Monday, March 3, 2008
In Commentary magazine, Michael Totten describes The Moderate Supermajority
First of all, I'd like to agree with Abe's point that even this sunny survey suggests we still have a serious problem. If seven percent of the world's Muslims are radical, we're talking about 91 million people. That's 65 times the population of Gaza, and three and a half times the size of Iraq. One Gaza is headache enough, and it only took 19 individuals to destroy the World Trade Center, punch a hole in the Pentagon, and kill 3,000 people.
Some of the 93 percent supermajority support militia parties such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and the West Bank's Fatah. So while they may be religious moderates, they certainly aren't politically moderate.
I'm less inclined than Abe to give the remaining Muslims -- aside from secular terror-supporters -- too hard a time. I work in the Middle East, and I used to live there. I meet moderate Muslims every day who detest al Qaeda and their non-violent Wahhabi counterparts. I know they're the overwhelming majority, and a significant number are hardly inert in the face of fascists.
More than one fourth of the population of Lebanon demonstrated in Beirut's Martyr's Square on March 14, 2005, and stood fore square against the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis that has been sabotaging their country for decades. When I lived in a Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Beirut, the overwhelming majority of my neighbors belonged to that movement. The international media gave them lots of exposure, but moderate, liberal, secular, and mainstream conservative Muslims elsewhere rarely get any coverage. They are almost invisible from a distance, but it isn't their fault.
Journalists tend to ignore moderate Muslims, not because of liberal bias or racism, but because sensationalism sells. At least they think that's what sells.
What kind of sensationalism sells? Well, there's the recent Reuters piece Inspired by God, Hamas fighters battle on. (yes, they really do say that a Hamas fighter sees himself as being on a "mission from God").
So why don't moderate Muslims do 'enough' to fight the Islamists? Probably for the same reasons Tony Blair gave in to Saudi Prince Bandar when he threatened to make it easier for al Qaeda to attack London unless corruption investigations into the BAE arms deals were halted.
For the same reason some politicians supported the Dubai Ports deal, despite the fact that the UAE is a significant source of terrorist funds and support (and despite the fact that only 17% of the American population supported the deal)
For the same reason the majority of white, non-white, muslim and nonmuslim journalists went along with Hezbollah's media manipulations after the Israel-Hezbollah war. For the same reason most media outlets refuse to publish the Danish cartoons. For the same reason the French media goes along with the Pallywood routine. Because it's the safest course to take in the short term, because it's financially convenient and because everyone else is doing it, one way or another.
There are two kinds of Muslims. The headline grabbers are those who want to achieve their goals
sooner rather than later. Then there are those who would prefer to fly under the radar and achieve the goal without violence.
For the goals boil down to three: conversion to Islam of those who are not currently Muslim, second class status who reject becoming Muslim, and the third variant espoused by the violent - the death of those who will not become Muslim.