Hitchens Decodes Rauf
It's just too easy for the likes of Rauf to put one over on an American public that's enormously ignorant of what actual Islam actually entails -- and that goes for many American Muslims as well. Hitchens translates Rauf on Slate:
From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza. The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution--to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.
I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy. The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?
Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter ...
As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims--to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.







Islamic women and islamic men want to have all the wealth and privileges that they extorted or stolen from the free world and at the same time claimed that they were victim of socalled islamphobia whenever they failed to gain anything or any support.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 1:45 AM
The middleeasterners, iranians, asiatics all tried to confuse us, nonbelievers with their various factions of islam or tried to imply that their faction is more "moderate" than the other when in reality they are just all the same nastypeople.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 2:48 AM
Amy, Thanks for posting this.
I found this article one of the more nuanced accounts of the Ground Zero Mosque issue. Many people don't know what the actual beliefs that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf are. C. Hitchens explains it in language that most can understand.
Janet C at August 24, 2010 8:00 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/08/hitchens-decode.html#comment-1745988">comment from Janet CThanks so much, Janet C. I'm trying to post stuff that reflects the nuances that most people don't get. Hitchens is so wonderful at cutting through the crap and decoding what few can.
Amy Alkon
at August 24, 2010 8:19 AM
Directly related to this story: Who is Daisy Khan?
Robert W. (Vancouver) at August 24, 2010 11:12 AM
I read the NY Times and Le Figaro regliously (no pun intended). The difference in the comments concerning the mosque by the Americans and the French are as night and day. The vast majority of the French commenters in a recent article (http://tinyurl.com/37v9pxr) are adamantly opposed to the mosque and have difficulty understanding why there is even a debate about it.
One of the more interesting leitmotifs in the comments points out that France's Muslim population is 10% and America's 1%. This is proposed as a reason why Americans are being so tolerant...because they just don't know any better.
As Hitchen's recommends, people in the US should really look to Europe to see what happens when there is a sizable Muslim minority. Most of these leftists that look down on America and adore Europe have no clue. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
liz at August 24, 2010 11:49 AM
Very sorry for all the typos....pimf.
liz at August 24, 2010 11:51 AM
"They merely hint that, if there demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a tiny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter..."
It's more than a hint. Here, for instance, is self-proclaimed liberal, progressive, secularized American Muslim Reza Aslan venting his fury at all who dare oppose the Ground Zero mosque:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129381552
Note the last 2 sentences in particular:
"I can't imagine how the next generation of American Muslim youth will react to such provocations. I pray that we never find out."
This is from an author & editor, a guy who writes for a living. So I assume he put some thought into it. But he didn't pause for a moment to ponder what his infidel readers would make of such a bald threat of riots & murder if Muslims don't get their way.
Martin at August 24, 2010 2:37 PM
The esteemed Satoshi Kanazawa (see link on this page) says President Obama is in fact a Muslim, that it is in his genes.
Sheesh, that New Yorker cover was right on. We are in deep doo-doo.
I even saw a Muslim driving a car on the San Diego Freeway once. Like he owned the whole highway.
BOTU at August 24, 2010 4:37 PM
So, what about those japanese named companies that labelled their food halal or collaborated so much with predoominantly islamic countries?
WLIL at August 24, 2010 5:40 PM
THat is what the culturally insensitive and brutal islamic world is trying to do, pretending to be friends with some friend of friend of infidel and then threatened us nonbelievers, whenever we opposed their horrible islamic culture or opposed their noisy and horrible islamic mosque.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 5:45 PM
Here's Satoshi's post.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201008/if-barack-obama-is-christian-michael-jackson-was-white
Amy Alkon at August 24, 2010 6:01 PM
Even in Asia, in contries such as malaysia, singapore and indonesia, there are large groups of a distinct ethnics or subraces who are nastily arrogant abusive moslems or heavily influenced by abusive islamic culture.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 6:46 PM
Another unresolved problems lies with those aggressively cruel moslems who tried to make their socalled religion into a terrifyingly racist agenda that they mixed it with their equally terrifying disgusting islamic agenda.
It is even more strange when they tried to cover up their islamic cruelty by calling themselves "british", "liberal", "moderate", and so on, which are all obviously a big lie.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 7:43 PM
It is just another one of their typical and nasty islamic habit to threaten nonbelievers for any imagine slight against their socalled islamic authority. The greedy islamic world want to manipulate and force the free world to support their endless greed, their endless internal conflict in their asiatic and middleastern world and their various useless mega projects. Enough is enough.
WLIL at August 24, 2010 8:35 PM
Amy,
By merely reposting Satoshi's screed without commentary, you are implicitly endorsing his racist, unscientific, and inflammatory hogwash.
Or are you one of the 18% of Americans who now think Obama is Muslim, thanks to our "liberal" media?
franko at August 25, 2010 10:03 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/08/hitchens-decode.html#comment-1746438">comment from frankoAmy, By merely reposting Satoshi's screed without commentary, you are implicitly endorsing his racist, unscientific, and inflammatory hogwash. Or are you one of the 18% of Americans who now think Obama is Muslim, thanks to our "liberal" media?
Franko, discuss what you take issue with in Satoshi's remarks, don't tell me what I am and am not endorsing.
While I believe people have the freedom to choose their religion, Muslim thinking isn't on board with this. If you are born a Muslim and leave the faith, you're an apostate, marked for death. Nice!
Amy Alkon
at August 25, 2010 10:18 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/08/hitchens-decode.html#comment-1746440">comment from Amy AlkonFranko, your comments always lead to some sucking waste of time on my part, but here:
http://translating-jihad.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-obama-muslim-or-apostate.html
Amy Alkon
at August 25, 2010 10:21 AM
Amy - you need to ignore franko. He's an ineducable progressive cunt.
anyone who believes that the media has a right-wing bias is clearly too far left to be taken seriously.
go away franko, the adults are talking.
brian at August 26, 2010 2:34 PM
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