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 2 of 15)
16. "I think liberals would be surprised on how American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America."
I don't think liberal America would be surprised at all. Your deeper point, however, seems to be that liberal America is responsible for a "smut culture". Liberal does not mean immoral.
Alyssa at 12:46AM on Sep 15th 2008
17. Maybe you're starting to wake up and smell the coffee burning.
A bunch of whacked out ultra-conservative muslims blow things up to strike at America, who they see as evil to the last man, and a threat to islam.
A bunch of whacked out ultra-conservative American's blast every muslim as a bomb wearing threat to America.
We're discussing this on the blog of a whacked out ultra-conservative who thinks atheists, gays, and liberals are a blanket threat to America.
Just something to think about, Dinesh - The fucking jerks on both sides have one thing in common. They refuse to see the humanity in their opponents. They paint everyone with a wide all encompassing brush. They want their opponents to just die - and when they do, they revel in it.
Sound like anybody you know, Dinesh?
ex-christian at 5:17AM on Sep 15th 2008
18. Troy... smug much?
Oh, and... are you new?
If D'Souza isn't saying that much like his Catholicism, Islam is fine, and it's regular people's fault that Muslims are 'mad at us', then I don't know what he is saying.
Just as it is you Christian gals that are having most of the abortions, it is you Christian guys that are keeping the 'smut' business alive and kicking!
'Getting religion' doesn't stop people from drinking, doing drugs, fornicating, over-eating, being homo or anything. They just go to church on Sunday and ask forgiveness for being as shallow as spit.
Perhaps if they spent less time thinking about getting high and sticking their penises in some hole or other(or at least thinking of it) they wouldn't need so much 'religious therapy'.
The simple, stupid plan of the average flag-waving American is to..
a)get to church on Sunday to get some forgiveness.
b)accuse everyone else of being to blame
c)'business' as usual.
d)goto 'a'
The only thing that most Muslims have in common with that is that they are mostly the same, they want business as usual and some forgiveness while blaming everyone else.
not-pboyfloyd at 6:44AM on Sep 15th 2008
19. Troy; you must be new here. Welcome, but I think you've only got two weeks to agree with Dinesh before AOL shuts down this service.
Either way, I did read part II of Dinesh's book review in it's entirety.
If you don't agree with me that Dinesh is, in a sense, defending radical Islam (and as an extension of that the 9/11 hijackers), I invite you to read many of his previous posts or his terrible book "The Enemy at Home".
Ryan Anderson at 7:09AM on Sep 15th 2008
20. No, guys: they don't all look alike and they don't all think alike.
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THIS is insulting! You really think we need this basic level of understanding drilled into us?
Look again at the Republican primary debates. All of your heroes were up on stage bragging about which one of them could kill them muslims better and faster and bigger. You need to preach this garbage to your base fans and your repub cohorts, dd. The rest of us are way beyond this basic harmful level of thinking.
Oh, and how do you think our culture gets exported to these foreign countries anyway? Through corporations, duhduh, meaning through right-wing entities.
duhduh, your shallow thought processes, and basic misunderastanding of issues is astounding!
America's Most Gangsta at 7:52AM on Sep 15th 2008
21. “One wishes that self-styled Islamic experts like Auster …and Victor Davis Hanson … would stop trying to launch the United States on a crazy SECULAR CRUSADE to undermine or transform the religious beliefs of Muslims.”
Secular---Crusade.
Does any one else find this term interesting?
Funny how Dinesh fails to cite the dozens of better known openly Christian loudmouths also engaging in blanket denunciations of Islam even going so far as to show their ignorance of the fact that Muslims worship the same god as Christians and Jews.
Reaganomnics is an abject failure and after decades of you cocksuckers claiming that we liberals are closet socialists and after all of these taxpayer funded bailouts of financial institutions we can finally turn around and factually slap that label on you cuntservatives.
The economy is tanking thanks to conservative deregulation and tax cuts during war, we have another unqualified moron (who makes Bush look like Einstein) running for high office as VP on a ticket in which the presidential candidate will be the oldest candidate running for that office who has also had four operations for melanoma.
Conservatives now believe that the ability to see Russia from Alaska grants one solid foreign policy bona fides.
I must be living in the Bizarro USA because the republican candidate for the presidency is being cheered on by the same republican establishment he is running against as a reformer while still retaining all of the same failed ideas and policies that have mired us in an immoral war and are about to destroy our economy.
Its no wonder you’re trying to change the subject you immoral jackass.
Uncle Meat at 9:19AM on Sep 15th 2008
22. First Obfuscation, now... Diversion.
Face it folks, the only thing we are witnessing now is a simple substitution of one form of "enemy" for another. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union (the Original Evil Empire) the industrial/military complex needed a new "bad guy" to train their sights on...Voila! Le Taliban! A new "Evil Empire", replete with fanatical repression, incontrovertible doctrine (Dogma) and a "demonstrated" hatred of the UNITED STATES. Perfect! (Gentlemen, this smacks of genius! And the best part is the fact that this "enemy" is effectively INVISIBLE, so we can fight him anywhere we want to pretend he is!)
You idiots! You are again being duped by the same Machiavellian machinery (although I believe the current term is "Rovian") that kept you distracted from the real game before.
"God" help us all.
Aloha!
Robert at 10:04AM on Sep 15th 2008
23. I wonder who the US will go to war with next, after islam? Maybe they can bomb the Buddhists. Double bonus, they wont fight back.
Pope Cack IV at 10:20AM on Sep 15th 2008
24. Cripes.
Once again Dinesh attempts to make a point, gets warm, then totally misses the mark.
I'll give you the short version, kiddo.
Middle Eastern Islamics aren't pissed about porn...there has been pornographic imagery in the Middle East since Northern Europeans were running around with stone knives.
Middle Eastern Islamics aren't pissed about homosexuality. Same sex relations have existed in their culture for thousands and thousands of years, although it is not viewed as a "lifestyle" but more of a pleasure or even a necessity.
Islamics ARE pissed about their families being exposed to Western family values...in a nutshell, EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
They do not want their daughters growing up thinking they have a "right" to marry who they want. They do not want their daughters thinking it is OK to question the complete authority of their father.
If their daughters start behaving like the women they see in the Western media, this equals complete loss of patriarchal control, and the destruction of the family dynamic as it has existed for thousands of years. Islamic men are not willing to give that up. And they are willing to die to defend it. And why target the United States above all other countries? Because our women and children are the most empowered on the planet. And we are proud of it, and outspoken about it. And, most importantly, we speak out against abused women and children even outside of our own borders.
Look at your own native land, Dinesh. Is India all that different from the patriarchal Middle East? How many dowry deaths happened today? Some estimates say that a dowry death happens every 7 minutes.
Here is what we Americans have to ask ourselves...do we fight for the rights of women and children on this planet, or do we stick our heads in the sand and pretend that the dowry deaths,and the locker babies (always girls),and the female circumcisions, and the honor killings are none of our business?
Kodiak at 10:56AM on Sep 15th 2008
25. im muslim 7% IN SUPPORT DONT SEEM ACCURATE TO ME
OBHMA MUSLIM OR NOT HE SWORE ON THE KORAN WHEN HE BECAME SENTOR NOW WILL HE SWERA ON THE KORAN WHEN HE BECOMES PRESDIENT/? dont seem like the amercia we all love something wrong this country was found on all kinds of religion but never did i heare any pres. swear on anything but the holy bible we have to do tat in our courts so why not in the presdiancy whats wrong wit this prediancy campaign wat facts are amercians so blind to boy are we in trouble if obhma gets in we all knows he muslim and will admitt to that after he gets in then what are we to do/????????
lorraine at 10:59AM on Sep 15th 2008
26. All of your heroes were up on stage bragging about which one of them could kill them muslims better and faster and bigger
...
Christian gals that are having most of the abortions
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Do you progressive friends actually believe these statements? Would it be inconvenient to provide sources? While I wait, let me ponder the futility of having a debate with y'all. I have trained myself to dig through the "cocksucker moron" scornful hostility but, underneath, I find such facts. Dismayed.
PS. In my search for some challenging progressive ideas to consider, I found, of all things, Mother Jones magazine (!). Any "cocksucker morons" here who enjoy that mag too, or did I just pick up a lucky month?
GaryB at 11:01AM on Sep 15th 2008
27. lorraine, First of all, please use spellcheck...nothing says "ignorant hillbilly redneck" like posting a comment that indicates you are on a first grade reading level, at best.
Second, Barak Obama never swore on a Koran. He is not a Muslim. He is a Christian.
Keith Ellison of Minnesota is the person who was sworn into office using the Koran. This is his Constitutional right. We still have freedom of religious choice in this country.
Kodiak at 11:08AM on Sep 15th 2008
28. Islam, just like catholocism, is a cult. Muslims are brain washed from birth and are incapable of thinking for themselves. They think what their clerics tell them to think be it pro or anti west
Geoff Barker at 12:29PM on Sep 15th 2008
29. "I think liberals would be surprised on how American smut culture contributes to a general Islamic dislike of America"
Really? I suppose the fact that we dropped thousands of tons of explosives and incendiaries on them and killed them in their tens of thousands doesn't worry them at all? No of course not, what they really hate are the Girls Gone Wild videos.
timbo at 12:09PM on Sep 15th 2008
30. GaryB, Check out any one of several of the Repub primary debates. Fred Flintstone Thompson, giuliani, Mccain and huckabee each took a few turns clamoring over who would kill the muslims (as thompson put it) more efficiently and with more ferocity. It was laughable. Thompson even made a comment about sending them "to their virgins". And yes, it is onconvenient for me to provide sources. It was in the debates, public info. Or perhaps you don't feel like knowing the truth? Would that be inconvenient for you?
America's Most Gangsta at 11:44AM on Sep 15th 2008