Ali Eteraz on the Islamist paradox
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007
I never thought of it this way:
Isn’t it odd that the same people who agitate for Shariah because of its greater ability to introduce “order” and “justice” are the same people who take violent and vigilante action?
They want to put in place a system so crushing that it would allow them the freedom to not have to come to terms with their own violence. That their own misanthropy would be addressed by someone outside of them.
This sounds like a sort of infantile or adolescent disorder. What Ali wants to see happen is for people not to generalize from Islamists to Muslims. Is that entirely unreasonable? I know that some people think it is — the argument being that even if not “all Muslims” think this way, “most” or (as even as I have said) “enough of them” do; and that to “pretend” otherwise is to invite disaster.
I do think it is more subtle than that. For one thing, there is no question but that Islamists have, for the moment, taken hold, if not of the wheel on the deck, the bullhorn of the Ship of Islam.
Will the Ali Eterazes of the world make a difference?
eteraz said
john from xdarabia can answer your last question:
http://tinyurl.com/2z5bbt
Bob Miller said
“They want to put in place a system so crushing that it would allow them the freedom to not have to come to terms with their own violence.”
This smacks of “Stop me before I kill”, except that these rules are so often (and so easily) construed to mean that it’s OK to kill non-Muslims.
eteraz said
btw, linking to this post is quite unfair
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1164137554.shtml
just b/c the students dont like a speaker doesn’t make them islamist
i disagree with them on whether they should block speakers
but i happen to know a lot of the muslim students from brown and they all contribute meaningfully to the future of this nation as doctors, lawyers, and social workers. they aren’t islamists. an islamist wants to use violent or non-violent means to see shariah as the law of the land. these kids want to make money.
(even if brown is the most overrated of the ivies and should be demoted to a second tier school)
DK said
” What Ali wants to see happen is for people not to generalize from Islamists to Muslims. Is that entirely unreasonable?”
It’s not unreasonable, but we can’t always set policy according to the majority, but sometimes need to set policy according to the Islamicist threat.