Ghost of a flea

"Not true Islam, obviously; Islam is a religion of peace."

I hate to bust your balls, and I realize that you are probably specifically gunning for a human rights complaint from the Canuckian Thought police (which is a noble endeavor), but you must consider all the implications of your line of thought.

If you decalare Islam as the immutable enemy, all of the military ventures undertaken by NATO and the US are in vain, because the strategy relies on nation-building co-opting the local population to destroy entities like the Taliban. Those local populations are Muslim.

So if the religion is indeed an intractable cancer that will always recur and export radicalism, these strategies are naive goofs destined to failure. You should advocate pulling up stakes in both theatres of war and turning them (and the wider region) into massive sheets of irradiated glass. You should probably support Barack Obama, as such a sequence of events is possibly moderately more likely to eventually happen under a reactive, law-enforcement strategy.

It is also interesting to note that groups like the Taliban wind up pissing off the local populations who have to live with them way better than any Western propaganda effort to discredit them. Al Qaeda in Iraq, Islamists in Algeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Mahdi Army in Iraq, all have turned off local populations who initially greeted them with either enthusiastic welcome or apathetic tolerance. They were initially welcomed or tolerated because they were seen as upholders of Islamic values and/or protectors or fighters against infidels.

As an anthropologist, I'm sure you gather that tacit support for fighting the infidels is based in tribalism as much as it is in strict reading of Islamic scripture (think of it as rooting for the home team), and it's pretty amazing how American soldiers and Marines fail to take it personally when they have to work with guys who were probably shooting at them a couple of years ago.

This is the conflict I have with some of the blogger criticisms about Islam. Simultaneously, I hold the following positions:

1. Large elements of the Muslim world are afflicted with radicalism and antisemitism; this is centered in the Arab world. The antisemitism is embedded in Koranic scripture, but the virulent combination of the two has hit a modern if cyclical upswing with the export of Wahhabism and other strains of radical Arab Islam, and the use of the Palestinian issue as a bludgeon by propagandists from Damascus to London.

2. I also believe that literal interpretation of scripture can be a fallacious argument, given that other faiths have fairly illogical, cruel and barbaric passages, yet have moved past them. What changed? What is different? These are the questions that need to be explored. There is a fundamental difference in Christ's peaceful example vs. Mohommed's, but there is apparently less of a difference between ass-kicking in Judaic scripture and Islam, for example. So what causes the wide practical difference?

3. I believe that Islamic expansion into Western societies is a legitimate demographic problem, specifically because many of these western societies wholly fail to assimilate Muslims through a combination of a. PC sensitivity run amok, b. failure to enforce the law, c. Mutually agreed upon ghettoization of immigrant populations, d. Immigration at much too rapid a pace.

4. I believe Western societies should have confidence in and strictly maintain their values, and where these values conflict with any specific religion, the values should win out. Comedy Central, Barnes & Noble and the Canadian government, apparently, are pathetic. Secularism must always be king.

5. BUT - as someone who has traveled to Iraq and watched US personnel befriend and co-opt local populations to kill terrorists, I find this constant drumbeat against Islam impractical and potentially destructive to the very goals we all claim to support. Such attitudes don't and can't survive contact with such outreach efforts; where the rubber meets the road, a young American Captain fasts for Ramadan with his Iraqi Army charges, and then they all load their weapons, go out and waste some Takfiri together. To hold the cynical view that Islam is a death cult in such a setting is problematic, and to express it would be suicide.

Again, this is also explained by tribalism. When a young Iraqi drinks a beer and watches Pamela Anderson bound down a beach in slow-motion on satellite tv, he may be violating the advice of the Koran. But argue to that same kid that Islam is a death cult started by a pedophile, and he'll want to kick your ass.

And as for those Methodist Muslims you are pining for ... I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by arguing that they are common or even not rare ... but they exist:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001170.html

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=17258&prog=zgp&proj=zdrl

Salad Bar Muslims are more common. So this is my conflict. I wish you luck in pursuing your human rights complaint. I agree that loud criticism of Islamic lawfare and rising incidents where strict Islamic values conflict with western values is valid.

But there is a certain point where the criticism reaches into an area that creates logical problems with our current military and political strategies, and even our proud Western emphasis on secularist tolerance, and these conflicts must be considered.

Bill: I agree with much of what you have said. One of my primary concerns, however, is - as you have anticipated - Canada's so called human rights regime and not the possible offense my words might give to Canada's local allies in Afghanistan. Part of defending and advancing Western values (as per point 4, above), in fact, the most important such value, is defending freedom of conscience and expression.

I happen to think Islam is irretrievable nonsense from the very first psychotic episode of its murderous prophet; a view I would quite cheerfully extend as commentary on any number of other worldviews (one advantage of an anthropological training is learning the sheer scope and invention of human stupidity). The problem is that in Canada only one religion currently enjoys the protection of de facto blasphemy laws. Furthermore, that religion finds its most prominent Canadian exponents amongst sympathizers for its worst expression.

You are right to say we should not throw away the goodwill of the locals in Iraq. So far as they are watching Pamela Anderson and want religion out of the public square our interests coincide. So far as they are incapable of accepting mature disagreement I question the value of such alliances. I struggle to get through the day without issuing blood-curdling threats against people with whom I disagree. I expect the same from everyone else including and especially from populations that have made war upon me and mine.

(Godwin warning): I am certain there are plenty of Germans who would at one time found my opposition to Nazism offensive. In that case, the more cities leveled to get the point across the better.

I don't agree with the Godwin-related analogy, because Naziism was a discrete political philosophy/movement with a coherent leadership and standing army bent on extermination of the Jewish population. Muslims/Islam, not so much:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/an-israeli-in-k.php

"I happen to think Islam is irretrievable nonsense from the very first psychotic episode of its murderous prophet"

Statements like this are problematic in the sense that, fill in "Christianity" for Islam in the sentiment, and you will quickly find yourself - though uncensored and probably not subject to death threats - exalted by some on the left, but widely unpopular with the majority of folks who make up a predominantly Christian nation.

I have many feelings on various religious tenets, but I keep a lot of them to myself just because I feel like getting along with others in a polite, diverse society.

But I admit that I wonder if Canada's human rights/anti-free speech madness demands/compels such aggaressive rhetoric, if only to challenge it. I'll have to think about that.

On this, we are in complete agreement:

"The problem is that in Canada only one religion currently enjoys the protection of de facto blasphemy laws."

At this point one begins to question the superiority of the West, because hey - at least all those other cultures still have confidence. The snivelling auto-veneration of "the Other" can and is destructive.

* "aggressive"

* "can be and is destructive"

Grrr ... must use preview.

"When a young Iraqi drinks a beer and watches Pamela Anderson bound down a beach in slow-motion on satellite tv, he may be violating the advice of the Koran. But argue to that same kid that Islam is a death cult started by a pedophile, and he'll want to kick your ass."

That statement actually argues against the points you attempt to make quite effectively.

"That statement actually argues against the points you attempt to make quite effectively."

I think you're reading to much into it. If I walk into a Manchester United booster bar and start mouthing off about how the team sucks, I have a reasonable chance of getting my ass handed to me. My point was about the impact of tribalism, not Islam's specific penchant to inspire a violent reaction.

* "too"

"If I walk into a Manchester United booster bar and start mouthing off about how the team sucks, I have a reasonable chance of getting my ass handed to me. My point was about the impact of tribalism, not Islam's specific penchant to inspire a violent reacion"

Ya know, it's the darnedest thing, just the other day I saw a bearded guy speaking with a Mancs accent exhorting the crowd to go forth and smite the foul infidel supporters of Manchester City FC.

Seriously dude. One of these things is not like the other.

Theo Van Gogh didn't walk into a mosque start mouthing off and end up with his head cut off.

To extend your metaphor; Muslims, unlike football hooligans, consider the entire world their home turf where blasphemy is not to be permitted.

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