Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1815 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Freedoms...
Rauol Gerecht, in an interesting essay yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, details how the U.S. is far too "politically correct" in its policing of Islamic terror suspects. If you compare it with how France conducts its own anti-terrorism, the French are not afraid at all of being labelled "Islamophobic" and they just "do what needs to be done" (funny how all their buildings are still standing, too). The terrorists of course know how to use the American fear of being "insensitive" to religion, for their own purposes. Britain and the U.S. and Canada all show blindness toward the internal threat, due to this political correctness in their policing. France and most continental countries do not.
And Gerecht goes on to say that we are on the wrong track in America. Instead of "hermetically sealing off Islam" from any criticism, and mouthing platitudes about "the religion of peace" (which is how we deal with Islam currently), we should be actively engaging Muslims in dialogue. We should demand more. We should want and seek dialogue with Muslims and imams. What is there to fear ? Maybe we can learn from each other. If Islam has elements which are "great" (and it most likely does have very positive aspects), we should get to know that. But we should also make some demands in return for the demands placed on us. Gerect states that only intense dialogue with the West brought an end (mostly) to slavery in northern Africa and the Middle East, and provided women with more rights. If that dialogue had not been there, due to a fear of being "insensitive", slavery would still exist and women would be 2nd-class citizens throughout the Middle East.
So let's forget about "sensitivity", in favor of dialogue. Let's demand this from our leaders. Let's demand this from the imams (and in return, we will listen to them). Let's open the doors of real dialogue !!
[Edited by John Bunch on November 23, 2009 3:39 PM]
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