"A Crack in the Wall" ~ Wafa Sultan summarizes the Muslim mind

[Miraj]

"A Crack in the Wall" - Wafa Sultan on the Mohammed Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Negt6IzxPTo


Wafa Sultan is a great muslim spokeswoman for secularisation of Islam and Muslims. The above is a interview of her based on the Danish cartoon controversy. It might be old but I think its quite a gem since it pretty much hits the nail on the head and summarizes the mentality of the Muslim world.

( If you don't know who Wafa Sultan is check out this MEMRI video that made her quite famous and infamous -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLoasfOLpQ )


I invite everybody, my fellow Muslims especially, to discuss what she has to say of the Muslim mentality and her excellent statement "Islam cannot be reformed, it must be transformed".

[Ummon]

Wafa Sultan is an excellent example of the good effects of psychology studies on human mind.

[Visna]

Wafa Sultan ftw!

[Tom Paine]

Interestingly, she says that Muslims effectively haven't communicated with the outside world at all. However we know there has been and continues to be dialogue between Islam and other faiths.

[Miraj]

Interestingly, she says that Muslims effectively haven't communicated with the outside world at all. However we know there has been and continues to be dialogue between Islam and other faiths.

If you were a Muslim or born in this community you would now that that is simply not true. Remember here that we're discussing about Muslims communicating about Islam, philosophy an their culture and how they relate this to other peoples. We're not talking about general communication. Muslims, especially religious ones, feel extremely insecure in the modern world. Islam for 1400 years has effectively been under a kind of philosophical protectionism, its simply has not been exposed to the free market of ideas. The very notion of free open debate about Islam terrifies Muslim scholars and the Muslim populace.

[Tom Paine]

If you were a Muslim or born in this community you would now that that is simply not true. Remember here that we're discussing about Muslims communicating about Islam, philosophy an their culture and how they relate this to other peoples. We're not talking about general communication. Muslims, especially religious ones, feel extremely insecure in the modern world. Islam for 1400 years has effectively been under a kind of philosophical protectionism, its simply has not been exposed to the free market of ideas. The very notion of free open debate about Islam terrifies Muslim scholars and the Muslim populace.

Eh, not really, in my experience; that is, someone who has debated religion and culture with Muslims personally mano-a-mao, has seen Muslims debating those same things on these boards, and who does not take the words of ex-Muslims as gospel truth when they say this does not happen.

[AngryTitusPullo]

Interestingly, she says that Muslims effectively haven't communicated with the outside world at all. However we know there has been and continues to be dialogue between Islam and other faiths.

Indeed.. I remembered my conversation with one of my ex-gf who happened to be Catholic (or was she Protestant ?)

This is not really an issue about whether Muslims can live peacefully with others or not. That is more tied to politics and ethnic tensions than pure religion. This thread is about the box that the Muslim mind is stuck in. The Danish cartoons and Pope comments of late is a testament to the stunning lack of real debate and self-criticism in the Muslim world.

As Wafa Sultan pointed out Muslims are stuck in a box. This is true. There really is only one force with real ideas in the Muslim world: Islamism. With such a dry and shallow level of ideas no wonder the Muslims cannot progess. The last real ideal that the Muslim world dallied in was Arab nationalism. But that failed. So now Muslims feel stuck between beleiving in nothing and disengaging from politics or being an Islamist/fundamentalist.

Only the bravest dare embrace and discuss totally new and different ideas, because embracing new ideas publically without caring if its "islamic" enough is considered heresy in the public sphere. Its kind of like in American politics the candidate must portray themselves and their views as more "America" and nationalistic than the other, no candidate and come out and say "i don't really care for the flag, I'm a communist" . The victory of the fundamentalists over the Muslim mind means that any public persons in the Muslim worlds needs to appease Islam if he wants his idea to "fit in". And that results in an absolute drying up of the creative spirit of Muslims.

Agreed on the insecurity part. Muslims were seen as unwilling to learn though even the first verse that was revealed (no matter whether if you believe in it or not) are about learning or reading, not holy war, kill the infidel stuff. Even throughout the Qur'an itself are full of instruction about seeking knowledge.

The major problem is facing nowadays is that they in fact becoming unintentionally more and more secular (which is separating between spiritual and material) which historically didn't exist in Islam in the beginning.

Muslims forgot that they do not have to choose between spiritual and material, but to strive for both.

[Ummon]

The dialogue is only apparent, some people speak only to themselves. An opinion, of course.

[Tom Paine]

Yes, Ummon, some do...

Anyway, given the adaptations of Muslims to Western nations (and adaptations in abundance there have been) I would say there was a pretty healthy dialogue.

[Ummon]

Yes, Ummon, some do...

I am glad that you agree. That's a start. Now on to identify the subject correctly. :wink:

Anyway, given the adaptations of Muslims to Western nations (and adaptations in abundance there have been) I would say there was a pretty healthy dialogue.

You would say.

[Tom Paine]

Yes, I would, and have given the basis for so saying; it seems pointless to tack on a repetition of what I myself stated.

[Big War Bird]

In yet another thread we very quickly come to the point that certain elements of Islam are incapable of living peacefully with other religions/cultures/civilizations. That being said, how should those elements be dealt with?

[Miraj]

In yet another thread we very quickly come to the point that certain elements of Islam are incapable of living peacefully with other religions/cultures/civilizations. That being said, how should those elements be dealt with?

This is not really an issue about whether Muslims can live peacefully with others or not. That is more tied to politics and ethnic tensions than pure religion. This thread is about the box that the Muslim mind is stuck in. The Danish cartoons and Pope comments of late is a testament to the stunning lack of real debate and self-criticism in the Muslim world.

As Wafa Sultan pointed out Muslims are stuck in a box. This is true. There really is only one force with real ideas in the Muslim world: Islamism. With such a dry and shallow level of ideas no wonder the Muslims cannot progess. The last real ideal that the Muslim world dallied in was Arab nationalism. But that failed. So now Muslims feel stuck between beleiving in nothing and disengaging from politics or being an Islamist/fundamentalist.

Only the bravest dare embrace and discuss totally new and different ideas, because embracing new ideas publically without caring if its "islamic" enough is considered heresy in the public sphere. Its kind of like in American politics the candidate must portray themselves and their views as more "America" and nationalistic than the other, no candidate and come out and say "i don't really care for the flag, I'm a communist" . The victory of the fundamentalists over the Muslim mind means that any public persons in the Muslim worlds needs to appease Islam if he wants his idea to "fit in". And that results in an absolute drying up of the creative spirit of Muslims.

[Dromikaites]

That particular video was about Wafa Sultan saying that people should continue to publish "offensive" materials about Islam till the majority of the Muslims learn not to react violently anymore.

I personally find this approach rather naive. Publishing "offensive" material without repressing those who protest violently would go nowhere. Any government which wants to contribute to the reforming of Islam using the method suggested by Wafa Sultan needs to be ready and able to act firmly both at home and abroad. Most of the governments of today can protect their citizens from Islamic violence at home. However only a handful of Western governments also have the resources to topple the government of a Muslim country which is unwilling to repress the violent protests of its citizens. To give a practical example of what this method would mean in practice, when the Syrian mobs attacked the Danish embassy the Danish government was supposed to order the invasion of Syria or at least an air raid on Damascus aimed at taking out the Syrian government, just like the Israelis do in the Gaza strip.

Rather soon after the Al-Quaeda bombings in Madrid the French President Jaques Chirac unveiled the new French military doctrine explicitely pointing out that France would retaliate inclusively by nuking any country found responsible for supporting terrorist acts against France. A while after that the Paris riots happened and quite a lot of those repressed by the French police happened to be Muslims. Yet no Muslim government around the world dared to be too vocal about how the Muslim "brothers" are opressed in France (contrast that to the speach of the Malaysian Prime-Minister about how Israel is persecuting the Muslim "brothers" in Palestina). One difference between Denmark and France is precisely the latter's ability to project force far beyond its national borders.

Bottom line: the Wafa Sultan method is not for everybody

[Tom Paine]

The Wafa Sultan method or the Drom method don't work. You don't reform by insulting and removing those you offend. You reform by talking, and talking politely; a dialogue of insults is no dialogue.

[Dromikaites]

The Wafa Sultan method or the Drom method don't work. You don't reform by insulting and removing those you offend. You reform by talking, and talking politely; a dialogue of insults is no dialogue.

The key idea about "removing" people is the violent behavior happens first. When somebody makes an "offensive" statement the "offended" person has multiple choices:

1. To ignore the "offense";
2. To say something back in a polite way;
3. To shout something "offensive" back;
4. To attack an embassy/kill a nun/blow up a bus, etc.

People who chose #4 place themselves in the "bad guys" group. By doing so they deserve to be repressed. However repressing them can do more harm then good unless it is done the Mongol way (in the 13th century the Mongols killed an estimated one third of the population of modern day Iraq and then everybody left alive was too scared to resist). Napalming a city's central square filled with 10000 fanatics who celebrate the 9/11 attack would only result in creating 10000 martyrs but won't strike terror in the hearts of the general population. Therefore that would not be an effective way to create a political "shock and awe".

On the other hand a square filled with 10,000 fanatics celebrating the 9/11 attack is possible only in a country where the goverment doesn't order the police to disperse the crowd when it numbers less than 100 people. The members of such a government are anyway perceived as being corrupt or dictatorial or both by the general population, including by the 10,000 rabid fanatics gathered in the central square. So blowing the 10-20 members of the cabinet using intelligent weapons would be less likely to transform them into martyrs. They would of course be replaced by other corrupt and dictatorial ministers. However the new cabinet members would know that if anything similar to celebrating the 9/11 attack or attacking the Danish embassy ever happens again, a missile would be comming their way. All they need to do in order to prevent that is to simply order their police to repress any violent protests. The police is anyway used to repress protests, violent or not, directed at how the respective governments run those countries.

[Tom Paine]

So in the end you don't go after the protestors but after the government that allows the protest? That method could have distinct benefits, I'll give it that.

[Dromikaites]

So in the end you don't go after the protestors but after the government that allows the protest? That method could have distinct benefits, I'll give it that.

We have multiple proofs that the governments are actually responsible for the fanaticism or the lack of it in the Muslim world. The majority of the Mulsim countries are not run according to the Shariah. Nor are they breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism. And in the overwhelming majority of the Muslim countries the women are not prevented from working outside their houses nor are they forced to wear burkhas. Why is that? Simply because the governments of those countries do not allow the strict implementation of the society prescribed by the Quran and the Hadiths.

It's as simple as that: if the population gets violent because of the Danish cartoons is because the government allows that violence. And therefore an Wafa Sultan method is best applied in conjunction with the willingness to punish any government who tolerates violent reactions to the "insults". People on the streets didn't really chose to be poor, uneducated and frustrated because of the hard lives they live under the rule of corrupt politicians. But nobody forced Bashar Al-Asad to become president of Syria. Therefore the rabid mob is less guilty than the politicians.

[Miraj]

Whether or not a goverment responds to violent protestors is not what Wafa Sultan was talking about. The point is not to reform Islam the point of what she said was that these offensive cartoons and insulting statements will bring into the open the underlying cultural backwardness of even the most tolerant Muslim nations. On the long term repeated offensive media against Islam will sooner of later result in Musims getting used to it. The current fact is that Muslims by and large aren't used to criticism of their religion. And they are trying to impose this insecurity and blind religiousity on the rest of the world.

There is a reason why Muslims are so easily led into silly hoaxes, conspiracy theories and exaggerated propaganda. Its because the spirit off self-criticism and skepticism with regards to Islam and politics is simply not there. This is not only present among Muslims, its also present among Christian evangelical too. But Muslims are suffering very badly from a utter lack of real discussion, real debate and real skepticism within our societies. I emphasise the world "real" because Muslims do show some skepticism and debate when it comes to issue like whether the Jews blew up the Twin Towers or whether the Mossad artificially stimulated the Asian Tsunami - but skepticism in this area is stupid and does not address the real issue and problems among Muslims and their interaction with the world.

[Dromikaites]

Unfortunately most of the Western governments did not support the Danish cartoons action. Including the Danish government who's only line of defence was "we can't censor the newspapers". Like in "otherwise we would have done it already"...

In order for the media to keep insulting Islam till the Muslims get used to it the same way the Christians did, the officials need to show support for such actions. Most of the politicians are unwilling to go down that alley, therefore Wafa Sultan's method won't work.

Both mirage41 and Shere Khan seem to say that the Muslims who want a reformed Islam are not exactly free to act openly. Having lived under communists for 20 years I know how that feels. Communism was undermined from outside (USSR was ruined by the Arms Race against the West, the Catholic Church heavily funded the Polish Solidarosc, etc). Fundamentalist Islam controls the governments of certain countries therefore it also needs to be undermined from the outside. That requires a common policy of the West, similar to the one against communism. Unfortunately that's not going to happen any time soon because of the US invasion of Iraq.

Before the US invasion the French, the Germans and the Russians were doing a very lucrative business in Iraq. Dubya's cronies wanted that business for themselves (plus the additional business generated by first destroying and then rebuilding Iraq ). The French, the Germans and the Russians were kicked out of Iraq by the Americans so they are now understandably happy seeing how popular the US has become among the Muslims. The French and the Russians might have problems with the rest of the Muslim world in the future because of the Muslim minority at home (the French) and because of Chechnya (the Russians). However the French have a high probability of integrating their Muslims back into the society while the Russians are very close to achieving a "graveyard peace" in Chechnya. Hence none of the two countries is inclined to consider uniting with US against Islam as being more important than watching the Americans experience another Vietnam in Iraq. As for the Germans, they might not be always thrilled about the degree of integration of their own Muslims but the situation is nowhere near to the one in France therefore they are even less likely to sympathize with the Americans who prevented them from making lots of money in Iraq. Bottom line: the Western solidarity Wafa Sultan is expecting is not going to materialise soon.