An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
It’s All in the Translation
Human Events, a so-called bastion of modern American conservatism, is pushing a book by Gregory M. Davis titled Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World.
This book (and the H.E. promotional effort behind it) might help explain the shorts-in-a-bunch syndrome that has recently infected Congressman Goode and Pundit Prager, as dissected multiple times at TMV and elsewhere, including David Schraub’s post yesterday.
But my intent here is not to re-visit Goodepragerland. Instead, it’s to offer one take on the premise of the book itself, just in case you care.
16 Responses to “It’s All in the Translation”
Here’s the thing about the Koran and Islam. Its really alot like Christianity. The Koran is just a book. Inside it you will find passages to justify killing people not of the faith. You will also find passages to justify mercy and tolerance to infidels if thats what you want to preach. Basically, you can find whatever passage you want for whatever politcal purpose you want. Just like the Bible.
Consequently, there is no “True Islam” any more than there is “True Christianity”. There is simply the interpretation thats most popular at the time. Groups of people take the parts they feel are most relevant to them, breathe life into them, and this generates an offshoot of the religon. Shia and Sunni for example. The book is the same, just a book. But the sect is a living thing that elevates certain passages into what we come to see as the religon itself. Again, this isn’t limited to Islam, but its really the most important today because the sects that rule today are very dominant, violent, and xenophobic.
The fact is that Islam today is much like Christianity was in the middle ages. There are some good core messages, but by and large the leaders, those who have actual influence over the direction of the religon as a whole, are violent and bound by ideology. Also like the christians of the middle ages they are inextricably linked to politics of the region. So not only do they command the hearts of the people, but also the weapons.
Like it or not, Islam as practiced in this day and age is a religion that promotes violence across the world from the nations that insist on tying it to their governments. It is intolerant and quick to anger. The Danish cartoon fiasco brought that point home to me more than anything else could have. A religon where an insult alone is cause for violence on a large scale.
What a well-articulated, reasonable response. Thank you for sharing and for saying (especially in the first several paragraphs) what I tried to say in my post, although you said it in a much clearer, more direct way. In terms of your last paragraph, I would never dispute that there are many practitioners of Islam today who promote violence. But that’s not true of all of them. And what I don’t know is which percentage (violent vs. peaceful) is predominant. Your post suggests the hatemongers are. And you may be right, but it’s difficult for me to make a final judgment without data of some sort. Maybe such data is impossible to come by. Does anyone out there have a source?
I also don’t have any concrete facts on the percentages of the leaders, its more of a feeling I’ve developed as I read what I can on the subject and watch various news outlets. But certain things seem to crop up regularly, like this article in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769_3.html
This is a national education system issue in what is an “ally” nation. There are other issues I have with the Middle East tradition of islam, like honor killings and the general treatment of women. But it seems to me that countries that have a strong muslim component seem to be steeped in war and strife, from SE Asia to the middle east, to Somalia and Darfur region. Strife that seems to stem almost purely from religous issues.
Thanks. I hear you, and maybe it is a matter of cycles of history. We don’t have to go all the way back to the Middle Ages to find violence-centric Christianity. Rewind just a little to the 70′s, some years before and later, and look at what was undertaken in Northern Ireland in the name of Christ. I think your original point, consistent with mine, is the ultimate one: Whether they’re in the majority or a minority at a given point in history, there are people in virtually every faith who can take their “scripture” and interpret for good or for evil. It’s all in the hands of the believer, the interpreter. The questions then come down not to faiths and scriptures but real-world behavior and the opportunity for change: Will the predominately peaceful thread of Christians continue to be predominant forever, or will history repeat itself and afford war- and killing-prone Christians the driver’s seat? Conversely, if they are now predominant, will strife-leaning Muslims continue as such, or will theire more reasonable, tolerant counterparts eventually “right” the faith to the intent and practice of peace? Those are the questions and causes I think we are best served addressing — rather than attempting, as the author of the Islam book pushed by Human Events does, to drive deeper wedges between us.
One point is that even if Islamist extremists are a tiny minority, they still represent a very large group of people because the number of Muslims in the world is so large.
Another point is that even the more moderate Muslims could go a long way toward easing tensions with non-Muslims if they would practice tolerance. The sector of Islam (however small it might be) that promotes violent jihad is the cause for greatest concern, of course, but if the moderates want non-Muslims to believe that we can coexist peacefully with them, they may want to begin actually coexisting peacefully with non-Muslims in the countries that they govern. Saudi Arabia, for example, will not allow Christian bibles or churches, and many Muslim countries treat non-Muslims as Dhimmis. That may be a more moderate position than the advocates of violent jihad, but it certainly isn’t very tolerant of people with beliefs that differ from their own.
Sam & Pete, great posts and very thought provoking.
Are you surprised that a Conservative is trying to use the “divide and conquer” (A.K.A. wedge issue) trick? It’s been their primary tactic for awhile now.
I think we all agree that there are some indeterminate number of violent intollerant people in the world. They might or might not form the majority of Muslims, but I don’t really think that should be the point. Instead of argueing about the exact number of angry muslims (gets me thinking about the debates about the number of angels that can fit on a pinhead) we should be looking at historical examples of how religions have been brought to more peaceful forms and interpretations.
I think the idea is uncomfortable to some because it includes acknowledgement and dwelling on the fact that religions such as Christianity weren’t always peace loving and accepting (and may not be that way today, but that’s for a different thread). What ended the Inquisition? What about the mistreatment of Protestants by the Anglicans? Are there good examples where wars weren’t needed?
I think the answers to questions like these (which I have no idea how to answer btw) would be a start to solving the current geo-politico-religious problems we are facing.
Kevin H — I couldn’t agree you with more. Those are precisely the type of questions we should collectively study and answer.
CStanley — While I agree with you that moderate Musslims (especially in Muslim governed countries) could be more tolerant and thus send an even stronger message to less-moderate Muslims, the good news is that at least there are many Muslim Americans who are actively displaying such heightened levels of tolerance, as evidenced in this recent WaPo story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001718.html, which you may have already seen.
Kevin H,
I agree completely, and that is exactly the dialogue that Pope Benedict tried to start in his speech in Germany last year. He didn’t dodge the history of violence in Christianity but he asserts that in more recent times, the Church has embraced the concept of “Logos”, or the rational nature of God.
Rambie, I think I get your meaning but I’m don’t think this is really an example of a wedge issue (more like, drawing black and white distinctions between “us and them”). Both parties have successfully used wedge issues, like the Democrats recently with the stem cell debate; that seems to me to be a different tactic than what you are referring to here.
Pete,
The link didn’t work and I’m not sure if I’ve read the article to which you referred; but I do think it’s fair to say that Muslims in America generally are much more tolerant and it’s the ones in Muslim majority countries that I am more concerned with.
Sorry, an inadvertent comma messed up the link. Try this one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001718.html
CS Yes, he definately started the dialogue by throwing down a gauntlet. He pretty much said, ‘you MUST embrace Logos’. History could very well be kind to that direct confrontational approach but it might not. Also, at least here at the TMV we lost the other half of that dialogue by not talking about the muslim scolarly rebuttal. Its a bit of ‘old news’ but it would be interesting if someone would post a link to a copy of it and their thoughts. Maybe I missed something in the archives?
Yes, I heard a supposed debate between this author and another Muslim scholar on Laura Ingram. It boiled down to the second scholar saying, “yes, you found one interpretation here which matches your theme, but there is another interpretion here and-”
“WRONG!” would be shouted by the book’s author immediately, since he knew the one true version of Islam already and didn’t need to have his view sullied with complexity.
To keep this comment relatively short, one great question to ask is 1) what if he’s right? What is this supposed to mean for how we act if Islam were to be a pure faith of domination? A related question is 2) why do so many people want this interpretation of Islam to be correct? Tackling the first, if the religion of a million people is fundamentally violent, are we to… what? wipe all Muslims out? convert them to another religion? isolate a billion people in certain nations that we refuse to deal with anymore? If they are all really trying to kill us or convert us because that is the one true version of their faith (the only Muslims who aren’t after us apparently just don’t get their own religion) then there aren’t many choices. It’s only a matter of time. After all, our President himself has told us this is a clash of civilizations, and there is no such thing as the terrorist civilization….
Hopefully the above strikes everyone as crazy. What are the alternatives? The alternatives would seem to be some steps towards cooperation, understanding, moderation, and dialogue. This would of course require that Islam contain the very elements that this author wants to say don’t exist. My only conclusion then is that the purpose of such a book is simply to wall off and hide any shared beliefs between Muslims and non-Muslims. It wants to shut down possibilities so that the only choice left is violence and conversion. And all of this is put forth as just frank, practical realism by people who truly understand what’s going on instead of living in the idealistic fruity world of the Left.
Kevin H,
I’m not sure I’d characterize Benedict’s speech as being quite as confrontational as you represent it. The only provocative thing about it was that he did include the quote that incriminated the Muslim faith without really clearly stating that this wasn’t his view of modern day Islam (which he of course later clarified when he was challenged to do so).
As far as a link, do you mean to Benedict’s speech or to a Muslim response to it? I’m not aware of the latter but I could dig up the former if you are interested.
As surely as some people, Muslim and non-Muslim, claim that Westerners don’t understand Islam, here is some proof that Muslims don’t understand the basis for law in much of the West. A group of what would presumably be considered “moderate” Muslims taking part in the Makkah Seventh Conference called for a commission whose purpose is to sue anyone who criticizes Islam or the Prophet. They haven’t quite grasped the concept of free speech, have they? And frankly, I don’t think they want to.
Jim S,
I am SOOOOO with you.