I have no interest at all in the inter-blog controversy over that Rittenhouse guy's decision to black out his links to every site with a Little Green Footballs link. I don't happen to agree with his assessment of LGF (for pretty much the same reasons given by Moira Breen and Natalie Solent-- though, like most people I hardly ever venture into the comments section which has aroused so much consternation.) But James Capozzola is free to omit links to whomever he pleases, for whatever reason he chooses. The whole thing smacks of troll-bait anyway-- and I dare say he got more hits from hooking Steven den Beste than from anything else he's written ever before or is likely to write henceforward.
Moira drew my attention to the discussion of similar issues in Thomas Nephew's excellent Newsrack blog (continued extensively in his comments section.) He objects to the use of the phrase "religion of peace" as an ironic caption for items about extremist violence, saying that it "tars all Muslims with the brush of extremism." Here's how he puts it:
"Peaceful Religion Watch" is a recurring post title at Charles Johnson's "Little Green Footballs" web site: the accompanying post is some real example of ugly, extremist statements or deeds by people claiming to be acting in accord with Islamic principles. It's not the stories that are false, it's the implication the title gives those stories: that this is all there is to Islam.
It did make me think, though. If assigning the caption "a religion of peace" to an item about violent words or deeds isn't meant as a slight to all who practice the religion, what does it mean? Like many things, it only seems obvious until you try to articulate it. Bear with me while I try to puzzle it out.
"Islam is a religion of peace." I believe the sincere, ingenuous use of this all but meaningless sentence (for nothing is entirely "of peace") arises out of noble intentions and even reflects a considerable degree of truth, if not precision. It is intended to distinguish (a) the Islamist theo-thugs who murdered over 3,000 Americans and who dream of imposing a religious police state upon that proportion of the world's population they do not manage to kill, from (b) those Muslims ("the vast majority," in the equally platitudinous, equally accurate formulation) who are entirely free of such sentiments, sympathies, culpability or ambition. "Islamism" or "Islamofascism," the enemy's creed, Islam not as religion or culture but rather as a political ideology embodying the pursuit of a revolutionary-totalitarian societal transformation, is presented as a perversion or derailment of "true Islam," which is wholly benign, non-threatening, amenable to the interests of the US and the Western world. (As I know from letters sent to this site, many people don't realize that "Islamist" is not an exact synonym for "Muslim," but rather is something quite different. Thus the "Islamo-fascist" neologism is preferable, since its meaning is unmistakable.)
Assuredly, the distinction between (a) and (b) is a real one. Anyone who doesn't realize that there is such a difference (and I have no doubt that they're out there) probably does indeed need to be informed of the error with just such a crude, rhetorical sledgehammer. GWB seems to use the phrase every chance he gets, and this is presumably one of the reasons. There may, however, be other less creditable reasons: squeamishness about the potential offense that plain talk can give to particularized interest groups (i.e., the same sort of political correctness that drives the editorial choices of the New York Times and other media); and, still worse, a desire to appease powerful people and institutions who have solid, and often barely-hidden, connections to the sort of extremism that threatens us.
It seems to me that, far from being an attack directed at Muslims, the ironic use of "religion of peace" is actually a slap at George W. Bush and others who, no doubt with the best of intentions, have employed the banal phrase to avoid confronting or acknowledging a manifest reality: that the wickedness of those who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11 is inextricably enmeshed with the wickedness of the ideology of the perpetrators, their apologists, their fellow travelers, and their clandestine supporters; and that the ideology arises not out of a void, but from a variety of religious extremism that is propagated by some of our "allies" in the Middle East and their spokesmen and beneficiaries at home.
The fear that wrong-headed Americans might express their anger over 9/11 by targeting innocent Muslims for persecution was not an idle one, though in the event it turned out to be, for the most part, unfounded. (And no, I don't think that GWB's admonition had anything to do with it-- the American public isn't nearly as intolerant or blind to nuance as many suppose.) There are those who, sincerely or disingenuously, might mistake the required condemnation of the enemy's ideology for a blanket condemnation of all Muslims, which would be unequivocally wrong and foolish. There is also, to be sure, some sense in avoiding needless controversy when there are more important matters to attend to.
Yet the intimation that the bin Ladenite fascistic ideology has nothing whatever to do with "real" Islam, that it is nothing more than a bizarre perversion that practically no one in the Islamic world sympathizes with or accepts, the work of a handful of errant troublemakers, is a patently absurd and dangerous lie. The relationship between Islam (the religion) and Islamofascism (the ideology) is far, far more complex than that.
Steven Schwartz, who knows a fair amount about such things, in a recent interview rejected his interlocutor's conventional characterization of Wahhabism as "not Islam" (by which she meant not "true" Islam): rather, he noted that Islam has "many strains." He described the current situation as a "battle for the soul Islam," a battle which, in his view, the Saudi-funded extremists in the American Islamic establishment unfortunately seem to be winning. The American media (along, perhaps, with the American president) unwittingly collude by accepting American Wahhabis as the "official" spokesmen for Islam; these spokesmen "issue ameliorative statements intended to end discussion of the problem, and they closely watch the community and prevent traditional Muslims from expressing themselves openly about Wahhabism and its involvement with terrorism." Like this.
Whether or not it is the case that they are winning, it is clear that merely saying "Islam is a religion of peace" is a poor substitute for the kind of analytical approach that this complicated situation calls for. Yet that is, in fact, how it has been employed, as a substitute for honest, clear thought, and as an easy means for unscrupulous activists to derail discussion. The phrase retains what meaning it has only as an object lesson in how poor language can degrade discourse.
Irony can be a kind of protest against hypocrisy. That's what's going on here. For hypocrisy it is, or at least a contradiction requiring an explanation, to declare war upon the ideologues while excusing, defending, appeasing, even just failing to identify and call to account those who disseminate, fund, applaud or propagate the ideology.
Thus the problem with "religion of peace," the reason why many can't resist mocking it. At best, it's a well-intended platitude devoid of content. At worst, it's a pernicious platitude that has the effect of, in Moira Breen's apt phrase, "driving discussion into utter inanity." As much of this pseudo-controversy shows.
UPDATE: Rick Heller covers this angle more succinctly (i.e., better): "a sarcastic reference to a propagandistic platitude is hardly bigotry."
Posted by Dr. Frank at November 30, 2002 09:41 AM | TrackBack