Who's Really Fueling Muslim Tensions? :: Understanding Islam

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November 17, 2007

Who's Really Fueling Muslim Tensions?

Topics: Understanding Islam

We far too often hear the phrase, "fueling of Muslim tensions," and I'm personally tired of having to treat much of the Muslim world with kit gloves like they're little children with over-sensitive "feelings." What bugs me even more is that clearly, someone or something always "stokes" Muslims into overreacting to almost anything. So who or what is really fueling (stoking) Muslim tensions (sensitivities) ?

I suggest that it is Muslims themselves and a very cooperative media!

In a previous post titled 'Media Continue To Propagate Terrorist's Propaganda' I noted that we have all become accustomed to the news media's publishing of propaganda as 'news' and "twisting" the story of success in Iraq into, what AJ Strata has described as being "under the keyboard of a single media ideologue." However, the media's propagation of distorted facts and situations isn't confined to issues in Iraq and the Middle East - it occurs at least as often in the dissemination of disinformation propagated by Islamists living in the West. Simply put, the Islamists want nothing less than to censor the handling of Islamic topics, and transform public institutions in the West into venues for spreading Islam (da'wa) - and the media is helping them do it. Clearly, the liberal media are allowing themselves to be conduits for Muslim proselytizing. I, for one, am getting tired of seeing it, and and apparently I'm not alone.

WC at The Gathering Storm offers a few cases in point, while saying that he's getting sick and tired of the blatant disinformation that the Islamists are allowed to spew unchallenged in the Western media. He suggests that it's high time each and every one of these attempt at 'taqiyya' be challenged with the truth ("al-taqiyya" refers to blatent lying to or deceiving an enemy of Islam in order to and until an advantage is gained over the enemy.). While I agree with WC that much of what we see in the media amounts to the dissemination of al-taqiyya, I suggest that it is often in the course of da'wa, or proselytizing the Muslim faith - and using deception to accomplish it.

However, definitions aside, WC's cases in point are real zingers, and right on target:

.... the news that the Muslim Council of Britain warns that how Britain tackles terrorism and treats Islamic culture is recreating a society reminiscent of Nazi Germany and claiming that 'negativity' on Islam "fuels tension". (This I happen to find outright laughable - and for those who believe it, I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.)

Nowhere is it said in this or any other articles that quote the concerns of the Muslim Council of Britain it's response to events that actually fuels the tensions against Islam that they speak of.
Here are just a few.

Muslim Council of Britain Lists Demands of British Public Schools. "Their report, titled "Towards Greater Understanding - Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools," demands that schools should ban all pupils, not just Muslim students, from what the report deems "un-Islamic activies." Activities which would be included in the ban are dance classes, co-ed swimming, co-ed school trips and art classes which include the drawing of human figures."

Al Qaeda linked Muslim Council of Britain. "July 16, 2005: The MCB convened yesterday a special meeting of imams and ulama at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Regents Park, London, and they endorsed a declaration. It contains the usual boilerplate ("deeply shocked and saddened ... utterly criminal, totally reprehensible, and absolutely un-Islamic ... heartfelt sorrow") but, that out of the way, it gets down to business:"
The tragedy of 7th July 2005 demands that all of us, both in public life and in civil and religious society, confront together the problems of Islamophobia, racism, unemployment, economic deprivation and social exclusion - factors that may be alienating some of our children and driving them towards the path of anger and desperation. ... There is, therefore, a great deal of positive work to be done together with everyone in our own and wider community in order to channel the energy and talent of our youth particularly into constructive avenues, serving God and society for the common good. The youth need understanding, not bashing. ... We also urge the media to refrain from character assassinations of our reputable scholars and denigration of the community.

We also call on the international community to work towards just and lasting peace settlements in the world's areas of conflict and help eliminate the grievances that seem to nurture a spiral of violence.
"Summarized, the good imams and ulama are announcing that Muslims in Great Britain (first paragraph) and around the world (second paragraph) are victims and that the implication of 7/7 is that they should be treated better. What a travesty. Worse is that barely anyone in the UK is willing to point this out. "

And then these. Read them yourself.

Muslim Council of Britain justifies their ties to terrorism and condones suicide bombings in BBC interview on London attacks.

Muslim Council of Britain Threatens Violence.

Muslim Council of Britain fuming over mosque documentary.

WC goes on to ask, given the above, who then is really fueling the tension? In other words, what are the Muslims themselves doing about de-fueling the tensions, and suggests that the Muslims themselves should be doing a hell of a lot more in their own communities to change the situation.

This, to me, seems to be by far the most logical and reasonable approach. After all, Islam brought global terrorism to the world in the pursuit of world domination by Islam, the West did not invite Islam to disrupt Western civilization and create havoc. Modern Western civilization would have been perfectly content had it never even heard of the word Islam, and for most of us in the West, indeed we wish we didn't have to hear about it in our media every minute of every day - and it's always about the latest Islamic terrorist event of some Muslim somewhere having his or her ever-sensitive Muslim feelings hurt.

So, instead of Muslims complaining, lying, deceiving, and exercising their hidden agenda to proselytize Islam while carrying out jihad, what should Muslims instead be doing?

Borrowing from WC's post at The Gathering Storm, here's a few suggestions from Robert Spencer:

Muslims should:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.

2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.

3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.

4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.

5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

I agree with WC, sounds like a great start. Now, if only the Muslim Council of Britain, CAIR, ISNA, and all the rest of the Islamist groups would just "get on (with) it and stop the whining.

And, of course, if only the media would wise up and stop letting themselves be used.

To which, of course, we need to add that it would be most helpful if the Media would stop letting Islamist apologists play journalist.

Posted by Richard at November 17, 2007 10:40 AM

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