[Dean's World] Ali Eteraz: Solution To Islamophobia, Part I

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Ali Eteraz:
Solution To Islamophobia, Part I
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1173125454.shtml


   To me Islamophobia is a thoroughly Western phenomenon. As such, it
   doesn't effect Muslims in the Muslim world. It effects Muslims in the
   Western world. The fundo mullah in Karachi doesn't read blogs. I do,
   here.

   The basis of Islamophobia is simple: a Westerner is unable to make a
   distinction between a Muslim that wants to harm him and a Muslim who
   does not want to harm him.

   Instead, once Westerner sees that some Muslims want to harm him, he
   thinks that all Muslims want to harm him. This is the extreme form of
   Islamophobia. It is not as prevalent.

   Or, Westerner thinks that since there are no Muslims who will step up
   and put a stop to violent Muslims, it must mean that even the peaceful
   Muslims are enabling the violent Muslims. This is the minor form of
   Islamophobia. This is the most prevalent. When Dean accuses someone of
   Islamophobia, it is usually on the basis of this kind of Islamophobia.

   I don't really care to inquire whether the people who hold them are
   bigots or not. All that is a waste of my time.

   I only care how to stop it. This is how:

   Westerners need to recognize that the vast majority of the Muslims
   that want to harm them are in the Muslim world. No one will dispute
   this assertion.

   As such, the best way to fight those Muslims is to use our military,
   intelligence, diplomacy, economics, and American brains.

   If all Muslims who wanted to harm Westerners were in the Muslim world
   there would be no Islamophobia, because, as we know, Islamophobia is a
   Western phenomenon. It is domestic.

   The area becomes gray when you start seeing Muslims that want to harm
   the West IN THE WEST ITSELF.

   It is THESE Muslims who create the conditions for Islamophobia. I
   submit that if the 9/11 bombers had never lived in the United States
   and flown their planes from an airport in the Middle East, in the post
   9/11 period Western Muslims wouldn't have had to worry about
   Islamophobia as much. This is common sense.

   So the question is: what is a Westerner supposed to do about Muslims
   in the West who want to harm the Westerners?

   Simple: Rather than asking peaceful Muslims to strip violent Muslims
   of their Islam or demand other Muslims to put a stop to such Muslims
   simply strip violent Western Muslims of their citizenship and send
   them off, or, assuming they have longstanding ties to this country,
   put them in jail as you would with any common criminal.

   The reason you shouldn't ask peaceful Muslims to strip violent Muslims
   of their Islam is because that is the minor form of Islamophobia.

   Once Americans are made clear (and frankly most American on the left
   already know this), that a Western Muslim who supports Divinely
   Sanctioned Violence, needs to be stripped of his identity as a
   Westerner, or his rights as a citizen (by going to jail), they will
   stop expecting peaceful and law abiding Western Muslims to put a stop
   to violent Muslims.

   Aside from petitions and watching our neighborhoods or whistleblowing
   from time to time Western Muslims cannot stop either kind of violent
   Muslims.

   We cannot stop violent Muslims in the Muslim world because we are not
   part of the Muslim world. They ignore us. We ignore them.

   We cannot stop violent Muslims in the West because a) we are not
   violent and b) aside from being good citizens ourselves we ourselves
   have no access to go to places where sleeper cells hang out, or where
   recruitment occurs. The only way we have access to these places is if
   we are contemplating joining a sleeper cell or contemplating becoming
   recruits ourselves. Yet if that were the case then we wouldn't BE
   peaceful Muslims in the first place. All peaceful Muslims can really
   do is a) sign a petition or hold a vigil, b) tell our neighbors we
   oppose terrorism, which we've done over and over already, c) cooperate
   with the police, which we've done over and over already and continue
   to and d) raise our kids to be peaceful, which ties into things like
   making sure that the literature at mosques isn't Saudi and that rather
   than joining gangs our kids go to college. Fact of the matter is, the
   vast majority of us already do this.

   In the end:

   Western Muslims cannot stop violent Muslims in the Muslim world.

   Peaceful Western Muslims cannot stop violent Western Muslims because
   that requires linking up with violent Western Muslims, which we're not
   going to do. As such, rather than treating violent Western Muslims as
   a Muslim problem, treat them as a Western problem and take away their
   rights i.e. deportation or jailing. [If there are peaceful Western
   Muslims who want to start initiatives to counsel their fellow violent
   Westerner Muslims by teaching them peaceful Islam, that's fine and
   dandy, but that cannot be an expectation, that's just a bonus].

   Until Americans (on the right) can make this distinction, Islamophobes
   will keep popping up among them.

   In the next part I will talk about the complete idiocy of the
   Islamophobic Fatalist.