Kampf and Jihad

[ginny]

Absolutely. Totally correct. The problem that I can't get away from is that it's these middle of the road/just trying to survive people that make so much violence possible. Is guilt the wrong word? I don't know. It's the closest I can come.

[Selene]

Ginny:

I don't get a sense of guilt at all, but maybe the Muslims I know are just too arrogant to feel guilt, no wonder they get along well with me, lol.

But seriously, they are primarily from the Middle-east - Persian, Palestinian, Egyptian, Indonesian, converted Americans both black/white and black Muslims from the Malcolm X days in Harlem, so maybe that skewers my data.

I think it is:

1) cowardice

2) surviving

3) confusion as to how to maintain their roots and be assimilated into American culture. Seems every immigrant wave struggles with this, I know my Northern Italian ancestors struggled with that balance.

I do not know, I would like to hear from the readers of this thread as to their suppositions.

Michael, see those pretty Arabic numbers settled my B) problems!

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

I agree with the fear. I am not so sure about the cowardice.

The majority of people I know are more interested in getting along in life rather than being part of a social cause, especially one that could seriously impact their daily lives and families. It's not that they are cowards. It's that they don't see the value of bringing so much risk to the things they love. They already decided the "social cause" issue by joining a religion, so to speak. So they let others worry about it and, if they are interested, they will watch it on the news.

I believe many are ignorant of the big picture in terms of cause-and-effect. And I also believe many of these kinds of people become deeply involved (on one side or the other) once the big picture touches their daily lives and families. Unfortunately that contact is usually violent when the issue is Islamist terrorism. And once the violence hits and the person joins a cause (either side), I don't see much cowardice.

One way to touch those lives in a non-violent manner is through intellectual efforts, including art and entertainment.

But if you go to a person who is living his life trying to be good as he understands it, providing for his family (or contributing to it as he/she was taught was the good), trying to be a good member of his community, and tell him he is evil because he is silent in public about something on the news, he will look at you, blink, and think you are a kook.

That is one of the poorest approaches to persuasion I can think of. I can't think of a better recipe for failure.

Even Objectivism-wise, where would it be without Rand's fiction to touch people's lives? She certainly told enough people they were rotten along her life. Did that particular effort convince anyone except the choir? Imagine the impact of her doing that without her fiction.

Even with her fiction, the angry public moral repudiator so present in the orthodox side of Objectivism is nothing but a bufoonish caricature to the public at large. I still get the mental image unbidden of Bill O'Reilly laughing and asking Peikoff, "What are you? Dr. Strangelove?" (Cut to commercial as Peikoff looks confused.)

A link to that clip here here on OL somewhere. But it is easily available on YouTube.

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

Agreed and I was not at all clear on the cowardice statement.

I had in mind the Imam's and social network leaders within the Mosque and the community surrounding the Mosque.

The Ayaan Hirsi Al's show great courage. I know some Imams who will not speak out and those are the folks that I think and feel are

acting in a cowardly manner, but I would not approach them negatively if I were attempting to engage them in a productive dialogue.

However, you were correct I did not qualify the word.

I know nothing about the group Jihadwatch, but I thought these bullet points were discussable:

"Jihadwatch has a good article referencing the Rand Corporation and their definition of a moderate Muslim.

* Does the group (or individual) support or condone violence? If it does not support or condone violence now, has it supported or condoned it in the past?

* Does it support democracy? And if so, does it define democracy broadly in terms of individual rights?

* Does it support internationally recognized human rights?

* Does it make any exceptions (e.g., regarding freedom of religion)?

* Does it believe that changing religions is an individual right?

* Does it believe the state should enforce the criminal-law component of shari’a?

* Does it believe the state should enforce the civil-law component of shari’a? Or does it believe there should be non-shari’a options for those who prefer civil-law matters to be adjudicated under a secular legal system?

* Does it believe that members of religious minorities should be entitled to the same rights as Muslims?

* Does it believe that a member of a religious minority could hold high political office in a Muslim majority country?

* Does it believe that members of religious minorities are entitled to build and run institutions of their faith (churches and synagogues) in Muslim majority countries?

* Does it accept a legal system based on nonsectarian legal principles?

Great, now will the real moderate Muslims speak up and affirm this? The problem is many of these questions completely contrast the belief of many so-called moderate Muslims not to mention the Koran, Surra and Hadith. I think it’s safe to say that Islam has no place in a democratic society and “moderate Muslims” should stop pretending they are pro democracy, pro-free speech and pro-freedom of religion."

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

LOL...

Although the questions touch on good points, that accusatory pre-condemning manner is exactly the kind of approach that doesn't work. Take a look at this gem:

"... I think it’s safe to say that Islam has no place in a democratic society and “moderate Muslims” should stop pretending they are pro democracy, pro-free speech and pro-freedom of religion."

OK.

So what should they do if they shamelessly do not want to convert? As Rand would say: blankout. Well, let's look at it.

Supposing a billion plus people take this dude at his word and actively and openly turn into Islamist terrorists!!!

Welcome to hell!

Do you think a billion plus people will do what this dude wants them to do because he sounded off on a hostile website, strongly insinuated they are evil, and told them what they should do? Do you think they will take anything this dude writes seriously?

Heh...

EDIT: A thought just struck me. Germany once did what this dude suggests moderate Muslims should do...

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

Yep.

I frankly am seriously concerned about the coming confrontation with Florida groups and the Dearborn Michigan type nests and the groups that would not trust a Muslim for a nanosecond.

A weekend of violent US street riots coupled with the fear and uncertainty that is being pandered to by the propaganda outlets in America and the World should lead to an easy path to domestic suppression that will stun Americans, but by then it could be much to late.

Most of the Japanese, although confused, sort of went along with to the detention camps.

We have a tremendous opportunity to make principled moral and economic stands with the O'Biwan Administration:

Congressman Charles B. Rangel is introducing the draft in Congress this session.

Congressman Serrano is introducing an effort to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution; and

O'Biwan is moving full bore ahead with his Brown Shirt Corps of Domestic Enforcers, some 2,000,000 strong - funded by outside donations and strategically distributed by Congressional Districts under the tutelage of members of O'Biwan's brilliantly structured field force that got him elected.

Funny how it always takes boots on the ground to achieve victory.

Wake up, folks!

Ginny, do you think that Germans had these same discussions we are having here today?

You know we all in the back of our mind, even me, believes that "it can't happen here". Guess what folks it is and I am not even remotely confident that we can stop it.

Adam

[Barbara Branden]

Michael: "But if you go to a person who is living his life trying to be good as he understands it, providing for his family (or contributing to it as he/she was taught was the good), trying to be a good member of his community, and tell him he is evil because he is silent in public about something on the news, he will look at you, blink, and think you are a kook."

You're again setting up a straw man. No one is suggesting that we go to moderate Muslims who do not protest violence to tell them they are evil. (By the way, I didn't call them "evil.") Instead, one might explain why one is convinced it is to the best interests of the Muslim community, long-range and short-range, to protest the violence of the terrorists if they believe it is wrong.

Incidentally, it is next to impossible that there are Muslims not living in caves who see the terrorism of the fundamentalists as simply "something in the news." You can't have it both ways: that the moderates are afraid of retaliation if they protest, and that they are relatively unaware of terrorism.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

I never said the moderates were unaware of terrorism. I said they considered it distant from their daily lives like something on the news. That is, until it touches their lives directly. I know this from having observed it first-hand up close.

I keep hearing this phrase that I "can't have it both ways," and this confuses me. I have no idea what I want to have both ways. I want to convince Muslims to adopt individual rights. Everybody else seems to want to condemn them for this or that, and even condemn them for what they don't do when they keep their peace.

If I had to name one of the worst elements of Islam, it would not be terrorism, which I attribute more to the Nazi influence allied to the fundamentalists than the Qur'an itself (as attested from looking at history). The worst element would be tribalism. (In fact it is.) The "us against them" mentality.

You seem to be unaware of how that kind of environment is. So here is a good example.

Imagine living among people who belong to ARI. Not the distant people, but the committed ones. They belong to a closed off community and nothing on earth, no fact however blatant, will convince them that direct observation is superior to deducing their perceptions of reality from principles laid down by Ayn Rand. They reinforce each other in their camaraderie. They target enemies and purge their ranks for purity.

They talk about how "sweet victory will be" when the rule of reason arrives. (I didn't make this up. This is actually online somewhere in a post by Perigo when Solo Passion was in good with ARI. He reported this statement—which I assure you is accurate in meaning if not exact phrasing, since I am going from memory—as coming from the director of ARI to him in an email congratulating him on fighting "in the trenches." He didn't say the name, but I presume this director is Yaron Brook.)

Now, without the cheesy melodrama, this is akin to the way Muslims live. The family I married into in Brazil was only half Muslim, but they were totally cut off from the rest of society and lived in their own little world where reality was filtered through their preconceptions and prejudices. To protest anything from within that world in public means stepping outside of that world. And that is all many of them know. They were born and raised in it.

They don't make a purposeful statement of sanctioning terrorism by silence. I believe it simply never occurs to them that there is a life outside of their community other than a bunch of strange people and enemies. And their Allah has warned them of both, just as Rand is taken by Objectivist tribalists as having warned against the altruists, intrinsicists, emotionalists, second-handers and whim-worshipers—and even the "missing link" proudly boasting of his/her anti-conceptual mentality.

They might see examples of the "other side" all the time on TV and in the streets, but they don't let them into their little world. This is one of the hallmarks of tribalism.

You wrote:

Instead, one might explain why one is convinced it is to the best interests of the Muslim community, long-range and short-range, to protest the violence of the terrorists if they believe it is wrong.

This is exactly our job as intellectuals. Not just to explain it, but to get the message across. That is, if we want to contribute to the solution of the problem of Islamist terrorism and not just make empty gestures like preaching to the choir.

I don't believe it starts there, since I believe it starts with getting moderate Muslims to accept individual rights as the basis for government. But convincing them to publicly protest the atrocities of those carry the banner of Islam is definitely on the table. Frankly, I believe there would be much more success in convincing them that the Nazi seduction of their fundamentalists is actually Satan in lamb's clothing than trying to get them to adopt an atheistic morality.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Individual rights start at home. Muslims don't see what we don't project.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

That's a good point, but we still project enough good for waves of immigrants to risk everything to get here.

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

Somali executed for 'apostasy'

Abdirahman Ahmed was a prominent politician in Kismayo

An Islamist militia has executed a Somali politician who they accused of betraying his religion by working with non-Muslim Ethiopian forces.

An Islamist spokesman in the port of Kismayo told the BBC that Abdirahman Ahmed was shot dead on Thursday.

Mr Ahmed was also accused of spying for Ethiopian forces, said to be backing the forces of warlord Barre Hiraale in trying to recapture Kismayo.

He is believed to be the first politician executed by the Islamists.

Ethiopian forces are pulling out of Somalia, two years after they intervened to try to oust Islamists from the capital Mogadishu.

But their mission to prop up the interim government is widely regarded as a failure as various Islamist group have recently advanced and once more control much of the country.

A group of hardline Islamists retook the coastal city of Kismayo last August.

Islamist authorities in the city stoned a 12-year-old girl to death for adultery in November, although her aunt said she had been raped.

Is this yet another result of the infamous Somali exiled-Nazi community's malevolent influence on the otherwise benign expression of sharia and jihad, (which, I remind you, can be translated as "struggle")?

(Apostasy is greek for "stand-offishness.")