Auster is right

Submitted by Caesar M. Arevalo (United States), Jan 29, 2005 at 00:17

After reading both articles by Auster and Pipes in FrontpageMagazine website, I concluded that the argument that Auster elaborates to support his thesis that Moderate Islam does not exist and that Radical Islam is actually Islam itself, is convincing. Daniel Pipes' claim that Moderate Islam exists because there are some Muslims intellectuals, who do not agree with the traditional view and practice of Islam, is a wishful thinking. Although many people would welcome a version of Islam completely moderated and reformed, the truth is that as long as the Koran is believed by the great majority as the only word of god, Islam will be intolerant, militant, violent, imperialist, repressive, and tyrannical. It does not matter if Muslim scholars in the western Universities offer a more acceptable modern interpretation of Islam; Muslims in the Middle East will listen to Imams and Ayatollahs preaching hate to the United States and Israel and war against Jews and Christians. A Moderate version of Islam exists only in the mind and desires of those who theoretically want to play the role of apologists.

Radical Islam is another label for Islam. By making a rhetorical differentiation, as Pipes does, between radical Islam and Islam, the reader is led to believe that Islam is not radical or intolerant. I find not only offensive but also deceptive to claim that Islam per se is not violent, intolerant, and militant. The only place where Muslims are restrained from practicing their faith the way it is practiced in Middle East is in the United States. Here Muslims are more "moderate," not because Islam is moderate, but because the social and political conditions in America are founded in the respect for life and the protection of rights according to the Constitution.

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