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| Europe |
| The Clash to End All Clashes? |
| 2006-02-07 |
| Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish Muslim writer based in Istanbul, Turkey. (His website is located at www.thewhitepath.com)": "This rage, then, is not a theologically driven response, but an emotional uproar by people who think that their faith and identity are being insulted. It is in a sense a nationalist reaction — the nation being the Muslim umma. (If this reaction were not nationalist, but purely religious in nature, then it would also follow on the mocking of Jesus Christ and Moses. After all, the Koran regards these holy men as God's chosen messengers.)" ... "Thus, if what we see is a clash of civilizations, the responsibility lies in the hands of the extremists on both sides: those who insist, "Yes, we have a right to ridicule God" and those who threaten, "We are going to kill you for it." The rest could get along." Zeyno Baran is director of international-security and energy programs at the Nixon Center: "...the most important step now is to cease tolerating intolerance. No Western (or Muslim) government should tolerate appeals to kill others in the name of religion. The longer such radicals who claim to speak for Muslims are allowed to do so freely, and the longer they are legitimized by Western governments that want to "develop open channels" to the Muslim community, the more demonstrations, riots, and killings we will see. After all, these protests and attacks were not committed "spontaneously" by Muslims, but were encouraged by radical groups — groups that can, with the right approach, be defeated." A dozen interesting interviews, including a number of moderate Muslims. Way too much to excerpt, RTWT. |
| Posted by:KBK |
| #4 |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-02-07 20:41 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-02-07 20:27 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-02-07 16:14 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: DoDo 2006-02-07 16:12 |