Yet More on the Mosque and Matters Muslim

Malcolm Pollack e-mails from Gotham:

That was an excellent post  about that damned mosque. [. . .]

I have meanwhile been arguing, back at my place, with Bob Koepp over burqa-banning  –  an excellent discussion of which was written at NRO yesterday by Claire Berlinsky. I think you would find it interesting; it's here.

Very interesting indeed, and I agree with you that Berlinsky 'nails it' when she writes:

Because this is our culture, and in our culture, we do not veil. We do not veil because we do not believe that God demands this of women or even desires it; nor do we believe that unveiled women are whores, nor do we believe they deserve social censure, harassment, or rape. Our culture’s position on these questions is morally superior. We have every right, indeed an obligation, to ensure that our more enlightened conception of women and their proper role in society prevails in any cultural conflict, particularly one on Western soil.

I also noted in particular this paragraph of yours:

In the six years I have been running this weblog, I have distinguished between moderate and militant Muslims.  Some of my more conservative friends have criticized me for this distinction, and I am currently re-evaluating it.  This is an open question for me.  Perhaps 'moderate Muslim' is as oxymoronic as 'moderate Communist.'  Communists used our institutions and freedoms to undermine us, and that's a fact.  It is at least an open question whether Muslims are doing the same, with so-called 'moderate Muslims' being like 'fellow travelers' who are not actively engaged in subversion but provide support from the sidelines.

I've done some re-evaluating too; my own views have evolved considerably since 9/11. Prior to that awful day, I had only a general familiarity with Islam, and made a very clear distinction between "radical" or "fundamentalist" Islam and what I imagined to be "mainstream" or "modernized" Islam. After all, like you, I had Muslim friends and acquaintances, and my exploration of the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff (whom my father actually knew, by the way) had led me some distance into esoteric teachings that derived in part from Sufism.

After 9/11, however, I made it my business to learn more, and I read a great deal about Islamic history and theology  –  with the effect that I came to understand, as Recep Erdogan has put it, that there is no such thing as "moderate" Islam; there is just Islam, and "moderates"  –  meaning, in particular, those who see Islam as fully compatible with life under a secular, pluralistic government  –  are, on any coherent interpretation, heretics and apostates.

See here for what Erdogan said and analysis by Daniel Pipes.

This realization has made it increasingly clear to me that Islam is not, as fuzzy-minded liberals (and even most conservatives) would have it, just another religion, and a peaceful one at that, that has been "hijacked" by "extremists", but an expansionist, totalizing ideology, a highly infectious mind-virus  –  and one that is not only utterly incompatible, in anything resembling its pure form, with Western norms and Western culture, but is also its sworn and implacable enemy.

I don't know whether you are right about this, Malcolm, but it is clear to me that this question must be honestly addressed, and political correctness be damned.

This is, of course, far beyond the pale as far as polite society is concerned, but the threat is, I think, so serious and so clamant that it must be said, and people here need to get used to hearing it. Very few people are saying it yet; Lawrence Auster is perhaps foremost among them, but his audience is small.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on so. Living here in the bulls-eye, this stuff is on my mind a lot lately.

Good luck with your battle against the D.O.J.!