More Moderate Moslems speak up
Don’t be silenced by extremistsA plea from 11 Canadian Muslim academics and activists:
Feb. 28, 2006. 10:37 AM
A curtain of fear has descended on the intelligentsia of the West, including Canada. The fear of being misunderstood as Islamophobic has sealed their lips, dried their pens and locked their keyboards.
With hundreds dead around the world in the aftermath of the now infamous Danish cartoons, Canada’s writers, politicians and media have imposed a frightening censorship on themselves, refusing to speak their minds, thus ensuring that the only voices being heard are that of the Muslim extremists and the racist right.
Emboldened by the free rein they have received, Canada’s Muslim extremists and their supporters flexed their muscles at Queen’s Park last week, with speakers promising to drown the Danish people "in their own blood".
A protestor carried the sign "Kurt Westgaard - countdown to justice has begun … it’s just a matter of time."
Elsewhere, in Pakistan, a Muslim woman was pictured carrying a sign, "God Bless Hitler," and a Muslim cleric placed a $1 million reward for the murder of a Danish cartoonist. Embassies were burned, churches ruined and hundreds died in different Muslim countries.
Undoubtedly, Muslims were angered by the insulting cartoons. But the overblown reaction was partly due to their pent-up frustrations, and partly the result of orchestrated mischief by certain Islamist leaders.
Islamic societies, run by variances of autocratic regimes, are in turmoil. Ravaged by rampant corruption, a widening gap between rich and poor, and suppression of dissent, the people in these societies have lost hope in their own futures.
The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the unending occupation of the Palestinian territories and the quagmire of the Kashmiri dispute, have led many Muslims and non-religious peoples of Islamic origin, to view the West as the source of their countries’ problems.
The growing popularity of the extremists in Muslim societies, the electoral success of the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, Shia radicals in Iraq, and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, rather than signifying the growing religiosity of the peoples of the Middle East, reflect political despair in the region.
In the West, people of Muslim origin, be they religious or secular, are facing growing racism, Islamophobia and discrimination reflected in immigration policies and anti-terrorist legislation.
The cartoon crisis was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The Muslim extremists seized the opportunity and added fuel to fire. The calculated role played by the two Danish Muslim extremists, backed by Islamic fundamentalist regimes, is a case in point. They not only aggravated an already inflammatory situation, but added their own infuriating images, never published in the West, as they took their case to clerics in the Middle East.
Both, Imam Abu Laban and Ahmad Akkari have escaped the attention and scrutiny their acts deserved. These two men, who now sit in the comfort of their homes in Denmark, should be held accountable for their criminal actions.
For too long the media have created an image that portrays communities from the Muslim world as a monolith entity, best represented by extremists.
The media have created a false dichotomy that pits these Muslim extremists against the West. The fact is that in all Muslim countries, progressive citizens are trying to break loose from the tyranny of the autocrats and clerics and wish to develop a civil society where citizenship is based not on inherited race or religion, but the equality of all, irrespective of faith, race, sexuality or gender.
In Tehran today, the city’s bus drivers are on strike. Thousands have been arrested; entire families have disappeared. Yet, this has not made a blip in the western media.
If the same bus drivers were burning books or embassies, this would certainly be on the evening news. This is an appalling example that only outrageous, violent expressions of faith by Muslim extremists are taken as the aspirations of people from Islamic societies.
It is time for Canadians to stand up for the hard-won democratic values that the Muslim extremists oppose.
By rejecting the agenda of the extremists, Canada’s intelligentsia would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Muslims and secular individuals from the region who reject both Islamophobia and Islamism. Islamism is not the new revolutionary movement against global forces of oppression, as a section of the left in this country erroneously perceives.
Today, the religious right and autocracies in the so-called Islamic world are united in their call for passing legislation to make any discussion on religion a criminal offence.
This, at a time when many writers in Jordan, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan are rotting in jails, facing charges of apostasy and blasphemy.
We call on Canadian politicians and intellectuals to stand up for freedom of expression.
Our democratic values, including free speech, should not be compromised under the garb of fighting hate.
To fight Islamophobia and racism, we do not need to sacrifice free speech and debate.
The authors
Jehad Aliweiwi, former executive director of the Canadian Arab Federation.
Taj Hashmi, sessional professor, Simon Fraser University.
Amir Hassanpour, associate professor, University of Toronto.
Tarek Fatah, host, The Muslim Chronicle, CTS-TV.
Tareq Y. Ismael, professor, University of Calgary.
Jacqueline S. Ismael, professor, University of Calgary.
El-Farouk Khaki, secretary general, Muslim Canadian Congress.
Shahrzad Mojab, associate professor, University of Toronto.
Haideh Moghissi, professor, York University.
Munir Pervaiz, secretary, Pakistan-Canadian Writers Forum.Saeed Rahnema, professor, York University.
Nice find, - I’ll link it.
Yes, finally things are turning. I started warning against the attempt to pass legislation on defamation (check PIA CAUSA, “What’s in the Islamic Pipelin” and “The Masterplan”) some time ago. And of course everyone looking for it is able to see it coming, especially those Canadians with some sort of Muslim background.
So, great indeed, and far better than the Manifesto published today. It doesn’t really help, as it distracts focus.
Comment by PIA CAUSA — March 1, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
The cartoon crisis was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
No it wasn’t, they’ve always freaked out over depictions of Muhammad. Nearly 30 years ago some Muslim fanatics kidnapped dozens of innocent people in Washington DC and killed a few of them, in order to protest the making of the film “The Message” which did not even depict Muhammad as a person, and which was in fact very respectful of Islam. There have been many other similar incidents over the years. A few years ago an illustration of Muhammad in the Asian version of “TIME” magazine caused widespread rioting and hysteria in India and Malaysia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad%2C_Messenger_of_God
References to the Washington siege in 1977 are contained in this Wikipedia entry FYI.
The authors of this manifesto are just playing the same old game of blaming “the West” for atrocities that are really mainly due to Islam’s many pathologies.
Comment by Irene Adler — March 1, 2006 @ 10:00 pm
Yes, super article. (and Pia Causa ain’t bad either
)ButI thought the manifesto was great too. In fact I thought it was up there with “my-fingers-are-tingling-and-ughhh-gosh-this-is-great” 
Comment by Eudaimonia — March 1, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
Tell me what a “moderate Muslim” is. This is a term bounded around by the media and attributed to those that agree with attempts to distort and disolve Islam. The west will support words of names such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq, which include those that refute Islam and seek to distort its laws in order to change it so that they can commit sin. These people are not moderates, they are those that may be weak in faith and hypocritcal towards Islam.
To be Muslims we can be moderate and we can be extreme, however, we remain Muslims, and the last thing we need is these people speaking for us that make their names by leaving turning away from Islam.
Every time a dispute or conflict occurs between East and West, Muslims and Christians, a new term is coined to label Muslims. If you have a beard and complain about anything fundamentally Western you’re an ‘Fanatic’. If you complain with reference to Islam you’re an ‘Extremist’. If you hang with Muslims, pray 5 times a day and refer to the Shariah in public you’re a ‘Fundamentalist’. If you protest against the Iraq war or the occupation of Palestine you’re an ‘Islamist’. If you attended a Mosque and unknowingly prayed next to anybody that had links to fighters from Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan you’re ‘Al-Qaeda’.
There is now a new kid on the block, a ‘Moderate Muslim’. If you accept the war on terror but condemn Muslim retaliation you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you pledge support for Bush and Blair you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you support distorters of Islam you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you sympathise with Salman Rushdie you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you tolerate cartoons slandering Islam but are intolerate to reactionary boycotts/protests you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you think the cartoons were correct you’re a ‘Moderate’. If you acknowledge those that claim to be Muslim and Gay you’re a ‘Moderate’.
Some say Sheikh Yussef al-Qaradawi and Ayatollah Ali Sistani are ‘Moderates, others say only those that condemn 9/11 are ‘Moderates’, in conjunction with those that apologise for the cartoon protest. Then I learn that ‘none of the above’ is relevant as a ‘Moderate’ is the opposite of a Salafist, while others consider them to be gutless Muslims that are ineffective against ‘Islamists’.
Those most rational explanation I’ve read is that “Wahhabis and Islamists need to be called ‘extremist Muslims’ or ‘violent Muslims’ and the moderate Muslims need to be called Muslim”. But please can somebody tell me who makes up these terms? As I said earlier, Muslims differ from generation to generation, culture to culture, some are more devout, others Muslim by name only. Nevertheless, most of us condemn violence, terror, injustice and oppression, and we are just called Muslims.
We are all follow the fundamentals, there is nothing extreme about what we do nor do we take anything to an extreme. We are all ‘Islamists’: a believer or follower of Islam (dictionary definition) and most of all - we are all moderate because Islam is a moderate way of life, balanced to make life easier for us by doing that which is right.
Comment by jamal — March 2, 2006 @ 12:10 am
Is “a Moderate Muslim” a contradiction in terms? I think not.
Rushdie et al are clearly saying that we need to be fundamentalist about our secular western values and beliefs if we want to keep them. This is unusual for secular people to say. These values embody the right to say and think things which are potentially abominable to other people. They do not embody the right to burn down your neighbour’s house because according to your belief system and entire metaphysics he is WRONG, unpleasant, stupid or dangerous.
A moderate – any religious kind – Christian, Muslim or Buddhist does not have to believe only moderately, but he has to acknowledge that the neighbour who is unpleasant, stupid and WRONG has the right to be so as long as he is not in opposition with secular law, that is if he is not eating his children or selling his wife or whatever else there’s a law against. The law in the western world is of course based on secularised Christian values and most of the people living in Denmark are secularized Christians (carrying Christian cultural values but no explicit religious belief) which makes it relatively easy for them to refrain from religious fundamentalist reactions.
If you are a moderate Muslim/Christian in the west however, you have chosen to live in a place where it is relatively safe to have any kind of view you like as long as you follow the rules of this secularised place. It can be annoying at times, sure, at times even infuriating. I know because *my* personal metaphysical beliefs clashes with established secular society in many cases, but it beats the hell out of not being able to believe what you want for fear of persecution, torture and death.
So you could say that I aim to be “a moderate spiritual person”, which doesn’t mean that my metaphysical and ethical beliefs are half-hearted, (I’m quite fundamentalist about my metaphysics otherwise why would I believe in them?) Au Contraire it means that although I do not agree with my atheist neighbour I choose to live in his kind of world because it has freedom which is an utmost value for me. If my values were different I might chose to live in a country in which everybody were religious, and perhaps get my head chopped off – As it is however, I vote for fundamentalist freedom and religious moderation.
Comment by Eudaimonia — March 2, 2006 @ 6:45 am
and..here’s the extra “o” for choose
Comment by Eudaimonia — March 2, 2006 @ 6:56 am
Islam - A Militant And Proselytizing Faith
“No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianit…
Trackback by All Things Beautiful — March 2, 2006 @ 5:09 pm
This little ‘lecture’ from my local Daily would be a lot more persuasive if The Toronto Star had published the cartoons! They didn’t. ‘Nuff said! Hypocrites!
Comment by foreign devil — March 3, 2006 @ 12:24 am
Jamal,
You and I have been there before; there isn’t one.
Exactly Jamal, if they don’t want to commit Jihad on the infidels, follow the law of Shari’a, and issue Fatwas against every Tom Dick and Harry who disagrees with them, they are bad Muslims aren’t they?
But we know who a good Muslim is for you Jamal, your friend the Qur’an bashing Abu Hamza. Aren’t you happy the idiotically naive Brits are still building you the biggest Mosque in the Europe?
How about you build us the biggest church in…let me think… Dubai. Ah, I forgot we are illegal there aren’t we. Well that’s an easy solution for you isn’t it.
Why are you constantly talking about some warped idea of equality when the entire Muslim world calls us pigs, monkeys and hates our guts as infidels, banning us from every single participation in any dignified life in any of your countries. Why do you demand equality when you give none in return? Why is it your divine right to receive and yet you give nothing in return.
Personally I think we should boycott Islam until it recognizes the infidels right to exist side-by-side with Muslims as equals. Until then there is nothing to talk about.
Comment by Alexandra — March 3, 2006 @ 12:48 am
This was a part of my education…
BANANNA HAMICK!
Comment by Voksrejef — March 20, 2006 @ 8:02 am
that bad huh?
Comment by asksome — March 20, 2006 @ 8:49 am