The Joke That There Is Such A Thing As "Moderate Islam"
People keep telling me to cut Ani Zonneveld some slack. She's the chick who put out the lie in an LA Times letter to the editor that men and women are equal in Islam:
...According to my faith of Islam, all human beings are equal
First of all, there's no such thing as "my faith of Islam." There's only Islam, a violence- and murder-inciting totalitarian movement masquerading as a religion.
Back to Zonneveld, she's a singer, and I speculate that her public "moderate Muslim" stance is largely, or all, about promoting her singing career, since she has shown herself entirely unwilling to engage with me on points in the Quran I e-mailed her, and instead tells me, vaguely, and without links, to read stuff at her website.
...read the stuff I write on the website...
For a supposed promoter of a point of view, she sure takes the lazy way out!
Which website? What stuff? Press releases about how her Muslim flacking is helping your singing career? How she got an award for it from the organization she used to be executive director of?
Anyway, the problem is, there's no such thing as "moderate Islam." Here, from a Geert Wilders piece:
I have been proclaiming this for years: A moderate Islam does not exist. For those who don't want to believe me: read the speech which the Italian writer Oriana Fallaci who alas, died last year held in New York on November 28th 2007 when she received a prize for her heroic resistance to Islamo facism and her struggle for freedom:"A moderate Islam does not exist. It does not exist because there is no difference between Good Islam and Bad Islam. There is Islam and that it the end of it. Islam is the Koran, and nothing other than the Koran. And the Koran is the Mein Kampf of a religion that desires to eliminate others- non -Muslims-who are called infidel dogs, and inferior creatures. Read the Koran, that Mein Kampf, yet again. In whatever version and you will see that the evil which the sons of Allah against us and themselves has perpetrated comes from that book". (Oriana Fallaci"The Force of Reason" post-script page 305 February 2006)
Ehsan Jami is one such infidel dog who had the courage to call the Prophet Mohammed a criminal and for referring to some of the strictures of the Koran as backwards and who got it into his head to stand up for other apostate dogs and even organized a committee for them. Allah finds that the death penalty is warranted for apostasy. Last Saturday that was almost a reality: the infidel Jami was beaten bloody by two Morrocans and one Somalian.
(Translators note: Ehsan Jami is a young Dutch munipal council member and is now living under guard in an undisclosed location after receiving scores of death threats after making critical remarks about Islam and Mohammed in a television interview. http://www.euro-islam.info/spip/article.php3?id_article=425 http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=42621)
Enough is enough. Let's stop with the politically correct spin and hype. It is good that Jami now has protection and it is too bad it did not happen sooner, but that does not solve the core of the problem. The core of the problem is fascistic Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as it is set out in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Koran. The texts in the Koran leave little to the imagination.
In various Sura's Muslims are called upon to oppress, persecute, or kill Jews, Christians and others, believers and non -believers and to beat women and to rape and to use violence to implement a worldwide Islamist state. Numerous other Sura's are used by Muslims to incite to death and destruction.
Ban that wretched book like Mein Kampf is banned!
In doing so send a signal to Jami's attackers and other Islamist that the Koran never ever can be allowed to be used as an inspiration for violence. I am ashamed of the Dutch politicians. Their naïve and pathological striving for a utopian moderate Islam which will only bring our country hell and damnation. I am ashamed of the people inside and outside the Lower House who refuse to stop the Islamic invasion of Holland. I am ashamed for Dutch politicians who day in and day out accept the over representation of foreigners in illegality and criminality and have no answer for it.
> People keep telling me to cut
> Ani Zonneveld some slack.
Amy, you should cut Ani Zonneveld some slack. Here's a compelling list of compelling points to explain why.
1. Many, many of us have written letters to the editor of the LA Times to make some point or other... Maybe most of the people reading this blog have done so. Doing it ain't an agreement to take on all comers in all venues until the end of time. If it was a Max Boot editorial or something, I'd say go nuts, but this is a silly little woman somewhere.
2. You're right and she's wrong, but she's not 100% wrong. Very, very few Christians believe in transubstantiation, but many of them take part in ceremonies derived from the ancient beliefs about it. Who knows what impact a faith's lesser strictures have on the believers.
Most importantly:
> Ban that wretched book like
> Mein Kampf is banned!
3. Mein Kampf isn't banned, at least not here in the States. If it were, more people would read it. As it is, people do what I did in fifth grade: They crack the covers to see if they can discern the murderous fires in there, then get bored out of their skulls by the mundane text.
People horny to ban books shouldn't prattle about "fascism." Paired with your worrisome claim that "This shouldn't be left up to the voters either," you give the impression of someone who believes that the right path for humanity is charted only in a few skulls, and those people should be permitted to tell us how it's going to go. (Presumably you're one of those people, too: It almost always works that way.)
Wrong planet for you.
Crid at May 28, 2008 10:27 AM
She could cut herself slack by admitting that there are offensive parts in the Koran. At the same time she could elaborate why it is important for Muslims to distance themselves from a text that documents a time of conquest and its code of ethics. She could elaborate why the Koran is not the actual word of God, but the inaccurate interpretation by a human prophet and that its writings are to be interpreted rather than taken literally.
Then she would be a moderate Muslim. Vald and Crid would then be correct in pointing out that we should support Muslims of this type. But she is not as I described. This just means she is not a beheaded. That she doesn’t want to take part in the violence but still believes in the text. Or it means she is as Amy has described, a public "moderate Muslim" stance that is largely, or all, about promoting her singing career.
Either way arguments to tolerate this type of behavior have to be considered appeasement.
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 10:50 AM
errrrrrrr beheader
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 10:52 AM
"This just means she is not a beheaded. That she doesn’t want to take part in the violence but still believes in the text." Wouldn't that make her a moderate. Plus since we did not read the books she is pushing we don't know. It's very possible that those books (which she might get a cut of) say exactly that. Who's vald?
Crid: my first response to the raging Dutchmen was your number 3.
vlad at May 28, 2008 11:03 AM
Vlad, I dont understand what you're saying
Crid at May 28, 2008 11:16 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/05/28/the_joke_that_t.html#comment-1551083">comment from vladPlus since we did not read the books she is pushing we don't know. It's very possible that those books (which she might get a cut of) say exactly that.
Doesn't matter what those books say. The Quran is an evil and violence fomenting text. You cannot be a good Muslim unless you convert or kill the "infidel." The fact that many Muslims don't know or partake in this doesn't make the religion some version of "turn the other cheek." It simply means they're uninformed or non-practicing to a degree.
Amy Alkon at May 28, 2008 11:22 AM
The fact that many Muslims don't know or partake in this doesn't make the religion some version of "turn the other cheek." It simply means they're uninformed or non-practicing to a degree.
Exactly, Amy. I don't know why so many people are refusing to wrap their little brains around this simple fact.
Flynne at May 28, 2008 11:39 AM
People horny to ban books shouldn't prattle about "fascism."
I don't believe in banning books. I posted this for the notion that there is no such thing as "moderate Islam." And there isn't. Only, as stated above, Muslims who are uninformed about what the Quran says or non-practicing to a degree.
Amy Alkon at May 28, 2008 11:43 AM
vlad,
I am not dutch and I have a copy of Mein Kampf on my bookshelf. What is your point?
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 12:05 PM
You're right, Islam is rotten at the core, but many people of faith don't live at the core or concern themselves with it very much (see transubstantiation, above). If you just scream murderous accusations at everyone who even thinks about Allah, they'll just think you're whack and ignore you.
Crid at May 28, 2008 12:10 PM
Yea but Crid,
As a moderate Christian I am quick to tell folks what and why I believe. This gal pulled a duck and cover on Amy. Isn’t that what we are arguing about? Are not we arguing, if this gal is actually a moderate Muslim and if not what is? I agree with your assessments in so far as a moderate Muslim can exist. But in order to be a moderate Muslim she would need to openly disagree with the Quran.
Of course you are right that most folks, i.e. most Christian folks, float along in their religion for companionship/fellowship, yet don’t actually understand the tenets of their faith. I just don’t buy that once confronted with passages ordering them to kill non believers that they would not disagree with the text. This women failed to react to any of the offensive text.
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 1:27 PM
"Vlad, I dont understand what you're saying" That Mein Kampf is not banned in the US and that is it were more people would read it.
"I am not dutch and I have a copy of Mein Kampf on my bookshelf. What is your point?" The raging Dutchmen I was reffering to was Geert Wilders. No book should be banned as it will immediately create controversy and more people would read it.
"or non-practicing to a degree." Right and thus would they not be moderate in that they are taking their religion in moderation. Crid put it well with transubstantiation.
I'm not saying Islam (as all religions) should not be watched carefully. My one gripe with ALL organized religions is they ALL leave room for the wicked and evil to manipulate the simple and obedient.
vlad at May 28, 2008 1:28 PM
"I just don’t buy that once confronted with passages ordering them to kill non believers that they would not disagree with the text. This women failed to react to any of the offensive text." Or she's inept and knows it thus direct us to read those books that she agrees with. If I'm iffy on a topic but have recently read a good book on the subject I'd suggest reading said book rather than listening to me trip over my own two feet trying to explain.
vlad at May 28, 2008 1:33 PM
Vlad,
Well then let me change your statement to All Organizations, government or otherwise, leave room for the wicked and evil to manipulate the simple and obedient. So now what? We have just rendered all organizations to be the same. But they are not. It depends on their governing rules. So since all religions do not have the same governing rules, they all do not have the same observational requirements as Islam. Your premise is wrong.
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 1:49 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/05/28/the_joke_that_t.html#comment-1551126">comment from rusty wilson. So since all religions do not have the same governing rules, they all do not have the same observational requirements as Islam.
Exactly. There's a bit of a difference between "turn the other cheek" and "behead the fucker," don't you think?
And anybody who comes here more than once probably gets the sense that I am no fan of any religion, but Islam is horrible in a way the others aren't.
Amy Alkon at May 28, 2008 1:53 PM
No fan but honest, consistent and fair. Thanks for the band width Goddess.
rusty wilson at May 28, 2008 2:22 PM
"Exactly. There's a bit of a difference between "turn the other cheek" and "behead the fucker," don't you think?" Actually the old testament say
"behead the fucker" though I am misquoting it. So while I can see the argument that Christianity follows a gentler bible (I don't agree) fundamental Judaism is till very similar. Felps and fundy laterday saints to name a few are just as evil and dangerous.
vlad at May 28, 2008 3:50 PM
I must have woke up in the Twilight Zone earlier this week and wish to get back to reality. First there's the whole issue of Ani Zonneveld trying to convince us that Islam is a tolerant and peaceful religion.
Tonight I'm listening to BBC London Radio and listening to host Ray Khan (a transplanted Pakistani Muslim) stating that that "Islam treats all women with the highest regard". Really?
I guess the constant drip-drip-drip of news items I keep hearing about Muslim honour killings (including in North America) are just a fabrication?
I guess that every time I go to a shopping mall and see a Muslim man dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and his wife or sister covered in a black tent with only a slit for her eyes, I should conclude that this is her absolute willing choice?
I guess that the death threats toward Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant and Tarek Fatah and a host of others who "dare" speak out against Radical Islam is but an aberration?
Wake me up when I'm back in the real world!
Robert W. at May 28, 2008 7:03 PM
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