“ISLAMOPHOBIA” OR EMPOWERING PRO-WESTERN MOSLEMS? ANDREW MCCARTHY
NRO — The Corner
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/244400/islamophobia-or-empowering-pro-western-muslims-andy-mccarthy
“Islamophobia†Or Empowering Pro-Western Muslims?
August 21, 2010 12:00 PM By Andy McCarthy
My column today addresses what I think is the real battle for religious liberty in the Ground Zero mosque controversy. The question is whether, wittingly or unwittingly, we are going to keep supporting authoritarian Islam – the mainstream, sharia-promoting Islam of the Middle East — or expose and marginalize Islamist ideology, in the hope that a real reformist, pro-Western Islam can emerge.
Having worked for a very long time with moderate Muslims, I can tell you it’s disheartening to be called an Islamophobe. Not by the CAIR types — who cares what they say? No, it’s when the charge (or at least the whiff of it) comes from thoughtful people, people like Ron Radosh, whom I admire. When that sort of thing happens, it tells me two things: first, the smear tactics of the CAIR types work; second, maybe I haven’t been clear enough — although God knows I have tried to be — about my position.
I have long argued that: (1) Islam is not a moderate doctrine; (2) Islamists who practice terror and are otherwise aggressive toward non-Muslims (and toward Muslims who disagree with them) are not twisting or perverting Islam; (3) this does not mean that the Islamist interpretation of Islam is the only possible viable interpretation; but (4) a concrete theology of “moderate Islam†does not exist (even though there are plenty of moderate Muslims) and therefore it will have to be created; and (5) because it will have to be non-literal and reformist, it will have a tough time competing with Islamist ideology which, however noxious it may be, has the advantage of being firmly rooted in Islamic scripture. Nevertheless, (6) Islamist ideology is anti-constitutional and anti-freedom in many of its core particulars, so that (7) if, instead of letting them pretend to be “moderates,†we force Islamists to defend their beliefs, we will marginalize them — at least in our society, which (8) will empower true moderate Muslim reformers and — maybe — give them the space they need to solidify a coherent, moderate Islam that embraces the West, and in particular the separation of secular public life from privately held religious beliefs.
There is more to say about all this, not least to observe that we may be arriving at a juncture at which most people of good will agree that Islam as-is is problematic, that promoting real moderate Islam (meaning reformist Islam) is vital, and that our real difference of opinion is how to do it: Do we expose and confront the Islamists, or do we embrace them — as long as they seem not to be terrorists themselves — and hope that we can co-opt them before they co-opt us?
On that point, and many others, I commend readers to Roger Kimball’s stellar response to Ron Radosh’s thoughtful essay. As usual, Roger says a lot of what I want to say — except better than I could say it.
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