{"id":605,"date":"2006-02-08T23:13:35","date_gmt":"2006-02-09T03:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=605"},"modified":"2007-07-31T03:31:33","modified_gmt":"2007-07-31T07:31:33","slug":"radical-islaaam-and-holocaust-jokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=605","title":{"rendered":"“Radical Islaaam” and Holocaust jokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been attending a few of the Betar Tagar<\/a>‘s “Know Radical Islam Week<\/a>” events. Overall I think the way Betar is handling this is remarkably stupid. I don’t see anything constructive, at all, coming out of this event — if the aim is to start a dialogue with Muslims. There are very few Muslims at these lectures, indeed most of those attending seem to be Jewish.<\/p>\n

Much of the content of the events is actually meaningful — at least, the lectures I’ve attended were — but the medium (“Radical Islaaam”) obscures the message. I’ve told them that a much better title would be “Extremism within Muslim society,” and they acted as if that were a novel idea (and don’t they wish I was in their planning committee) but I find it hard to believe that the issue of alternatively naming it didn’t come up.<\/p>\n

How much more meaningful would it be if they had the MSA on board to condemn radicalism in Islam? Probably a lot more. I’ve spoken with several members of the MSA<\/a>, including the President and the Academic Affairs Coordinator, they both told me that a) they were not<\/i> calling for a boycott, and b) they were never consulted at any time throughout the organization of this event. Betar e-mailed certain members of the MSA in the days leading up to the events, though, to receive mixed messages that they touted as “cooperation.” From what I’ve heard, members of the Thaqalayn Muslim Association<\/a> are also unhappy about the way things are being carried out.<\/p>\n

The kinds of organizations that are<\/i> on board? The UofT Objectivist Club, the Toronto Secular Alliance, Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum, etc. That really seems like a group dedicated to fostering meaningful discussion (I’m being sarcastic).<\/p>\n

Moreover, how can you even begin to describe radicalism within Islam — a religion of over a billion — as some kind of hegemonic entity? It’s not. Different factors have contributed to the rise of radicalism in Islam in various regions of the world. Taking the historical and sociological context into consideration is tremendously important for any analysis. This is sorely lacking in Betar’s activities.<\/p>\n

Anyway, today I attended one of Betar’s lectures given by Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Abu Toameh reports for the right-wing Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

What he said, though, completely undercut the message that the Betar folks were trying to get across. It seemed to me that they were trying to depict “radical” Islam as somehow censoring the reporting of things in Palestine. Abu Toameh quite unequivocally stated, several times, that it was not Hamas and Islamic Jihad that censored journalists, nor would they, but it was the Palestinian Authority (run by the PLO — Arafat and Abu Mazen’s folks) every single time, and the West supported this. <\/p>\n

That made me want to laugh and clap out loud.<\/p>\n

He also talked about how Arafat was a big hypocrite, sitting in mosques while stealing billions meant for Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Also, in a remarkably stupid move, Jyllands-Posten<\/i> has apparently offered to publish cartoons<\/a> that a remarkably stupid Iranian newspaper is aiming to publish that make fun of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

It’s stupid enough of the Iranians to want to do something messed up like this, and stupider still for the Danish to want to reprint those cartoons. How stupid do people get? I imagine we’ll see extremist agenda-driven Muslims torch the Iranian embassies in protest for printing such offensive cartoons? I think any decent and right-thinking human being would find it even more offensive to make fun of the deaths of six million people than to make fun of a prophet. I suggest all Danes engage in a meaningful boycott of Jyllands-Posten<\/i> and demand that the editor be replaced with someone who is less remarkably stupid (and that’s the theme of my post).<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been attending a few of the Betar Tagar‘s “Know Radical Islam Week” events. Overall I think the way Betar is handling this is remarkably stupid. I don’t see anything constructive, at all, coming out of this event — if the aim is to start a dialogue with Muslims. There are very few Muslims at […]<\/p>\n

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