Each year, some two million Muslims from around the world make a pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca. For some in the West, nothing could be scarier than two million Muslims, all dressed in white, touching their heads to the ground and shouting "Allahu Akbar." Reading the usual pundits, you get the idea that Mecca is a breeding ground of Islamic radicalism.
To figure out if this is true, a group of American researchers surveyed more than 1500 Pakistanis who went on the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2006. They discovered that these men had overcome great obstacles to make the trip. It costs arond $2500 to go to Mecca, and that's three times the annual salary of a typical Pakistani. Still, nearly 140,000 Pakistanis applied to go in 2006. Only 80,000 visas were granted by the Saudi government.
Since the Saudis granted their visas based on lottery, the researchers had the clever idea of comparing the attitudes of those who returned from Mecca to those who didn't get to go. They wanted to see if the pilgrimage to Mecca strengthened or undermined Islamic radicalism. Incredibly, the researchers found that the Pakistanis who went to Mecca returned with attitudes more moderate and less sympathetic to Islamic fanaticism and terrorism.
But isn't Mecca dominated by radical clerics who, when they aren't eating or sleeping, lead chants of "Death to America"? This is the propaganda you hear from groups like memri.org that selectively publish material intended to give an exaggerated picture of the influence of the Muslim radicals. In reality, the overriding theme of the visit to Mecca is the traditional theme of universal Muslim brotherhood.
No surprise: pilgrims returning fro Mecca were 25 percent less likely to hold that different tribes or ethnicities could not live in harmony. Remarkably, pilgrims were also more likely to believe that all religions can co-exist. Moreover, the Pakistanis who went to Mecca were less approving of suicide bombings and other such tactics as the Pakistanis who stayed back.
Call this the Mecca effect. I predicted it in my book The Enemy at Home, in which I argued that America can find common ground with traditional believers and not just anti-Muslim activists like Hirsi Ali. The results of the Mecca effet, and the study cited here, are beautifully outlined in a recent article in the online magazine Slate written by Professor Ray Fisman of Columbia University. You can read the article here.
Yes, I know that the Islamophobes will come back with their regularly-recyled quotations from the Koran about "killing all the infidels" and so on. But equally alarming quotations can also be found in the Old Testament. The important thing is to see how those texts have been interpreted and how people have acted upon them. Muslims have had many empires through the centuries: the Ummayad, the Abassid, the Mughal, the Ottoman, and so on. Tens of millions of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians have lived under Muslim rule. In any Muslim empire was it either policy or practice to systematically kill all the non-Muslims? No.
So we have to learn to think afresh and to take into account real evidence. Prejudice against practicing Muslims and against religious believers in general is rife in certain segments of Western society. But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 19)
46. Aren't I always? :-)
I need it to slow my brain down so I can catch up with it...
Godless Heathen Brian at 1:13PM on May 30th 2008
47. Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan...
The truth finally comes out.
Godless Heathen Brian at 1:17PM on May 30th 2008
48. Botts,
Good to hear from you. Hope all is well, and you enjoy time off.
Jerry Brown at 1:22PM on May 30th 2008
49. And 'Botts' shows up at #42- Perfect!
Robert at 1:24PM on May 30th 2008
50. Godless Heathen Brian
I am with you on enjoying, Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan... As I am sure are many others.
Jerry Brown at 1:26PM on May 30th 2008
51. It's a party up in herre!
Mokele Mbembe at 1:28PM on May 30th 2008
52. I wonder how Scott suppressed the need to come clean for so long? If it's all true, I'm glad it's out there, but surely we can agree the timing is a little suspect? GHB, how can you go from despising him to lauding him all in one post? For credibilty's sake, shouldn't he have to pass the same smell test as politicians?
fanmanaf1 at 1:34PM on May 30th 2008
53. Linda,
How's it goin? I would never call you a bigot. After all, you're not a DD follower. I never pegged you as a Neo-Con right wing bigot. lol
Hey Jerry, thought about you while I was gone. I know you would have had a blast with what we're doing.
Got to go for a little while, and I hope to see you guys on later today.
Botts at 1:37PM on May 30th 2008
54. fanmanaf1
If Scott MacClellan had come clean while he was working as press secretary he would have been run off like others that tried. He had great respect for Bush until he seen the light, and then it was just a matter of time. I think the timing is great, just before the next election where it shows how the other republicans threw the country under the bus. If the Republican party had been truthful, and thrown Bush under the bus in 2005 they would have a real shot at the white house, as it is they could be out of power for many, many years. We will see how the donkeys do, hopefully better than usual. I do not have a lot of faith in either party, but Obama could be different, hopefully so.
Jerry Brown at 1:48PM on May 30th 2008
55. I'm glad Scott wrote his book now and not twenty years from now, which is what I expected would happen.
Strados at 2:04PM on May 30th 2008
56. But Jerry, wouldn't that have sold more books? If he were 'run off like the rest', he'd still have found an eager publisher and salivating market. Is it o.k., suddenly to be an opportunist as long as the motive 'appears' to be ethical?
fanmanaf1 at 2:04PM on May 30th 2008
57. “The U.S. defeat of Japan actually liberated Korea from colonialism.”
Maybe, but I’m fairly certain that was just a lucky side-effect, which we have no right to pat our own backs for. It wasn’t to “spread freedom”. >>>
Yeah, tell it to the Chinese, Koreans, Philippinos. God bless the USA
Thomas J Gassett at 2:19PM on May 30th 2008
58. In 1941 after we were attacked by Japan what did we do? We attack Germany, so using your logic we still attacked the wrong country>>>>
The US did not attack Germany after Pearl Harbor. Rather, Germany declared war on the US when we declared war on Japan. As we know, Iraq did not declare war on the US after the 911 attacks. So again, one could argue Bush "attacked the wrong country."
IMO at 2:22PM on May 30th 2008
59. Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan... Scott MacClellan...
The truth finally comes out.
>>>
What truth was that? He says nothing in his book ... nothing at all. Clearly, nothing new or proven. What stupid is actually saying is finally, they can point to someone inside the administration that gives some credence to the mass of lies you stupid liberal pukes chant like some damn Jihadi ... until you believe it. What is it with the ugly Left and their unamerican need to believe the worst in our nation? Keep america right piss on every america bashing liberal in sight.
Thomas J Gassett at 2:23PM on May 30th 2008
60. 52. I wonder how Scott suppressed the need to come clean for so long? If it's all true, I'm glad it's out there, but surely we can agree the timing is a little suspect? GHB, how can you go from despising him to lauding him all in one post? For credibilty's sake, shouldn't he have to pass the same smell test as politicians?
fanmanaf1 at 1:34PM on May 30th 2008
---------------------------------------
Timing is fine. I listened to his interview. He explains it well.
I despised him because I could so clearly see that he was LYING. And I can laud him now because I can clearly see that he's NOT LYING now. In fact, he's saying the very things I'd say in his place, were I truly an honest man that just found himself in a dishonest position. He even admits to lying now himself. Personally. He said on Olberman that he "got caught up in the culture" and only started to doubt when the Plame thing and the NIE came out... It all fits. It rings true. Completely. Surely you can see that. And I have no problem him getting money for it, since he's unemployed now and has been made ot look like a villian, unfairly as it turns out. I like him as a person now, because he's redeemed himself. Watch the interviews, then decide. I did.
I'm happy for him. It must be a huge relief to finally tell the truth. He demonstrates that he has a conscience, so it must have been difficult to hold back.
I will admit that the optimum time to tell this was years ago, when he first realized it. He would have had to resign, of course, but that would have been the truly honorable thing to do. Resign, and THEN tell the story. But, better late than never. He repressed his conscience for a long time, but it finally got the best of him. Too bad more of them don't come clean. That's what this country needs now. Accountability. Truth. No more spin and lies and permanent campaign.
Godless Heathen Brian at 2:23PM on May 30th 2008