Donald Douglas on Moderate Muslims

Douglas links Claire Berlinski, who talks about the many Muslims she knows in Istanbul, who are just people, Douglas also offers his take, I think both are highly important to read and study.

Claire Berlinski lives in Istanbul. She’s got an interesting blog post, “Is Islam Itself the Enemy?“, and there’s a raging debate on her Facebook page. This comment struck me as profound:

I’ve just walked down a street filled literally with thousands of Moslems of exactly the kind many people are seriously arguing do not exist. I saw them with my own eyes, as I have every day for the past five years. With so many other questions in the world, why waste time debating this? Book a ticket to Istanbul, spend an afternoon here, have a lovely time, drink some tea, meet friendly, tolerant, warm, welcoming Moslems (mostly), and see for yourself. They exist! They’re my neighbors and my friends! Babür, is there anyone at our gym, for example, who would not describe himself as a Moslem? Would any member of our gym endorse terrorism, honor killing, forcing me to wear the hijab, or subjecting me to a dhimmi tax? The idea is so absurd it’s beyond discussion — and yet we’re discussing it.

Yes, this is good. And I think it’s important. Every once in a while I have Muslim students in class, and we have thoughtful discussions. But they are such a small minority that we don’t get a critical mass of opinion to sort out variations in opinion within the Islamic community. So, call me agnostic on the kind of experience Claire Berlinski’s having. More immediate to me is David Horowitz’s experience. I have had a few similar to this, in my engagement with the ANSWER Coalition. And this kind of experience is a good test. When Muslim come out to denounce Hezbollah, that’ll be a good step toward identifying and working with the moderates Claire champions. Meanwhile, see, “The War Against the Jews at UC San Diego“: 

I have come to believe that the biggest issue in dealing with Islam is this. There are MANY great Muslim people, and there are, sadly, tragically, many Muslims who are radical, the thing is how do we identify and know who the good Muslims are? We are a society based in large part on freedom of religion, so where do we draw the line? We are a nation fighting an evil enemy, Islamist terrorists. Where do we draw the line on how to ID and destroy terror threats and cells located here?

Tough questions indeed, but we gain nothing by blindly following the path the Left seems intent on taking, there is no moral relativism between radical Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. There is nothing but peril in the idea that we must put blind “tolerance” above common sense either. The biggest aid we could have is for those good and decent Muslims to speak out against Jihad, and against terrorism, and against those who support implementing Sharia Law here. Those Muslims are as welcome here as any other faiths are. Terrorism is as much their enemy as it is ours, and they have as much to benefit from its defeat as any other American.