From our friends at MEMRI: please visit the link for the full interview on Dubai TV. Another frank Muslim speaks out. I've just included his final remarks. Worth the full read.
Like the Sumerians, Greeks, and Pharaohs; If the Arabs are So Inept They Cannot Be Democratic, External Intervention Will Not Make Them So
The poet Ali Ahmad Sa'id (b. 1930), known by his pseudonym "Adonis," a 2005 candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, left his native Syria for Lebanon in the 1950s following six months' imprisonment for political activity. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. from St. JosephUniversity in Beirut; in 1985, he settled in Paris, where he now works as a writer and literary critic. Among other occupations, he has edited the modernist magazine Mawaqif (Viewpoints), and translated some of the great French poets into Arabic.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian poet "Adonis," aired on Dubai TV on March 11, 2006.
"The Muslims today - forgive me for saying this - with their accepted interpretation [of the religious text], are the first to destroy Islam, whereas those who criticize the Muslims - the non-believers, the infidels, as they call them - are the ones who perceive in Islam the vitality that could adapt it to life. These infidels serve Islam better than the believers."
The scales are tippingÂ…. More cartoons, more condemned Christians, more ripping off the masks and revealing Islamism for what it is. WeÂ’ve got to keep the foaming nuts rampaging in the streets, in full media view, awhile longer yet. Keep forcing them to face the mirror. More and more muslim intellectuals like Adonis will hopefully help poke them along to sanity.
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