The chances for an Islamic Reformation are, not to put too fine a point on it, nonexistent.
In its early stages, Islam may have had some modicum of tolerance for free inquiry. It's been argued that even that "flourishing" under Islam was nothing more than Muslims engrafting themselves onto the existing vibrant societies they conquered.
Parasites then, parasites now.
But we digress . . . .
Thereafter, an orthodoxy of Koranic literalism settled upon the Islamic world that has continued essentially unchallenged for hundreds of years. The only thing that interrupted this suffocating approach to organizing human society was the unexpected ascendancy of Europe. Certainly, any kind of healthy self-examination was not a characteristic of Muslim society. As Winston Churchill his own self observed, " No stronger retrograde force exists in the world."
A period of enforced hibernation passed until the cosmic joke of vast Arab oil fields placed the Islamic world in a position to demand some serious groveling from the rest of the world. Where the heck is vintage Colonialism when you really need it? Whiff of grapeshot and all that sort of thing.
Seriously misinformed as to their true competitive abilities, Muslims have come out swinging in these late days convinced that they are somehow contenders in ways that are pathetic to regard. The entire Arab world has a non-oil GNP less than that of Spain, according to one formulation. Islam produces no inventions, no symphonies, no cinema, no science, and no joy. Maybe public stonings of adulterers is a cultural and legal improvement over titty bars but the Colonel, given an unrequited urge for cultural uplift on any one Saturday night, would, we confess, rather see the latter than the former.
Maybe it's just us and our vestigial aesthetic sensibilities. Surely we're not the only ones who see Pee Wee Herman and Ingmar Bergman movies as works having similar artistic merit?
But, to be absolutely fair about this, Islam has been enormously creative in the realms of terror and vicious attacks within the faith on those who dare to question established ways. Accusations of polytheism, blasphemy, and apostasy pour forth at the slightest pretext and collide and mingle with fatwas to kill too-free spirits, death threats to non-Muslims, and, of course, the actual killings. Oh, yes. Killings in abundance. See Religion of Peace for a taste of that smorgasbord of Islamic treachery and depravity served up just since the time of recent events in lower Manhattan.
8,110 deadly terror attacks since those times alone. And counting.
Even supposedly "moderate" Islamic states such as Indonesia have failed to deal with aberrant Muslim organizations in their midst. Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal was able to locate and interview the head of the Front for the Defense of Islam in Jakarta.
[This guy and the Front] have played a prominent role in Indonesian political life, although the FPI is not a political party. It is an Islamist vigilante group, with the self-appointed mission of policing and, if necessary, violently suppressing "un-Islamic" behavior. Squads of FPI militants have forcibly shut down hundreds of brothels, small-time gambling operations, discos, nightclubs and bars serving alcoholic beverages. They have also stormed "unauthorized" Christian houses of worship, attacked peaceful demonstrators from Indonesia's renascent Communist party, trashed the office of the National Commission on Human Rights and rampaged through airports looking for Israelis to kill.[1]Missing from Mr. Stephen's fascinating article is any mention of a governmental crackdown on this charming outfit, as is any mention of any fatwas issued by Indonesian religious authorities that criticize, let alone condemn, this vigilantism. We doubt Mr. Stephens researched that particular aspect of the Indonesian situation, but allow us to hazard a guess: none was issued and none ever will be.
A ridiculous thought, really. Christian school girls slashed and beheaded in Indonesia by manly local Muslim warriors?[2] A Muslim convert to Christianity in Egypt get his toenails pulled out?[3] Not a peep out of any local, national or international Muslim official or body.
No. Just forget pressure from within Muslim society.
As for external pressure, but for a brief moment of panic in Iran, Syria, and Libya after the recent invasion of Iraq, there's been zero Western pressure on any pustular Islamic regimes anywhere. "The most powerful man on earth" (MPMOE)cannot even bring himself to say "Islam" and "worrisome" in the same sentence. Moreover, the West meekly pays through the nose for oil from the most vicious and/or backward regimes imaginable with hardly a thought for the bold stroke that would rectify this absurd situation. No "outside the box" thinking here. God forbid there should be any of THAT!
On top of which, Saudi Arabia actively and contumaciously exports doctrinaire Wahhabism[4] to U.S. mosques and prisons without a murmur of protest from the aforementioned MPMOE. Iran continues to export terror as official state policy. And we do nothing.
Muslims are merely poised to take off from where they were so rudely interrupted by civilized people a while back. No changes, reforms, or intellectual advances to speak of in the meantime; just time to pick up where the previous invasions, lootings, humiliations, and slave tradings left off. As before, individual instances of breaking away from the Islamic fold are punished horribly by threats, beatings, torture or execution.
In short, Hollywood will start making patriotic movies again long before Muslims feel any need to enter into any kind of a Reformation. Considering how long it will be before the former takes place, we figure it to be a long wait for the Muslim al 'Abu-Luther to nail anything to the mosque door.
Would you believe, like, um, this will never happen?
We leave for another post a lengthy disquisition on the most likely outcome of the Old World's current social strife. Suffice to say that Islam and Western values are fundamentally incompatible with each other and we predict insurrection and repression.
If the Europeans are lucky.
If they are not, it may come down to this: a repetition of the mistakes of Versailles.
In his autobiography, Lincoln Steffens related how he had met an intelligent and insightful journalist when they was covering the 1919 Versailles Conference. This gentleman concluded that all the powers at the conference were in favor of peace, but "none was willing to give up the things that could not be had without war," or words to that effect.
At this moment, too, Europeans may be in favor of the survival of their way of life in some vague and abstract way, but, where the rubber meets the road, they look to be unwilling to give up the things that cannot be retained without the sure destruction of that way of life: namely, multiculturalism, a bastard generosity for all and sundry, and a fixation upon creating a civic existence utterly without discrimination of any kind.
Notes
[1] "The Arab Invasion. Indonesia's radicalized Muslims aren't homegrown." By Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 4/17/07 (emphasis added).
[2] "Missing Fatwas." By Col. Bunny, Intergalactic Source of Truth, 9/23/06.
[3] "Practical Sharia - II." By Col. Bunny, Intergalactic Source of Truth, 6/05.
[4] As opposed to . . . "liberal Wahhabism"?
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