Portia wrote:Marduk wrote:Portia, I don't know if you're still following this thread, but I think this article sums up many of my problems with most Western critiques of Islam. Really, moving aside from religion and being able to produce well-reasoned critiques about it does not preclude the possibility of phobic remarks and mindsets.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ign=buffer
Thanks so much for sharing! It was well-sourced and very persuasive. I may be the board participant with the most interest in/sympathy towards the so-called New Atheist movement, but I found this article to be a convincing takedown of some of my own blind spots.
I am reminded of the summer of 2006, the first time I ever really took a look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a critical eye for a persuasive writing class. My views on those wars (I was 18, so 2008 was my first election) not only turned 180 degrees, I learned to take what I read and hear with a grain of salt.
It's very natural to side with one's tribe, but I think this article made a convincing case that this is a case where there is a tangible human toll in doing so. Fortunately I adhere to no creed that says my views can't change unless a higher authority so dictates.
I didn't click through to his sources, but was impressed by the depth of his citations. All that aside, I still appreciated Sam Harris's new book on meditation and spirituality outside a religious context.
And I've been following your responses on this thread, only. My doctor recommended avoiding neocon fantasias, for my blood pressure. /s
Portia,
I agree that Glenn Greenwald is a persuasive writer. He writes well. In the article that Marduk references Greenwald is trying to prove that Sam Harris is guilty of Islamophobia. I can see how Greenwald might be convincing if (a) you don’t need proof for statements like “
That is the Harris worldview: obsessed with bad acts of foreign Muslims, almost entirely blind to - if not supportive of - the far worse acts of westerners like himself,” (b) you only read one side of the story, and (c) you don’t check up on Greenwald’s sources.
For (b) I’d suggest that anyone interested in reading what Sam Harris has to say in his own defense read this article.
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text ... s_on_islam
Now for (c) let’s check some of Greenwald’s sources. There is one argument Greenwald makes that he claims is supported by facts. I’d like to address those supposed facts. After defining what Greenwald means by “Islamophobia” he says:
Greenwald wrote:I believe all of those definitions fit Harris quite well, as evinced by this absurd and noxious overgeneralization from Harris:
The only future devout Muslims can envisage — as Muslims — is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed."
That is utter garbage: and dangerous garbage at that. It is no more justifiable than saying that the only future which religious Jews - as Jews - can envision is one in which non-Jews live in complete slavery and subjugation: a claim often made by anti-semites based on highly selective passages from the Talmud. It is the same tactic that says Christians - as Christians - can only envisage the extreme subjugation of women and violence against non-believers based not only on the conduct of some Christians but on selective passages from the Bible. Few would have difficultly understanding why such claims about Jews and Christians are intellectually bankrupt and menacing.
Worse still, these claims from Harris about how Muslims think are simply factually false. An AFP report on a massive 2008 Gallup survey of the Muslim world simply destroyed most of Harris' ugly generalizations about the beliefs of Muslims:
"A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence. . . . It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington. . . .
"About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews. . . .
"Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed. . . .
"But the poll, which gives ordinary Muslims a voice in the global debate that they have been drawn into by 9/11, showed that most Muslims -- including radicals -- admire the West for its democracy, freedoms and technological prowess.
"What they do not want is to have Western ways forced on them, it said."
Indeed, even a Pentagon-commissioned study back in 2004 - hardly a bastion of PC liberalism - obliterated Harris' self-justifying stereotype that anti-American sentiment among Muslims is religious and tribal rather than political and rational. That study concluded that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" — through the US's "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan".
First, let me give more of the Harris quote that Greenwald is drawing from:
Sam Harris wrote: While the other major world religions have been fertile sources of intolerance, it is clear that the doctrine of Islam poses unique problems for the emergence of a global civilization. The world, from the point of view of Islam, is divided into the “House of Islam” and the “House of War,” and this latter designation should indicate how Muslims believe their differences with those who do not share their faith will be ultimately resolved. While there are undoubtedly some moderate Muslims who have decided to overlook the irrescindable militancy of their religion, Islam is undeniably a religion of conquest. The only future devout Muslims can envisage—as Muslims—is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed. The tenets of Islam simply do not admit of anything but a temporary sharing of power with the “enemies of God.” Devout Muslims can have no doubt about the reality of Paradise or about the efficacy of martyrdom as a means of getting there. Nor can they question the wisdom and reasonableness of killing people for what amount to theological grievances. In Islam, it is the moderate who is left to split hairs, because the basic thrust of the doctrine is undeniable: convert, subjugate, or kill unbelievers; kill apostates; and conquer the world.
It’s a bold statement, and probably overstated. But the odd thing is that when I study the sources Greenwald uses to substantiate his claim that Harris is “simply factually false” I find that they actually tend to support Harris more than Greenwald. I’d like to address the Gallup poll on another day, but first I’ll discuss the Pentagon commissioned study.
The study, “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication,” does say that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.” It seems to be criticism of something President George Bush said. The Task Force gives as evidence for their statement a June 2004 Zogby Poll. However, the poll shows that in the five nations where the poll was taken (Morocco, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and United Arab Emirates) three of these countries had an unfavorable opinion of our “Freedom/Democracy.” In the two countries with a favorable opinion the majority was slight, 53% in Morocco and 57% in Jordan. While there was a much greater unfavorable opinion of our policies, the Task Force would have been more correct to say “Most Muslims hate us for our freedom/democracy, but even more of them hate us for our policies seen as a threat to their religion.”
Despite the Task Force’s desire to put a pro-Muslim spin on the data, Greenwald still totally misrepresents the Defense Science Board. According to the report that Greenwald endorses the Muslims hate our policies for
religious reasons and not political or “rational” reasons. The report agrees with Harris. The simple factual truth, according to Greenwald’s sources, is just the opposite of what Greenwald claims.
I think the Defense Science Board does a good job of putting the conflict in perspective.
Defense Science Board wrote: We call it a war on terrorism – but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself.… This is the larger strategic context, and it is acutely uncomfortable: U.S. policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself…. Therefore, in stark contrast to the Cold War, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state/empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity – an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a “War on Terrorism.”
So Muslims hate our policies because they see these policies as a threat to the survival of their religion.
We can gain some additional insight from the following paragraph from the source Greenwald approves of:
Defense Science Board wrote: Thus it is possible to show the Jihadis as having a wider degree of sympathetic (Arab majorities), indirect (Islamists), and direct support than most of the regimes. Certainly Arabs, by an overwhelming majority, sympathize with, or are active in the cause of Islamic Restoration. Therefore it is even more interesting to track the relative weight of the non-Jihadi Islamists, also called “moderate” or “New Islamists,” because their professed vision of Islamic Restoration is non-violent, tolerant, and relatively pluralistic. It can be argued that the New Islamists are in fact the true center of gravity in the Muslim World today, in that they have the most authority to make change, and draw the highest levels of sympathy from less-active, but receptive and supportive Arab majorities28. In this construct the Jihadis are seen as perhaps necessary to make change begin and thus become eventually inevitable, but the radicals do not appeal to the majority of Muslims in terms of practical political change if and when old regimes finally collapse.
The Task Force assures us with the comforting thought that the vision of the Islamic Restoration is non-violent, tolerant, and relatively pluralistic for the true center of gravity in the Muslim World. But note that this does not mean that the majority are opposed to the Jihadis, defined in the report as “the fighting groups.” Jihadis might be necessary to make change, but most Muslims would not like the Jihadis permanently in charge after the change is made. [They can hope, but getting rid of the “necessary” evil of the radicals has not proven easy in other successful movements around the world.] The “inevitable” nature of violent means used to bring about one’s vision of the future reminds me of what Walter Duranty, Pulitzer Prize winning (1932) reporter to the New York Times, and apologist for Stalin, famously said, “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” For Duranty and Stalin those eggs were the heads of tens of millions of people.
Nor would Americans shy away from using violence to ensure our vision of the future. At least, many times in the past a sufficient number of Americans have supported various wars, and we consider ourselves to be a peace-loving people. One difference might be that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not sympathize with a cause that finds as perhaps necessary or inevitable violent radicals. It is an interesting question to ask what the vision of Islamic Restoration means to Muslims today, and what a “non-violent, tolerant, and relatively pluralistic” Muslim society would look like. The history of the last [almost] 14 centuries gives one reason to be concerned. The kind of societies we have today where Muslims dominate also gives us pause.
I believe that among Muslims there are widely divergent visions of Islamic Restoration. I have to smile when I think of the phrase “widely divergent.” What that means to me may be different from what it means to you…or to Greenwald. Consider this quote from Greenwald. After talking about David Rohde’s experiences as a captive among the Taliban
Greenswald wrote:As is to be expected, Rohde’s account contains widely divergent depictions of his captors — some are violence-obsessed religious fanatics while others “showed glimpses of humanity” to him. As is clear by now, the Tablian are not monolithic.
I think this is an important point. There may be two Muslims who are willing to cut off your head just because you are a Western journalist. But some apologists are going to represent it as a “widely divergent” nature of the two men because only one of them is a “violence-obsessed religious fanatic” while the other shows “glimpses of humanity” to the victim.
So, what is the vision of Islamic Restoration that the Task Force report says is behind what is happening in the Muslim World and is supported by the majority? The Task Force doesn’t go into detail. If you google “Islamic Restoration” you come up with a number of hits regarding a caliphate. According to the Wikipedia article on the subject a “caliphate is a form of Islamic government led by a caliph – a person considered a political and religious successor to the prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim community.” “In 2014, the extremist group ISIS, [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] declared itself a Caliphate; nonetheless, its authority remains unrecognised by any country.”
A 29 June 2014 Time article explains what the restoration of a Caliphate would mean for many
http://time.com/2938317/isis-militants- ... caliphate/
Time wrote: Restoring the caliphate, and with it a measure of the glory that attended Islam’s golden age, has been the stated goal of Sunni Muslim activists for decades, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hizb ut-Tahrir to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. But al-Baghdadi’s group is the first to assert it. “The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect — the time has come for them to rise,” said the statement…. The fact is, a certain nostalgia for the caliphate lingers in much of the Muslim community — and not only among fundamentalists, or so-called takfiri groups like ISIS that see Shi‘ite Muslims as apostates. Catholics still have their Pope, these mainstream believers point out, and Eastern Orthodox Christians their patriarch.
But there are Caliphs and there are Caliphs. And while many, like the current Christian leaders, preach peace, the summons from the Mesopotamian desert Sunday was to “greedily drink the blood” of nonbelievers according to an early translation posted online:
“The sun of jihad has risen … The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared. Here the flag of the Islamic State, the flag of tawhīd (monotheism), rises and flutters. Its shade covers land from Aleppo to Diyala. … So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalīfah [caliphate], so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war. Come so that you may be honored and esteemed, living as masters with dignity. Know that we fight over a religion that Allah promised to support. We fight for an ummah [global Muslim community] to which Allah has given honor, esteem, and leadership, promising it with empowerment and strength on the earth. Come O Muslims to your honor, to your victory. By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.”
The Task Force that Greenwald quotes mentions an Islamic Revival as a motivating cause of the widespread movement of which the radical fighters are only the tip of the iceberg. I found this quote form Wikipedia to be interesting:
Wikipedia wrote: Islamic revival (Arabic: التجديد الإسلامي aẗ-ẗajdid l-ʾIslāmiyyah, also Arabic: الصحوة الإسلامية aṣ-Ṣaḥwah l-ʾIslāmiyyah, "Islamic awakening") refers to a return to the pure fundamentals of the Islamic religion. Revivals have traditionally been a periodic occurrence throughout Islamic history and the Islamic world.[1]
In contemporary history, an Islamic revival is thought to have began roughly sometime in the 1970s (although strong movement began earlier in the century in Egypt and South Asia) and is manifested in greater religious piety and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture.[1][2] One striking example of it is the increase in attendance at the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which grew from 90,000 in 1926 to 2 million in 1979.[3]
Two of the most important events that inspired and/or strengthened the resurgence were the Arab oil embargo and subsequent quadrupling of the price of oil in the mid-1970s, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution that established an Islamic republic in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. The first created a flow of many billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia to fund Islamic books, scholarships, fellowships, and mosques around the world; the second undermined the assumption that Westernization strengthened Muslim countries and was the irreversible trend of the future.
The revival is a reversal of the Westernisation approach common in Arab and Asian governments earlier in the 20th century.[4] It is often associated with the political Islamic movement, Islamism,[5] and other forms of re-Islamisation. Among Muslim immigrants and their children who live in non-Muslim countries, it includes a feeling of a "growing universalistic Islamic identity" or transnational Islam,[6] brought on by easier communications, media and travel.[7]
The revival has also been accompanied by some religious extremism and attacks on civilians and military targets by the extremists representing a part of the revival.[7]
We can hope, against modern experience and historical precedent, that we can convert the Muslims to a version of their vision of Islamic Restoration and Revival that accepts “the value structure of Western Modernity.” In the words of the Defense Science Board Task Force “If we really want to see the Muslim World as a whole and the Arabic-speaking World in particular, move toward our understanding of “moderation” and “tolerance,” we must reassure Muslims that this does not mean that they must submit to the American Way…. This should not be seen as an intractable enterprise.” We can always hope.