Friday, September 15, 2006
Moderate Muslims [Jonah Goldberg]
Alykhan Velshi, occasional NRO contributor, sent me this and I asked him if I could post:
Mr Goldberg,
You're right on one thing: the Pope hit a nerve. When Benedict quotes - approvingly, I might add - a Byzantine emperor from the 15th century who said, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman", he's not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists.
Look - I suppose I'm what one would call a moderate Muslim, though for reasons I won't get into I dislike the term (I also dislike being called a "compassionate conservative", the adjective being redundant and somewhat offensive). I support the Bush doctrine, have a favorable disposition towards Israel, and supported the right to publish the Danish cartoons. Yet I cringed when reading Benedict's speech, and not jut because of its laughable recounting of 15th century Christianity's embrace of reason and tolerance.
The problem with Benedict's speech, and it's illustrated perfectly by the quotation I cited above, is that it gives moderate Muslims no option other than to renounce our faith. When Benedict approvingly cites a source who says that Islam is "evil and inhuman", he's not offering a bold challenge to moderate Muslims, he's alienating them. There is a profound difference between, on the one hand, endorsing what Benedict said, and on the other, calling the enemy "militant Islamists", "Islamofascists", "Islamobolsheviks" (my personal favorite), or whatever. It's the difference, I suppose, between Robert Spencer and National Review, JihadWatch and AEI.
Just because the Muslim street is, in all its hypersensitivity, reacting like a woman who's just been told her pants make her look fat doesn't mean that Benedict was correct to say what he said, certainly not from the perspective of history and theology, nor I believe from that of the best way to win the GWOT.
But, then again, it looks like Juan Cole agrees with me - which could mean I'm ipso facto wrong.
All best,
09/15 03:23 PM
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