Recently,
in a conversation with Salman Rushdie on his show EQUAL TIME, Bill Maher
defined a term “09/11 Liberal”.
A 09/11
Liberal by his description is someone of a leftist bent perhaps even an atheist
who now acknowledges that Islam is different from other religions and poses an
existential threat to the West. Maher
mentions Sam Harris, Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens etc, as people who share
this mindset.
I of
course believe this is all bullshit and here’s why….
First
off, the liberal part of 09/11 Liberal is a questionable term for these folks. Maher has stated he supported the Vietnam War
and civilian casualties and crimes against humanity never seem to bother him
when it’s US allies and Israel doing the killing. He believes in American exceptionalism and
along with Harris is a big supporter of Israel.
His liberalism stops at the border.
Harris is a phony atheist who hides his bigotry against Islam behind
this shield (as Maher is doing now).
Hitchens supported the Iraq War and Rushdie, despite his protestations at
a recent PEN event, did support the Iraq War before it started coming out
against it only after the war had started.
The coddling of ridiculous Islamophobe nuts like Aayan Hirsi Ali, Geert
Wilders, and Irshad Manji only undercuts their credibility more.
I
should say once again for the record that I am an Atheist but I hate all religions
equally. To single out Islam separately is
to reveal something about your world view that ties one to Neo Cons, imperialists,
tea bagging knuckleheads, and Zionists.
The
09/11 liberal’s mindset has two main faults 1.) It is based on faulty
assumptions that border on the pathologically paranoid about the uniform nature
of Muslims 2.) They are divorced from history.
There
are roughly 1.62 billion Muslims in the world according to Wikipedia. Muslims that fit the profile Maher and others
are talking about, those that embrace the ultraviolent backwards looking
fundamentalist Wahabbi faith are a tiny percentage of that. Even if you assume everyone in Saudi Arabia
is a terrorist that is less than %1 of the world’s Muslim population. Heck, if you assume every Arab in the Middle
East and as well as Muslims in North Africa is a terrorist that’s still only
19.9% of the world’s population of Muslims.
What
about the rest of the world? Indonesia is 12.7%. Pakistan is 11%. India 10.9%. Bangladesh
9.2% Iran 4.6% Uzbekistan is 1.7% China is 1.4%. 2.7% of the World’s Muslims live in Europe. Malaysia, where I live, has 1.1% of the world
Muslim population.
My
point here is that the idea Islam is an amphorous global conspiracy like the
Borg from Star Trek is just not backed up by reality. No, Islam does not have denominations but it
does mold itself to local practices in the countries where it is practiced in a
way that Christianity (which went along the last few hundred with the sense of
biological and cultural superiority created by colonialism) does not. Islam in Malaysia, for example, is mostly
laid back and infused with local animist belief while Islam in the Middle East
has taken on many of the elements of violent tribal culture (which came before
Islam).
To
argue that a relatively tiny percentage of the world’s Muslims define their faith
is illogical. All people who live in
Hollywood are drug addicted perverts I know this because I read some of them
are in the newspaper.
There
are places where Muslims are fighting wars of liberation. These wars would be going on even if those
fighting for freedom practiced a different faith. The situation of the Palestinians (Christians
as well as Muslims), The Chechens in Russia, and the Uyghurs in China are valid
struggles and I support all of them in their battles for their own states and
freedom.
In
addition, as I have noted many times on this blog, I don’t support Israel at
all, the last bastion of colonialism, a give away by The West they had no right
to give, The Zionist is the true creator of modern day terrorism as he was the
first in this ongoing conflict not to make the separation between non-combatant
and combatant.
My
second point about ignoring history – The other day I saw Bill Maher have his
ass handed to him by Glenn Greenwald, best journalist working together, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYG7GR13DnU
The way the ignorant stand-up comedian Maher
tries to disassemble here is almost uncomfortable to watch. Of course, US colonial history backing
dictatorships influences events now. The
situation in Iran (as Greenwald points out) is a direct result of the US intervening
in the 50’s and the CIA getting rid of the democratically elected government of
Mosaddegh. We are still doing this
today. Yemen has a dictatorship which
the USA supports. When a movement
similar to Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia came into being there, the CIA helped the
Yemeni government destroy it. In many places
(such as Syria), fundamentalist Islam has taken on the role of resistance but it
doesn’t make the cause any less right.
My general
feeling is global terrorism inspired by extremist Islam is an anomaly of
history like Nazism and will vanish soon enough. Only its disappearance will not be caused by
war but rather by information and education, opportunities for women and the
Internet. Allowing it to usurp the
mantle of representative for those fighting for freedom and survival is to prolong
and strengthen it. However, in many places,
they are the only game in town as the CIA has been complicit in wiping out
resistance movements with more of a leftist or socialist bent.
Islam
never went through a reformation but it is a younger religion than Christianity.
Once it goes through that it will be
less harsh and brutal and sexist and controlling.
The
bigger problem has been and will continue to be imperialism either in a bipolar
world (where there are two or more world powers) or a unipolar world (like we
have now) where only one country rules.
This makes international law subjects to the whims of those who run the
world rather than being an objective standard.
This has been true with America and once America’s time at the top is
done and China takes over, I have no illusions about them either.
Some
further writings by me on similar topics
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