Clash Reunion Tour
A continuing conversation.
EDITOR'S NOTE: On Tuesday, National Review Online published a group of reactions from Mideast watchers and moderate Muslims to the violence we've seen in response to a Danish cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed. Since Tuesday's symposium was such a mix, we offered writers the chance to come back for a second round. Below you'll find both additional comments and analysis and direct responses to some of what appeared yesterday.
Mansoor Ijaz
HSBC, my London bankers, periodically air an interesting commercial that highlights how differently gestures in one part of the world can be perceived in another — that to conduct business effectively, one has to learn other people’s cultures and norms and accept their value systems. Part of healing the gaping wound that has been opened by cartoonists expressing their freedom to portray Islam and its Prophet (PBUH) is to understand what lies at the heart of the Muslim world’s anger and hysteria — a craving to have their religion, which is the religion of mostly the have-nots, be seen as a legitimate set of guiding principles by which to live.
Because we Americans are so sure that our way of life is superior to other systems by which people choose to live, we have a tendency — when others don’t adopt our way of thinking — to judge the behavior of others by a crude yardstick, their religious belief systems. The danger inherent in this approach is that those whom we judge as misguided feel they have no other way to express their frustration, anger or disapproval than to react hysterically, even violently. Since many Muslims perceive we control the mass media, they take actions that attract the highest degree of attention possible from media outlets, not caring that they might have damaged Islam’s reputation and image as a religion of peace more than any cartoonist ever could.
Islam’s inherent appeal is in its simplicity of message and elegance of ritualistic practices. If the Western media would just remind Muslims of that more often than putting up images of the enraged lunatic with a sword in one hand and a Koran in the other, we might still have a chance at cohabiting Earth together until God calls all of us to a better place.
— Mansoor Ijaz is an American Muslim of Pakistani origin.
Judith Apter Klinghoffer
This intifada, like the Palestinian one which preceded it, has multiple purposes. Remaking Europe is one. Saving the hide of Arab autocrats is another. It has long been said that if Israel didn't exist, Arab governments would have to invent her. Recently, Israel has lost much of its usefulness as the perennial scapegoat. Nothing symbolized it better than the global outrage generated by Ahmadinejad’s questioning of the Holocaust and his call to wipe Israel off the map. Ahmadinejad and his defenders were right. He merely said what he and countless Arab leaders have been saying for decades. Only times they’ve changed. Be that as it may, the search for a new scapegoat was on and the cartoons helped them settle on little Denmark. But why now? Why not four months ago?
Well, it took time to put all the pieces in place and the Saudis did not wish to do anything which may affect their final admission into the World Trade Organization. After all, trade negotiators had trouble enough finding a legal way to admit the kingdom into the international organization without it having to end officially the boycott of Israeli goods. The Saudis entered the WTO on Dec. 11, 2005, and their yearly international Jeddah Economic Forum is to start on February 11, 2006. There was also the Haj to worry about. In ended on January 11. In mid-January Saudi-government controlled newspapers began to run up to four articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons. The Saudi government demanded Denmark issue a formal apology and when Fogh refused, the call went out for worldwide protests. Denmark is not invited to the Jeddah conference. Will the world say nyet to such exclusion this time? It does not seem so.
— Judith Apter Klinghoffer, Fulbright professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, is the author of Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences co-author of International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights and History News Network blogger.
Andrew C. McCarthy
"But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of War); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers, and pay Zakat then open the way for them; for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Sura 9:5). This verse of the Koran is not singular. It is not representative of the whole Koran, but neither is it an aberration. It enjoins Muslims to make war on and kill nonbelievers unless they submit to Islam (“Islam” literally means “submission”) either by accepting the faith or paying the tax imposed on nonbelievers.
It is simply ridiculous to assert, as Basma Fakri, for example, has, that “[t]here is nothing in Islam that encourages killing or terrorizing innocent people.” You could argue that this is not the dominant message, but to say there is “nothing” is just wrong. And it is equally delusional to paint a picture, as Mustafa Akyol does, of a Koran replete with saccharine passages while pretending that commands — said to be the immutable injunctions of Allah Himself — are not at least equally at the core of Islamic scripture. There is a very good reason why it has proved so difficult to discredit and marginalize the hardcore imams.
Extremism in the form of massive terrorist attacks by militant organizations is the most deadly and obvious problem that we can trace to Islam as currently practiced. But it is far from the only problem. Even many organizations that style themselves as “moderate” support suicide bombing in Israel under the guise of “resistance” — which necessarily conveys a conceit that the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians is legitimate. Children are being reared to hate. And now we see that the mere publication of cartoons (just like the false story of Koran-flushing a few months back) is seen by thousands — not just ostensible militants but thousands — as grounds for rioting, fire-bombing, and murder. You can say “religion of peace,” pretend that there’s no reason to probe any deeper on that score, and scour about for other causes. But saying “religion of peace” doesn’t make it so. Eventually, we are compelled to ask: What is it about Islam that makes it the common thread for all these episodes?
— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Nidra Poller
This is the way the (Eurabian) world ends — not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a smirk! We are supposed to believe that the savage hordes now lashing out at the European darlings — who covered for them during the past five years of monumental atrocity — are motivated by ruffled religious sentiments? These tender spirits steeped in holiness have been ignited by ignominious drawings of the prophet Mohammed? After all that they have done, individually and collectively, to foster interfaith multicultural understanding, this is their reward?
While the barbarians smash, crash, stomp, and burn embassies and cultural centers, some of the famous moderates we love love to demolish Western values by speaking utter nonsense about how free speech must be limited by respect for the sacred values of the Other. Is that so? Muslim countries pour out a nauseating deluge of caricatures of Israelis, Jews, and Americans. They massacre us in sermons, cartoons, films, snuff videos, and real-life jihad murders. They behead us in low-budget films, they spread blood libel in gory serials, they provoke genocidal hatred in their vast populations, and we are supposed to be reassured to know that only a small minority of extremists will actually pull out the knife, strap on the explosives belt, drive up in the IED. Thanks a lot. That active minority it is more than enough to ruin any decent person’s day.
In our culture respect is reciprocal, and it is not limited to religious beliefs. We also respect property, freedom of movement, and the right to a fair trial. The fury unleashed in the Muslim world over twelve mildly mocking sketches created precisely in response to tyrannical intimidation by Danish Muslims, respects nothing and no one.
— Nidra Poller is a novelist living in Paris and translator, most recently, of Humanism of the Other.
Robert Spencer
This controversy indicates the gulf between the Islamic world and the West on matters of freedom of expression. The idea of blasphemy as a capital offense is not an invention of “Islamists” or “Wahhabis,” but is deeply rooted within traditional Islam — which is why the forces of radicalism are finding it so easy to stoke cartoon rage worldwide.
Freedom of speech encompasses freedom to offend. The instant that any ideology is considered off-limits for critical examination and even ridicule, freedom of speech is dead. The Islamic world, at the highest levels, wants to force the West to accept the notion that criticizing Muhammad and Islam is wrong in itself. Such a notion is just as inimical to freedom as the idea that the Beloved Leader or dialectical materialism is above criticism. Westerners seem to grasp this when it comes to affronts to Christianity, but not in an Islamic context — as evidenced by the refusal of most American and British publications to stand up for the freedom of speech they otherwise so stoutly defend, and reprint the cartoons.
The cartoons can’t be taken back. Our only options are to defend the principles upon which our civilization is based, or to surrender.
— Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
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