Is There An Islam Behind The Islamism?
Reader comment on item: Islamists Police the Classroom [at the University of South Florida]

Submitted by Alain Jean-Mairet (Switzerland), Jan 4, 2004 at 13:57

This kind of news, here at danielpipes.org, always leaves me an aftertaste. It seems to me that, with the sheer number of those anecdotes, the website is loosing some worth, which lies in the deepness and the rightness of the reflection. Of course, taken separately, all those pieces of information are useful and their publication is totally justified. But as they're adding, they start to convey a feeling of defensiveness, of "we have to unveil all of them" sort of attitude. I don't think that Daniel Pipes has to prove his point like that over and over. Well, I may be wrong, as I sit here, at the other side of the Atlantic. But nevertheless, shouldn't the "duty" of such a website not also be the tracing of the right direction? And this certainly goes through conciliation with reasonable Muslims. Well, I see it like that:

We have to take for granted that most Muslims are good believers, and that they would rather opt for a "moderate" and peaceful Islam than for a stubborn and bloody Islamism. If we do, we see that we should encourage this silent majority to become vocal. We can achieve that by talking with them, by making them take position, thus launching debates within the Muslim community, leading to a large consciousness that moderate (reasonable) Islam actually *is* the choice of most Muslims who have given it a solid thought. We should let them struggle within, and not fight them.

I am well aware of the very differentiate and careful manner with which this site always treats information in order to make his position quite clear (a talent I can but aspire to…), but it is of very little use without a longer term strategy that implies Muslims telling other Muslims that Islam is able to integrate itself in modernity. And this should show through, more or at least at strongly than the other, more aggressive side of the work which this article (Islamists Police the Classroom) is part of. For each of those, there should be a sign of hope.

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