Do Muslims around the world back Islamic radicalism and terrorism? We've been hearing a positive answer to this question for seven years now from a slew of right-wing pundits who seem to be making a very good living as Muslim-bashers. These pundits are big on anecdotes but small on data. Fortunately we are now in a position to answer them with the facts supplied in John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed's important book Who Speaks for Islam? If you haven't read this book, you cannot consider yourself properly informed on the topic.
Esposito and Mogahed cite Gallup data that shows that only 7 percent of Muslims consider the 9/11 attacks to be justified. The authors don't think that even 7 percent of the world's Muslims are ready to sign up for jihad. Yet any group of Muslims who approves of 9/11 is a group that I think we should worry about. These are the political backers of Bin Laden and his cohorts. Undoubtedly Al Qaeda hopes to recruit from this pool. We should be monitoring this group closely.
But let's at the same time recognize that this cohort is a tiny minority. Images of Palestinian activists celebrating 9/11 or radical Imams leading chants of "Death to America" are not representative of Muslim opinion. There are right-wing pundits who have been trying to foment a clash of civilizations by proclaiming typical Muslims to be radicals, but next time you hear this ask for convincing evidence to back up such allegations. Most likely you will get unrepresentative anecdotes.
The larger concern for Esposito and Mogahed is Muslims who reject terrorism of the 9/11 type but nevertheless hate the United States. This hatred, however, is not mainly derived from American support for Israel or America's alleged imperialist history. Nor is it because, as President Bush once put it, "they hate us for our freedom." Rather, Esposito and Mogahed trace Muslim anti-Americanism to the belief that the West in general, and America in particular, are conducting a "war with Islam." And when Muslims are asked why they think this, they point to three things.
First, they cite America's support for secular Muslim despots. Second, they point the finger at what they view to be anti-religious and immoral values disseminated through American popular culture abroad. Finally, they seize upon the statements of inflammatory Americans who say, as Lawrence Auster recently did, "The problem is not 'radical' Islam but Islam itself, from which it follows that we must seek to weaken and contain Islam." My former colleague at the Hoover Institution, Victor Davis Hanson, seems to share Auster's view.
One wishes that self-styled Islamic experts like Auster (an attorney previously known for his efforts to reduce immigration in America) and Victor Davis Hanson (actually an expert on classical antiquity with excellent books on topics like the Peloponnesian War) would stop trying to launch the United States on a crazy secular crusade to undermine or transform the religious beliefs of Muslims, a group numbering well over a billion people. These pundits' analysis would be greatly improved if they learned to distinguish among Muslims.
No, guys: they don't all look alike and they don't all think alike. There are Islamic radicals who are our sworn enemies, and there are other Muslims who are being alienated from the United States because they want to rule themselves, they want to affirm traditional Islamic values in their countries, and also because they are disgusted with the anti-Muslim sentiments exhibited by people like Auster and Hanson.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 15)
1. A fair article, there must be a distinction between radical Muslims and common Muslims. I think liberals would be surprised on how American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America.
Greg at 8:02PM on Sep 14th 2008
2. So, what you are saying is the average Muslim takes issue with America for its secular media and lack of support for the Muslim religion? I can understand that... Morals and values of traditional religion is questioned in the US, especially in the modern media (movies, books).. I find the alternative that is offered there unpalatable.
Shannie at 9:24PM on Sep 14th 2008
3. Here's the problem: sex sells. The market's known it for centuries. It taps into our most primal instincts. It's not a liberal thing. There was prostitution and pornography during the victorian era; when it was obscene for a woman to expose... gasp!... an ankle! But if you're condemning American media for giving America a bad rap you have no further to blame than yourself. If you own a TV or a computer, then you feed into the consumer feedback machine that wants sexy girls and big explosions in our cinema, microclothes on our teenaged singers, and everyone fixated on cuter sexier hotter more more more.
Now is there a liberal connection? Sure. Liberals oppose censorship. But liberals don't have anything to gain with hot chicks in bikinis. As long as people are free to express themselves without government restriction, people are free to buy and watch whatever they want to buy and watch. We don't pretend to know better what people should and shouldn't watch. That's up to them. To argue that we should yield freedom just because some people on the other side of the world get a nosebleed at Christy Agullera's navel is ludicrous. They have a cultural hang-up? Their problem. Don't watch it, and I bet al-jezera won't syndicate it.
In fact, this smells to me of a little cultural inferiority complex. They want to judge us as bad for our media, fine. Don't watch it. But to try and use fiction as a cultural blanket condemnation is a little disingenuous. So I'm not particularly buying that as a primary modivator. If middle eastern folks don't want to listen to pop-techno remixes... don't listen to them. But don't pretend that your cultural preference gives you the right to wag your finger, scowl, and fly buildings into skyscrapers. That's just rude.
Islam still has some catching up to do.
Somber at 9:26PM on Sep 14th 2008
4. A fair article, there must be a distinction between radical Muslims and common Muslims. I think liberals would be surprised on how American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America. -Greg
American smut? If smut was the dislike of Islamic Muslims then Most of Europe, Scandinavia and Japanese countries would be at the top of the Muslim list of dislike countries. But unfortunately Israel, consisting mostly of religious conservative group is at the top of their list of countries. Actually, most moderate and radicals hate Jews more than any other group. (I don't see much Jewish produced porn do you?) America comes second of groups disliked due to America for foreign policy and support for Israel.
goddess1prevail at 9:45PM on Sep 14th 2008
5. There are one billion Muslims in the world. Seven percent of them think that the murder of American civilians on 9/11 was justified. That's seventy million people.
But gosh, the fact that seventy million Muslims think Allah wants them to fly planes into American buildings shouldn't color our embrace of the great Muslim faith, at all!
Because, seventy million people who want to kill us for no reason; that's all right!
cat at 10:07PM on Sep 14th 2008
6. I guess for Dinesh, liberalism and radical Islam are an example of "your enemy's enemy is your friend".
But it is disturbing that Dinesh would defend people who would fly airplanes into buildings (yes, however you cut it, he's defending them) just so he can get his licks in against liberalism.
Ryan Anderson at 10:06PM on Sep 14th 2008
7. Ok, Dinesh,
I certainly agree with the last paragraph...you have convinced me- they don't all hate us, they don't all look alike, they are not all terrorists.
Does anyone think any of that is true?
OK stupid qustion, I know many think just that !
Better....does anyone with half a brain think that way??
Like goddess1prevail so eloquently shows us...if they hate us for our decadence and liberalism, why allow Europe to flourish. Didn't you say you visited the famous and fabulous red-light district in Amsterdam? That's about as liberal and decadent as it comes, yet it still exists.
Just a thought you may want to ponder.
mac at 10:34PM on Sep 14th 2008
8. I think that the alledged "invasion" of American and other western cultural freedoms into Islamic countries has been present for at least a century. The difference, at least since the end of WWII, is the burgeoning of mass communications like television, radio, and, most of all, the internet. When most of the Islamic world was unable to readily avail themselves of western ideas, and when, perhaps literacy in the English language was not so widespread in these countries, (it was relatively easy to "ban" movies, but not so the internet and TV) religious leaders may not have felt so threatened by exposure to western secular and religious ideals. When the only thing Imams needed to preach against was the religion of the infidels (Christians and Jews) they had much less difficulty controlling their congregations. Now, the airwaves and electronic communications make all aspects of western culture (including the idea of governments not controlled by clergy) much more readily available to these populations.
I submit that it is in the nature of religious leaders (who are in temporal and secular control, as well as in religious control of their populations) to resist access to knowledge that might awaken their congregants to the possibility of other ways of life. It seems to me that the argument that Muslims hate us for our non-Islamic beliefs and/or lifestyles which are not (with the possible exception of our tendency to invade their countries and oust established governments in order to control their oil,) being forced upon any country or individual who does not agree with them.
Dinesh's suggestion (because of a recently puplished book with which he happens to agree and which allows him to try to blame this Islamic hatred upon liberals)that we should modify our behaviors or lifestyles to accomodate the majority of "moderate" Muslims who alledgedly do not support "Jihad" is way off target, in my opinion.
Harvey at 10:38PM on Sep 14th 2008
9. you might not back it,but you sure dont stand up to it eather.YOU people need to take a side,after all there is no worse enemy to islam then for you not to aanwer the jehid,or maby you guys would like sherrie law instead of the constatution???
mavrik1040 at 10:44PM on Sep 14th 2008
10. D'Souza says, "..a slew of right-wing pundits who seem to be making a very good living as Muslim-bashers."
Apart from this LIE, "This hatred, however, is not mainly derived from American support for Israel..", D'Souza seems mainly concerned with the right-wing pundits bashing away!
Still, Greg manages a, " ..American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America."
Shannie manages a, "..the average Muslim takes issue with America for its secular media.."
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom to be a homo, and, yes, even freedom to stick a nail through a magic wafer, throw it in the garbage and take a pic of it.
The U.S.A. is free to back Israel against all the surrounding Muslim states. It was free to back Muslim radicals in their fight against the U.S.S.R.
Bush said that they hate us for our freedoms.
Bush forgot to mention that the 'most American' of Americans also hate the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech and the right to be homosexual and the right to have an abortion and the right to stick a nail through a wafer and photograph it in the garbage bin.
How 'free' is the U.S.A.? Twenty-six thousand nuclear warheads free.
Free all the criminals of drug crimes now! Free the druggies! Decriminalize drugs! You are NOT free to take freedom away from stupid people that take drugs.
If drugs became legal, the bottom would drop out of the market and we'd never hear about drugs again.
Teach your own kids to NOT do drugs, MORONS.
not-pboyfloyd at 10:58PM on Sep 14th 2008
11. . A fair article, there must be a distinction between radical Muslims and common Muslims. I think liberals would be surprised on how American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America.
Greg
xxxx
Here ya go:
A.The business of America is business
B. Business is conservative
C. The American "smut" business Is conservative
Screw your assumption that somehow the evil liberal smutmongers are somehow responsible for muslim ire. Tell me, why are they not crashing airplanes into Stockholm, Copenhagen, or Denmark or other bastions of liberal/athiestic governments? Why are they not bombing the fuck out of Vancouver where you can get lap dances from straight up hotties after smoking some of the worlds finest bud? Why haven't we heard about Tokyp being hit? Ever seen their "smut"? Their shit is world class and their bondage mags would make a catholic inquisitor blush. What about Germany? Ever been to Stutzgarter Platz in Berlin? Wow do they throw a party there! Talk about big titted hookers and they are inclines to spank Greg, that is what you neoclowns tend to be into, right? Why aren't suicide bombers working the red light districts of these and other European Cities? I'm guessing they aren't as pissed about pictures of titties insomuch as they hate us for our interfering in their cultural/poitical/economic affairs and because of our nakes aggression and because we support Israel and because we carpet bomb wedding parties and so on.
BTW, I've known quite a few muslim American. They tend to be big consumers of American smut as are most fundies, be they christian or muslim. BTW. Conservatives tend to visit strip clubs, use hookers, and consume smut at a greater rate than do their liberal counterparts. It's that sexually repressed guilt thing you guys embrace. You guys make it and use it, but it's our fault. Sure, whatever.
Tim at 11:19PM on Sep 14th 2008
12. I could accept your comments on main stream Muslims, but still I wonder how this 7% can exist when 93% of the remaining muslims are against jihad. It would seem that this religion has the ability to clean it's own house. I anxiously await the results, or even efforts. Silence can be acceptance. Seeing is believing.
Herb Huseland at 2:46PM on Sep 15th 2008
13. Geez for once this guy makes a lot of sense.
Gary Math Professor at 11:37PM on Sep 14th 2008
14. Good article Dinesh!
It's quite humorous to see many responders react so defensively regarding America's liberal culture. Dinesh states a simple, apparently well-documented fact: that one of the primary reasons most Muslims hate America is because they hate our secular, liberal culture. From this statement of fact, many responders draw the unsubstantiated conclusion that Dinesh's article is telling us to do away with liberalism. Since Dinesh's article doesn't make this claim, many of the responses have given me occasion to chuckle. The swift and passionate responses defending liberalism are very telling indeed.
I think the funniest response so far is Ryan's, which attempted to defend liberalism by accusing Dinesh of defending the 9/11 terrorists in his article (the very article that emphatically makes the distinction between Islamic terrorists and the general Islamic population). I swear, I think Ryan just shows up, reads the title and submits a response without bothering to read the article. It's the only plausible explanation I can think of.
What a great blog though!
Troy at 12:09AM on Sep 15th 2008
15. No. 5 Ryan Anderson. It's obvious that you're reading something into D'Souza's piece that is not there, i.e., "...Dinesh would defend people who would fly airplanes into buildings...." In actuality he is saying the opposite of that. I see this piece as fair and balanced and not an attack on liberals as you would suggest. Nice try, but no cookie.
Dennis Bowen at 12:16AM on Sep 15th 2008