Sep

17

Making Muslims Babies

September 17, 2006 |

Neither the pope nor the Muslim clerics are the only actors here. Tens of thousands of Muslims chose to act in violence or condone violence yesterday. Millions more supported them in this, the evidence being that Muslim politicians jumped on the bandwagon. These millions of Muslims are hardly candles in the wind, helplessly manipulated by the imams. They chose their religion. They chose their mosque. They chose not to “listen carefully” to the words of the pope. They chose to take to the streets in rage, and they chose to burn and attack and kill perfectly innocent people, all on the say-so of one or another demagogue in a turbin. They are not children, however much the cultural relativists who absolve the rioters and their sympathizers infantalize them. I condemn these people for making bad choices; liberals, such as the editors of the New York Times, refuse to condemn them because they believe that Muslims are incapable of choices. I may deplore the choices of these rioting Muslims, but the New York Times holds them in contempt, regarding them as nothing more than wild animals. Just as we all blame humans who antagonize an animal into a violent response, the New York Times blames Westerners who “sow pain,” as if Muslims have the free will of a cornered wolf.

For my part, I am sick of “Muslim rage.” Whether inspired by the pope or Danish cartoonists or the clumsy use of the word “crusade” by a Western politician, there is simply no defense for the behavior of these imams and their followers. It is barbaric, and everybody who is not barbaric or an unreconstructed apologist for barbarians knows it. The Muslims who commit arson and mayhem in response to some Westerner speaking his opinion — and the pope, as leader of the Roman church, is exactly that — have chosen to act as enemies of reason, peace, and everything that is good in the world.
tigerhawk

It is really time for the much heralded Muslim moderates to tell their imams and their more fanatic followers to grow up. Jsut as it is time for those of us in the West ot make it clear to the people who infantalize Muslims that it is long past time for Islam to be treated as an adult. Which means that the expectation should be that Muslims can respond rationally rather than emotionally to legitimate criticism. When they do not they, not the person criticizing, should bear the responsibility for their immature actions.

If the Muslim world cannot meet this minimum standard it may be time to simply disengage entirely. Because if Islam has become the religion of barbarism then it must be treated as a threat rather than a serious faith. I hope it has not come to this but the Danish cartoons and the imams seizing on a Pope’s largely academic remarks suggest it has.


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