I watched a CNN debate last night between a rabbi and a Muslim college professor and I’ve got to say, the rabbi made some good points while the professor made a really bad impression.
The rabbi was saying that, given everything that’s been going on, one would expect a more active response to fundamentalists from moderate, non-fundamentalist Muslims. Everybody is waiting for an active and loud repudiation of the fanatics on the part of mainstream Muslims. But there hasn’t been one. Everything interesting and meaningful that I have read online, seen on TV and heard in person on the subject of Charlie Hebdo came from non-Muslims. The only interesting pieces on whether the attacks are related to Islam, honestly, came from me. All I’ve seen and heard from Muslims on the subject was the sulky, “The cartoonists were insulting my identity, so why should I be on their side?” (this was a tweet somebody linked to that made me cringe with disgust.) I’m not denying the possibility that moderate Muslims are saying more valuable and insightful things than this infantile bit of extreme idiocy but they are not getting the message out very well. And I was glad to hear the rabbi finally state the painfully obvious: we are all waiting. Give us something here.
The Muslim professor unfortunately chose to take the position of sulky infantilism, as well. His position was “But why do we have to give any explanations if we haven’t done anything?” As a professor, I’m sure he is well aware of how silly this approach is. The Pope apologized for the Inquisition he obviously didn’t contribute to. The King of Spain apologized for the expulsion of the Jews that wasn’t even perpetrated by his royal family. This had been done several royal families away and many centuries earlier, yet he still apologized. Germans are paying reparations to Jews and Ukrainians, even though neither Merkel nor today’s German taxpayers are guilty of the Holocaust.
I can’t imagine a situation where people would come to me asking me to explain what is going on in Ukraine and I’d adopt a pouty expression and respond, in a petulant voice, that I don’t see why I have to explain anything and that all Ukrainians are different. As a Russian-speaker, I’ve been doing nothing but repudiating Putinoids and distancing myself from the Russian neo-fascism. And I don’t think that it’s somehow beneath me to do that. And by the way, unlike a religious identity, the linguistic identity can’t be chosen, changed, or abandoned.
The rabbi obviously won the debate. Here is an excerpt from his article:
We rightly don’t wish to identify Islam as an inherently violent religion. I have repeatedly argued against this belief and brought proofs from history. We don’t want to tar regular, everyday G-d fearing Muslims who simply wish to observe their faith in peace with a violent brush. . .
What we have every right to expect is that Muslims of every stripe and denomination condemn violence in the name of Islam, dismiss Imams who promote violence, and cast out any and all Islamic voices who call for bloodletting in Islam’s name. The time has come for a coordinated world march—by Muslims—against Islamic violence. If 30,000 Muslims can march in the streets of Paris and London last summer to condemn Israel, then surely they can also march to condemn violence in Islam’s name. Imagine the impact of a million Muslims marching in New York, London, Paris, and Jerusalem to condemn all violence in the name of Islam. Imagine the statement it would make to whose who seek to hijack Islam and turn it violent.
I think Rabbi Shmuley is definitely on to something here. Islam used to be a great religion with an enormous civilizational potential that prevented Europe from sliding completely into barbarity. Muslims gave the Western civilization back to the West after it was almost entirely lost. And that is an enormous gift of historic significance. And now Islam is being hijacked by a small minority of vicious cannibals while nobody seems to do anything productive about it.
Clarissa's Blog 
There were large scale condemnations of the Paris shootings by various Muslim organizations, French or not. Muslim cartoonists drew countless cartoons in support of Charlie Hebdo, too. I could fill this comment with links if I wanted it to go straight to the spam filter, but since I don’t, I’ll just leave my favourite collection of Muslims condemning the attacks here: http://www.onislam.net/english/shariah/special-coverage/481653-paris-attack-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-cartoon.html
“Our Prophet was verbally abused and physically harrased multiple times in Makkah. Never ONCE did any of the Companions go and murder those who did such deeds.
Do those who kill others in the name of the Prophet believe that they love him more than the companions?”
or
“Indeed, condemnation is not sufficient. Muslims, before anybody else, should take swift and practical action because the danger threatening Europe is a threat for Muslims too. Muslims are part and parcel of the European society; they have a role to play in protecting it and in promoting social peace in it.”
These, and many other similar messages, are things I started seeing half an hour after the attacks, and I didn’t particularly go looking for Muslim voices either, so I wonder what’s happening in here.I mostly saw these linked on Twitter/Tumblr though, with some brief mentions on Romanian-language mass-media, so I wonder what’s happening with English-language mainstream mass-media if it didn’t manage to report on one single example of the myriad condemnations of the attacks by Muslims, and what’s going on with CNN if the one Muslim they managed to find didn’t consider the many responses from Muslims that minced no words in condemning said attacks worth mentioning.
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““Indeed, condemnation is not sufficient. Muslims, before anybody else, should take swift and practical action because the danger threatening Europe is a threat for Muslims too.”
“I wonder what’s happening with English-language mainstream mass-media if it didn’t manage to report on one single example of the myriad condemnations of the attacks by Muslims”
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Have one specifically Muslim march in Germany http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2015/01/12/Merkel-to-join-Muslim-march-for-tolerance-in-Germany.html . Also, I didn’t say the English-language media wasn’t reporting on the Muslim marches, I said that it wasn’t reporting on the condamnations, which is what I understood you were asking for in the original post (“Everybody is waiting for an active and loud repudiation of the fanatics on the part of mainstream Muslims. But there hasn’t been one. Everything interesting and meaningful that I have read online, seen on TV and heard in person on the subject of Charlie Hebdo came from non-Muslims”). The Romanian language media mentioned that lots of Muslim orgs condemned the attacks, so what is the English language media doing if someone as informed as you hadn’t heard about it?
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I listened to the statement by the AL Qaeda representative yesterday. His message is verbatim what the 90% of the public intellectuals in the US are saying: the Charlie Hebdo attack and the rest of terrorism is caused by the US invading the Muslim world. Somehow, this message has been disseminated so well that there is barely anybody who disagrees with it in the English -language media. So I’m guessing that when people really want to get the message out, it’s not that hard. Even when the people in question are maniacal murderers.
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The answer you’re looking for is “group loyalty”.
The practice of modern Islam is largely about remaining loyal to the group (kin and religion) you’re born into. This means very few muslims are ready to criticize other muslims to non-muslims about much of anything.
The few that are tend to be very educated and secular and often border being muslims in name only (and/or have trouble reconciling the faith they want to have with the unpalatable reality around them).
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Also, it’s very curious that I get emails from colleagues condemning Israel about once a week. But as of now, there hasn’t been a single email since I discovered the concept of email condemning terrorism. The first and tge last thing I heard in class on the day of the 9/11 attacks was “Americans blew up their own WTC.”
My belief in the capacity of the English-speakers to produce anything but self-flagellating outpouring on any subject has long disappeared.
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It’s interesting how this studied indifference and self-flagellation has been going on for a long time. I think it may have become fully airborne in the 70s. Please have a look at this:
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It is also true that Christians rarely, if ever, agree that radical Fundamentalist Christians are “the problem.”
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“It is also true that Christians rarely, if ever, agree that radical Fundamentalist Christians are “the problem.””
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The Palestinian President did march in the rally in Paris, if I recall correctly. He is a prominent Muslim.
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“Imagine the impact of a million Muslims marching in New York, London, Paris, and Jerusalem to condemn all violence in the name of Islam. Imagine the statement it would make to whose who seek to hijack Islam and turn it violent.”
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I’m quite chuffed that you’re extending my original joke … 🙂
On a somewhat related note to your post …
I’ve been asked on too many occasions to count by Muslim women in East London to help them lock themselves in their homes — the keys aren’t symmetric, so they only work from the outside.
Every time I’m asked to do this, I make sure this is really what they want, and it eventually comes out: they’re asking me to do this because as a perceived member of the English establishment, it’s safe to ask me to do this so they can be protected from their own people. The keys go through the mail slot and they’re safer from their own people for a while.
It’s a miserable existence, but at least I know that for one night, they don’t have to deal with Islam’s failure to make possible what we would consider a “reasonable life for all”.
That bit on “thar” cultures by Steve Dutch was spot on.
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Will watch it now! It is indeed hard to argue with rabbi Shmuley. 🙂
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Clarissa, you are going to be waiting for this Muslim response for a long, long time. Have you heard that:
Post-attack Charlie Hebdo cover causes unrest in Muslim world.
Riots erupt from West Africa to East Asia in protest of latest issue of French magazine, which featured Mohammed on cover after its offices were attacked.
[…] In Amman, around 2,500 protesters set off from Al-Husseini mosque under tight security, holding banners that read “insulting the prophet is global terrorism.”
[…] A French flag was also set on fire outside the embassy in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where 1,000 protesters rallied, denouncing Charlie Hebdo and chanting slogans of praise to the prophet.
Muslim governments also joined the chorus of condemnation of the cartoon.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4615892,00.html
As usual, Israel is to blame for everything and anything bad coming from any Muslims:
” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of terrorism and said Israeli “provocations” such as the bombardment of Gaza were contributing to radicalization in the Muslim world.
“He himself killed, his army killed children in the playground. They killed our citizens and an American citizen in international waters. This is terrorism. Nobody can argue about Israeli aggression in Jerusalem in the al-Aqsa mosque,” Davutoglu told Reuters in an interview.
“These provocations create frustration in the Muslim world and are becoming one of the reasons why these radical trends are emerging,” he said. “If we want to establish peace and order in the Middle East, eliminating all the extremist forces, we have to solve the Palestinian question.”
Davutoglu on Thursday compared Netanyahu to the Islamist terrorists who carried out attacks last week in Paris, saying both had committed crimes against humanity.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4615872,00.html
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Turkish leaders are, unfortunately, not what the people of Turkey deserve.
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\ Turkish leaders are, unfortunately, not what the people of Turkey deserve.
As much as Putin is not what Russian people deserve.
( People of Turkey vote for / support their leaders, like Russians. )
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“As much as Putin is not what Russian people deserve.”
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Now I have seen this and want to give credit where it’s due:
How One Pakistani Is Bringing About An Anti-Terrorism Civilian Revolution
Today marks one month since the massacre of 132 schoolchildren in Peshawar. Meet the 27-year-old lawyer who is bent on prosecuting the Taliban and unveiling their sympathisers in the country, despite several threats to his life.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/imaansheikh/never-forget-pakistan
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A miracle! El has met a Muslim she doesn’t dislike! 🙂
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I bet she still wouldn’t let him drive her in a taxi!
“Won’t anyone think of my precious non-existent baby??”
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Uri’s latest column is about the attacks:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/
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