Note: Daniel Pipes spoke at my university on Tuesday, October 21.  I took my camera and notebook to the event in anticipation of a blog post.  The following is my account of the event.

As I posted before, Daniel Pipes spoke at my university on Tuesday night. I attended with my camera and notebook and therefore have copious notes and a few photos to post. First, for the photos:

The “Stop the Hate” protest didn’t quite have the turnout that they were expecting or hoping for, I’m willing to bet.

The turnout was pathetic at best, considering that these people had put up a copious amount of signs all over campus.

The speech itself was called “Vanquishing the Islamist Enemy and Helping the Moderate Muslim Ally.” Pipes started off by dissociating himself with the term “Islamofascism.” He said he dislikes that term because he finds it to be misleading. Though there are similarities between Islam and Fascism, there are also notable differences, namely that Islam is a religious movement and Fascism was a governmental movement. Pipes wanted to make it clear that although he was technically speaking at our university for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, he did not endorse the term.

That being said, Pipes addressed the first issue: the differing opinions about the threat of what he calls radical Islam. Those on the right of the political spectrum are concerned about terrorism, while those on the left say it is not much of a threat to us at all. First, he said, we ought to define who our enemy is. The government says it’s “terrorism” in general, which is a vague, euphemistic, and inaccurate term. Nor, according to Pipes, is the enemy Islam in general, for the following reasons: historically, we did not have problems with Islam until a few decades ago. Moreover, the government cannot respond to a religious movement.

Pipes says that the enemy is radical Islam, or rather, Islamists–people who say that Islam is the solution to everything. These people want a larger version of what the Taliban had in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. They want an Islamic caliphate and they see the West as the main obstacle to this, with America being the strongest power in the West. These people have a utopian view of what they want the world to be like and seek world domination. They would want to control all aspects of our lives. And, they are, in Pipes’ words, very dangerous–this is the “third radical movement of our time.”

These Islamists, Pipes says, are approximately ten to fifteen percent of the Muslim population, or every one in eight Muslims. If the entire population of the Muslim world is one billion people, then this is about one hundred fifty million people. Pipes here explained that his definition of an Islamist is a Muslim who wants sharia law to be enforced.

These people are very capable of taking over because they evolve over the years. Pipes pointed out the difference between Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power versus Erdogan’s rise to power–the former took power in a violent revolution, the latter through democratic means. There are two main methods that the Islamists use to gain power and advance their agenda: violence and working through the system. Violence is immediately recognisable because it includes such acts like terrorism or use of WMDs. Though these horrify us, Pipes believes they will ultimately not be the favoured means of the Islamists because historically, there are reactions against terrorism. Instead, the Islamists will work through the system, as they have done in Turkey and are doing in England. This will prove ultimately more dangerous because it is harder to see such infiltration.

There are two things we can do in response to these threats: co-opt or confront these people. Co-option–working with them to address grievances–will not work because the Islamists seek to change us. There is a sense in the Muslim world that something has gone wrong in the last two hundred years because they used to be powerful. So appeasement will not work–instead we must confront them. It is the inevitable path–just as we confronted and defeated Fascism and communism, so we must do so with the Islamists.

To do this, Pipes says, the moderate Muslims must ultimately play a role. Only they can offer solutions to their fellow Muslims. This isn’t just Islam versus the West; it’s also radical Muslims versus moderates. But in the end, it ultimately boils down to one thing: civilisation versus barbarism. Will we be free, or will we be slaves? It is our choice to make.

Since that concludes my summary of Pipes’ speech, let me now share some pictures of the man himself.

Now, for my own comments. I have very mixed feelings about Pipes’ speech. I have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding Islam: it’s not some radical form of Islam that’s the problem–it’s Islam itself. Islam is inherently very, very violent. And to categorise it simply as a religion is a bit inaccurate: it is more than a religion. It’s a political and social movement as well, and it encompasses all aspects of life. Nor, I believe, can it be reformed–it would not be Islam anymore. The Qu’ran is the be-all end-all for Muslims and cannot be questioned, and it is very clear in saying that it is every Muslim’s duty to wage jihad on the nonbelievers, and to convert them or kill them.

Of course, this portrays an even more depressing view of our world. And it raises the ever-important question of what are we to do with these people. There are options, but they are rather grim. Our tensions with the Islamic world will probably erupt in bloody war in the next twenty-five years or so, and it will be a war we cannot afford to lose. Think of all that will be lost if we become an Islamic civilisation.

I know I said that I disagreed with Pipes on some issues, but he is right about this: the Islamic threat is one of the greatest we have ever faced, and our very freedom is at stake.

~Originally posted at birdbrain.

There’s an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen - and it’s accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly (”Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?”) concludes that “In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights.”

The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy.

I disagree with that conclusion. Today’s Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than innate features of Islam. Put differently, Islam, like all pre-modern religions is undemocratic in spirit. No less than the others, however, it has the potential to evolve in a democratic direction.

Such evolution is not easy for any religion. In the Christian case, the battle to limit the Catholic Church’s political role lasted painfully long. If the transition began when Marsiglio of Padua published Defensor pacis in the year 1324, it took another six centuries for the Church fully to reconcile itself to democracy. Why should Islam’s transition be smoother or easier?

To render Islam consistent with democratic ways will require profound changes in its interpretation. For example, the anti-democratic law of Islam, the Shari’a, lies at the core of the problem. Developed over a millennium ago, it presumes autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, emphasizes God’s will over popular sovereignty, and encourages violent jihad to expand Islam’s borders. Further, it anti-democratically privileges Muslims over non-Muslims, males over females, and free persons over slaves.

For Muslims to build fully functioning democracies, they basically must reject the Shari’a’s public aspects. Atatürk frontally did just that in Turkey, but others have offered more subtle approaches. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a Sudanese thinker, dispatched the public Islamic laws by fundamentally reinterpreting the Koran.

ATATÜRK’S EFFORTS and Taha’s ideas imply that Islam is ever-evolving, and that to see it as unchanging is a grave mistake. Or, in the lively metaphor of Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, the Koran “is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn’t want.”

Islam’s problem is less its being anti-modern than that its process of modernization has hardly begun. Muslims can modernize their religion, but that requires major changes: Out go waging jihad to impose Muslim rule, second-class citizenship for non-Muslims, and death sentences for blasphemy or apostasy. In come individual freedoms, civil rights, political participation, popular sovereignty, equality before the law, and representative elections.

Two obstacles stand in the way of these changes, however. In the Middle East especially, tribal affiliations remain of paramount importance. As explained by Philip Carl Salzman in his recent book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, these ties create a complex pattern of tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism that obstructs the development of constitutionalism, the rule of law, citizenship, gender equality, and the other prerequisites of a democratic state. Not until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched can democracy make real headway in the Middle East.

Globally, the compelling and powerful Islamist movement obstructs democracy. It seeks the opposite of reform and modernization - namely, the reassertion of the Shari’a in its entirety. A jihadist like Osama bin Laden may spell out this goal more explicitly than an establishment politician like Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but both seek to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order.

Islamists respond two ways to democracy. First, they denounce it as un-Islamic. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna considered democracy a betrayal of Islamic values. Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb rejected popular sovereignty, as did Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi, founder of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami political party. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Al-Jazeera television’s imam, argues that elections are heretical.

Despite this scorn, Islamists are eager to use elections to attain power, and have proven themselves to be agile vote-getters; even a terrorist organization (Hamas) has won an election. This record does not render the Islamists democratic but indicates their tactical flexibility and their determination to gain power. As Erdogan has revealingly explained, “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.”

Hard work can one day make Islam democratic. In the meanwhile, Islamism represents the world’s leading anti-democratic force.

~by Daniel Pipes

~from Daniel Pipes

There is good news to report: The idea that “militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution” is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.

The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims have found their voice since September 11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly of Harvard), Kemal Silay (Indiana), and Bassam Tibi (Göttingen). Important Islamic figures like Ahmed Subhy Mansour and Muhammad Hisham Kabbani are speaking out.

Organizations are coming into existence. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, headed by Zuhdi Jasser, is active in Phoenix, Arizona. The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism appears to be genuinely anti-Islamist, despite my initial doubts about its founder, Kamal Nawash.

Internationally, an important petition posted a month ago by a group of liberal Arabs calls for a treaty banning religious incitement to violence and specifically names “sheikhs of death” (such as Yusuf Al-Qaradawi of Al-Jazeera television), demanding that they be tried before an international court. Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries rapidly signed this petition.

With time, individual Muslims are finding their voice to condemn Islamist connections to terrorism. Perhaps most outstanding is an article by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a Saudi journalist in London: “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists,” he writes, “but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. … We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.”

Other analysts have followed al-Rashed’s example. Osama El-Ghazali Harb writes from Egypt that “Muslim and Arab intellectuals and opinion leaders must confront and oppose any attempt to excuse the barbaric acts of these [terrorist] groups on the grounds of the suffering endured by Muslims.” From Virginia, Anouar Boukhars holds that “Terrorism is a Muslim problem, and refusal to admit so is indeed troubling.”

The bad news: There are lots of fake-moderates parading about, and they can be difficult to identify, even for someone like me who devotes much attention to this topic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations still wins mainstream support and the Islamic Society of North America still sometimes hoodwinks the U.S. government. The brand-new Progressive Muslim Union wins rave reviews for its alleged moderation from gullible journalists, despite much of its leadership (Salam Al-Marayati, Sarah Eltantawi, Hussein Ibish, Ali Abunimah) being well-known extremists.

Fortunately, the authorities kept both Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam out of the United States, but Khaled Abou El Fadl got through and, worse, received a presidential appointment.

Even anti-terrorist rallies are not always what they seem to be. On Nov. 21, several thousand demonstrators, some of them Muslim, marched under banners proclaiming “Together for Peace and against Terror” in Cologne, Germany. Marchers shouted “No to terror” and politicians made feel-good statements. But the Cologne demonstration, coming soon after the murder of Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2, served as a clever defense operation. The organizer of the event, the Islamist Diyanet I?leri Türk-Islam Birli?i, used it as a smokescreen to fend off pressure for real change. Speeches at the demonstration included no mea culpas or calls for introspection, only apologetics for jihad and invocations of stale and empty slogans such as “Islam means peace.”

This complex, confusing record points to several conclusions:

• Islamists note the urge to find moderate Muslims and are learning how to fake moderation. Over time, their camouflage will undoubtedly further improve.

• Figuring out who’s who is a high priority. It may be obvious that Osama bin Laden is Islamist and Irshad Manji anti-Islamist, but plenty of Muslims are in the murky middle. An unresolved debate has raged for years in Turkey whether the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, is an Islamist or not.

• The task of identifying true moderates cannot be done through guesswork and intuition; for proof, note the American government’s persistent record of supporting Islamists by providing them with legitimacy, education, and (perhaps even) money. I too have made my share of mistakes. What’s needed is serious, sustained research.

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