say. The sad truth is that many, many, many, of us "moderate", totally American Muslims, denounce terror as being the disgusting, criminal, cowardly un-Islamic, even anti-Islamic behavior that it is -- but it is not media worthy. No one cares. The Media, and therefore the public, do not find it in their interest to listen to the complex and complicated, varied, and inteligent opinions of American Muslims, or moderate Muslims around the world. That would make it too hard to fit us in their box. There have been statements, religious edicts, conventions both international and intra-national that came out against terror by prominent Muslim leadership. You will rarely find these events rating any American media coverage. If you want to hear what we have to say, unfortunately, you'll just have to come ask us. Check out the Council for American Islamic Relations (civil rights group) "Not in the Name of Islam" campaign.
Everything else you've said in your post I heartily agree with. Thanks
Here's a good basic primer on CAIR, documenting their extremist ties, acts of deception and islamist objectives, with references to supporting text:
"CAIR: Islamists fooling the Establishment" by Daniel Pipes
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/CAIR%20Islamists%20Fooling%20the%20Establishment.html
As the foregoing article explains, CAIR is essentially a political/propaganda arm of the Muslim Brotherhood [Ikhwan]. According to a high-level internal strategy document, their primary purpose - and by extension the primary purpose of their local front groups including CAIR - is as follows:
"The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan [muslim Brotherhood] must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/DN-dreher_09edi.ART.State.Edition1.4235f88.html
The only potential point of tension among such groups, whether they are prepared to admit it to their more gullible members or not, is to what extent they should use infiltration, subversion and deception to achieve their objectives, as opposed to outright jihad warfare. The goal, however, remains the same.
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