All religion is evil, and to the extent that its adherents recognise its fabrications for what they are and go on adhering to them, its adherents are evil too. That’s by no means all of them—many just muddle on in unquestioning, custom-based acquiescence to what they’ve been brought up in. Even the latter group, however, may be faulted precisely for being “unquestioning”—not subjecting what they’ve been indoctrinated with to critical examination.
Silent Muslims may be faulted for mindlessly persisting with the nonsense that is Islam, and they may—nay, should—be lambasted for their silence in the face of the atrocities perpetrated by those who take their Koran literally, those whom I call “Islamo-Fascists.”
Now, at no point have I said, “All Muslims are Islamo-Fascists” as claimed by Professor Morris in his Counterpoint article (Sept 10). That claim is false—about what I’d expect from someone who makes a taxpayer-funded living teaching about untruth systems. I have called for death to Islamo-Fascism since it has called for death to us; I have called Islam a “stupid, stinking superstition”, because it is.
But at no point have I equated the two. As it happens, I believe that to be a true Muslim one must be a fascist, just as I believe that to be a true Christian one must be a fascist, but I note thankfully that many Muslims and Christians are not “true”.
They are, however, ominously silent.
On air during Islam Awareness Week I invited all Muslims to “renounce and denounce Jihad, fatwa and Sharia Law; commit to respecting the rights of those of other faiths, or no faith, to our beliefs; join with me and every other freedom-lover in a chorus of, ‘I disagree with what you say but defend to the death your right to say it.’” No Muslim responded. I repeat the invitation here. As long as Muslims are not going to demand anything of me at scimitar-point, I’m more than willing to leave them alone to believe their rubbish.
I’ll still call it rubbish, though. And that is what anti-freedom academics like Morris can’t hack. When he says freedom of the press “entails a duty to be informed and responsible, not a licence to distort and misrepresent”, what he really means is that it entails an obligation to agree with and purvey his own mystic-statist worldview. At least, I’m assuming this since he failed to specify just how I was misinformed and irresponsible in my remarks about Islam, just as he failed to specify how Ayaan Hirsi was in hers (funny how all respondents have ignored her!).
Prof. Morris observes that “we do live in a world that is increasingly religiously diverse and we do need to seriously think how we might live together in non-violent ways.” In a world where superstition is resurgent (“increasingly religiously diverse”), the ones who need to do some thinking about peaceful co-existence, I would have thought, are the superstitious. Would the good professor care to direct his remarks to the President of Iran, who has vowed to wipe Israel off the map?
(And while he’s about it, would he care to offer any observations on the “moral crackdown” going on in Iran right now whereby tens of thousand of women have been warned over slack dress, 3000 “immoral” cafes and billiard halls have been shut down and 27,000 illegal satellite receivers have been confiscated?) Would he care to advise Osama bin Laden about “how we might live together in non-violent ways,” or does Osama’s latest anti-capitalist diatribe resonate too well with him? Would he care to rebuke al Qaeda in Iraq for the car-bombings and beheadings or would he consider such a reprimand “offensive” to Muslims? Ditto, any remonstration with the London demonstrators re their placards calling for death to freedom of speech, a new holocaust against Jews, etc.?
Professor Morris affects to applaud my call for rationality and decency, but says it can’t be taken seriously from me because of my recommending “robust sodomy” of Muslims as they bend towards Mecca. What can’t be taken seriously is that he would take that seriously. Such is the paucity of his case, it would seem, that he must repair to treating piss-taking as meant literally when he knows full well it wasn’t.
Morris concludes by recommending “a course in Islam or joining a local interfaith group and talking to Muslims about what they actually believe and do.”
I can save folk the time. All Muslims believe nonsense. Some Muslims do terror as well.