Pages on Islam by Vexen Crabtree
Many Muslims observe their religion, pray, etc, with no intent to either support or oppose extremism. Many active Christians are the same: They neither support USA Christian fundamentalism, nor do they oppose it. It is Human nature just to want to get on in life, in peace. The last census showed 1.5 million Muslims in Britain, it is clear that most of these are part of a peaceful and quite 'normal' ethnic culture within the UK.
“Many Muslims live in the West peacefully, legally and morally. They do not heed the Qur'anic verses urging them to prepare for war against unbelievers (Qur'an 8:60), nor the verses telling them to increase their strength so that they can convert or subjugate those around them. Most Muslims merely want, like everyone else, to live their lives in peace, with their friends, to raise families and win stable employment. This is good.”
Such normal people are however under pressure. Authors such as Robert Spencer argue, with excessive use of quotations from the Quran, that such peaceful Muslims are (fortunately) not truly following their religion [Spencer 2006]. A sense of all-round disharmony between civil Muslims and suspicious Westerners puts them in a difficult position.
“The disadvantaged position of Muslim minorities, evidence of a rise in Islamophobia and concern over processes of alienation and radicalisation have triggered an intense debate in the European Union regarding the need for ex-examining community cohesion and integration policies. A series of events such as the September 11 terrorist attacks against the US, the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, the Madrid and London bombings and the debate on the Prophet Mohammad cartoons have given further prominence to the situation of Muslim communities.”"Muslims in the European Union", EU Monitoring Centre (2006)1
Most second-generation immigrant Muslims learn the language of their new country, but Islamaphobic attitudes retard this process. Community cohesion techniques aid integration, such as actively teaching (and testing) Immigrants' English in English-speaking countries1.
All is not well. Every Westerner can criticize ideas, smash taboos, question cultural norms and rebel. There may be disagreement and animosity between religious groups and anti-religious secularists, but in Western civil society these rarely amount to physical threats, violence or riots. Freedom of speech and criticism are Western values deriving from individualism and freedom, especially intellectual freedom. Western communities actively support these values and uphold them: They alone have allowed the common ground that has enabled warring nations such as France and England, Germany and Europe, to learn to live in peace. No other culture has fostered peace as much as post-enlightenment Europe. These morals of the West are tried and tested. But Muslim communities are not going against the flow: The riots, vandalism, threats and sulking over the Danish Muhammad cartoons is one example. People are free to make fun of religion: Concepts are not people, and in the West, concepts and ideas are always scrutinized and questioned. That so many Muslims can parade and riot against our fundamental values, from inside our own countries, is a serious hint that things are capable of going wrong. As their numbers grow, will their demonstrations and threats continue to grow? It is a serious question, and a political career-killer for anyone who asks!
Denmark is a highly moral and developed nation; one of the best in the world, committed to helping poor nations and welfare. How is it that here, in the heart of Europe a large crowd of Muslims can cause fear and attempt to take us backwards into an era when religious superstition trumped free speech and intellectual exploration? Denmark isn't the first time.
In Holland in 2004, Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim in Amsterdam for making a film that highlighted the role of Islam and the Qur'an in the oppression of women. He was shot and stabbed multiple times, had his throat slit and a note with verses from the Qur'an was left on his body. In the past, Theo van Gogh has also made films criticising and attacking Judaism and Christianity. Sometimes in bad taste, his films were nevertheless within the realms of free speech and artistic freedom. Both these things meant nothing to the Dutch Moroccan who killed him. It has been a very long time since Christians murdered blasphemers. Christianity is more moral, more developed and civil: It seems that many Muslims have yet to develop the maturity to differentiate between personal insult and intellectual criticism.
Denmark and the murder of Theo van Gogh in Holland are both echoes of a previous uproar: When Salman Rushdie published "The Satanic Verses" we were shocked by the riots, book-burning and shop vandalism that occurred in many Western countries onwards from 1989. There were demonstrations in London and Bradford, in Germany and France, bookstores burnt down in Italy and Britain. Embassies across the Middle-East were attacked, some were overrun by gunmen. A Muslim who opposed the death-threat against Rushdie was murdered in Belgium. He was forced to go into hiding. In a free country, a fiction author was forced to go into hiding because he didn't restrict himself to a traditional portrayal of someone else's religion! This is deeply wrong.2
“The book has been publicly burned by Moslem mobs in Britain, many booksellers and libraries have responded to threats of arson and personal attack by withdrawing the book, and some of these threats have now been put into practice. Thus, several bookshops have been seriously damaged by Moslem fire-raisers - including one shop in central London, Collet's, that was burnt out in spite of the fact that it had already, under pressure from its intimidated staff, withdrawn the book.At the beginning of September, a bomb was thrown from a car at the famous West End store Liberty's, and four passers-by were injured. At that moment, a telephone message claiming responsibility for the incident was received by the police from an obscure Moslem group calling itself "Islamic Concern for Banning the Satanic Verses." Moslem leaders, while expressing regret that people have been injured, say it is the fault not of the Moslems but of Rushdie and his publishers and booksellers and the British government. [...]
The publisher, Penguin Books, owns nine retail bookshops in city centers around the country, and time bombs were planted outside four of these shops during the evening of September 13. A passerby, seeing a man lurking suspiciously in the dark doorway of the shop in York, alerted the local police, who were just in time to clear people from the vicinity, so that when the bomb exploded, causing damage to the building, there were no casualties. Meanwhile, the York police warned their colleagues in the localities of the other eight Penguin bookshops, thus enabling the other three bombs (in Nottingham, Peterborough, and Guildford) to be defused before they exploded.”
Barbara Smoker3
Note the trends: The Muslims claim 'victimization' when their beliefs are challenged, and state that it is 'the Government's' fault, and the fault of Rushdie himself. It is not his fault that religious superstition causes people to behave in such an irrational and intolerant manner, and no-one who accepts Western values or freedom could ever champion censorship over free speech.
“Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, many non-Muslims have been arrested, tortured, and sentenced to die on the slimmest of evidence [of blasphemy]. But for such things to happen in Iran and Egypt, two countries where Islamic radicalism is widespread, is one thing: to have a "blasphemer" brutally murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in broad daylight is another. For thirty years, Europe has encouraged massive immigration from Muslim nations; Muslims now account for 5 percent of Holland's population, and that number is growing rapidly. But it is still largely taboo in Europe - as in America - to raise any questions about how ready that population is to accept Western pluralism. When Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn tried to raise some of those questions in 2002, he was vilified by the PC establishment as a right-wing racist. [He] was ultimately murdered by a Dutch assailant who 'did it for Dutch Muslims'”"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" by Robert Spencer (2005)4
It is occurring in Europe over increasingly small-minded issues; it seems that Muslims no longer care to analyse criticism or defend their faith: They respond with outrage, claiming victimisation, to an extent of racism: The Qur'an contains clear, direct and specific anti-Christian verses, yet they do not censor the Qur'an. When Christians or atheists make anti-Islam statements, they rise in violence and aggression against authors and artists. The latest case is that of Robert Redeker in France, who has been forced into police-protected hiding after writing critical (but historical) comments describing Muhammad as "a merciless war leader"5. Muslims want to censor anti-Muslim comments, but they do not want to censor anti-Christian comments. This is intolerance, prejudice and hypocrisy. Western values allow all criticism to be voiced. Rejecting this fundamental right is to attempt to take Humanity back to a dark ages, where life is poor and cheap, and religious theocracy overrides morality.
Riots should not result from questioning religion, nor even from mocking it, and especially not from intellectual criticism of religious ideas and theories. That these things are occurring in the West, and all surrounded by mass Muslim protests and riots, is a clear call. It will get worse unless we change our attitude towards Muslims in the West.
Two Western approaches to Muslim immigrants have evolved naturally. Although they are opposites, both have been destructive, the first one through inaction and the second through wrong action:
Most Western governments have stuck to the hands-off approach. Some civilian communities have taken to the racism reaction. What we are finally seeing is a little more direction and thought in Muslim-immigration policy. This has come to embody all immigration issues. The result of this deliberation has been some more reasonable approaches, although they have not quite materialized yet it seems they are rational.
Clearly, a combination of these three elements could restore order. If the values of the West are made clearer, are taught in schools and enshrined more officially, then it is harder to justify intolerant behaviour whether it is based on racism, religious superstitions or clashes of cultural norms.
Ayoub, Mahmoud M.
"Islam: Faith and History" (2004). Oneworld Publications.
Crabtree, Vexen
"Criticism" (2002). Accessed 2007 Dec 21.
"Islam versus Unbelievers: Convert, Subjugate or Die" (2006). Accessed 2007 Dec 21.
EUMC
"Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia" (2006). Published by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, Vienna, Austria.
Myers, David
"Social Psychology" (1999 6th 'international' ed). First edition 1983. Published by McGraw Hill.
Spencer, Robert
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" (2005). Published in the United States by Regnery Publishing, Inc, Washington, DC.
Warraq, Ibn
"Why I am not a Muslim" (1995). Prometheus Books.
By Abdul Shaitan Vexen Crabtree 2006 Oct 01