[Dean's World] Aziz P: the jihadwatch

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Aziz P:
the jihadwatch
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1161464501.shtml


   The funny thing about being a muslim in America is how you often feel
   like you're sidelined from the debate.

   Dean for example is on a commendable jihad of his own; his goal is to
   force those on the right to acknowledge that "moderate Islam" need not
   be "secular Islam". In other words, to acknowledge that a large part
   of their Islamophobia stems from a perceived rivalry of Islam with
   Christianity and the West. A more nuanced reading of history shows
   that the great battles (Lepanto, etc) often were internecine squabbles
   within a single civilizational entity, just as were the various
   intra-European wars that rent the continent for centuries. The true
   Other has always been the far east; the middle east and the west have
   always been joined in a deep fashion. Recognizing the commonality of
   our civilizational heritage is in fact the best way to erase the wedge
   that fanatics like Osama bin Laden seek to draw between ordinary
   muslim folk and ordinary non-muslim folk. That commonality survives
   and even flourishes today, though it certainly doesn't make headlines.

   Robert Spencer is on a crusade of a similarly noble intent. That is,
   to identify the rhetoric of the extremists within Islam and put it on
   naked display. In so doing he provides a benchmark against which other
   behavior and rhetoric can be compared. The purpose of this is to stand
   guard against the rise of such similar rhetoric here at home and thus
   prevent the ideology of bin Laden from gaining a toehold.

   However the problem with both of these causes is that they don't
   recognize or honor the other. Because Robert makes no effort to say to
   his audience of muslims, "they are more alike us than they are
   different. In fact, they ARE us", his site fills with the most
   egregious and xenophobic bile. Robert, like Charles Johnson of LGF,
   prefers to take no responsibility for the contents of his comment
   threads, but the problem is that his crusade cannot be separated from
   the miasma that lurkes beneath it. Simply put, the crusade of
   jihadwatch becomes, without an emphasis on humanizing muslims rather
   than dehumaninzg them, a witch hunt.

   It also does not help that Robert routinely ascribes the CAUSE of
   Islamic extremists's ideology to the faith of Islam. That the
   extremists use Qur'an verse for their justification is not surprising;
   but were their holy text the phone directory would they act any
   differently? Throughout history every holy text - and even some
   non-holy ones - have been used to justify all manner of evil. Let us
   be frank about personal responsibility here: the CAUSE of the
   extremists' actions is their own souls, and their dark ambitions. Not
   their vision of Shari'a for its own sake, but rather the benefits that
   they imagine such to accrue to them in this life and the hereafter.
   THAT is what drives them and it is what has driven their predecesors
   of all faiths and none throughout history's bloody sweep.

   The result is that Robert's readers do indeed come to believe - fed
   upon a diet of one-sided interpretation as they are - that all muslims
   are the enemy, potentially. The only muslims that become non-threats
   are those that are externally non-muslim and secular. Hence the
   popularity of the three Goddesses (Manji, Sultan, and Hirsi Ali) in
   their circles. Muslims such as myself have no margin for error - the
   slightest misstatement and we are damned, our motives and intentions
   pre-ordained. And the times we seek to reach out, we are dismissed as
   practicing taqqiya or decitful. Isn't it profoundly obvious how such
   alienation is counter to the self-interest of us all?

   The challenge I pose to Robert then is this: to simply acknowledge
   that the fact that his work has attracted a community of hatred is a
   problem. And not a harmless one, but rather one that genuinely hinders
   his very own cause.

   And the challenge I pose to Dean is to consider the advantages of
   alliance over enmity with Robert, and how much more we can achieve
   working together.