At last, some signs of resistance to Islamist radicals
Fred Siegel has this to say on the new debate in Europe:
''Sarkozy’s road to the Elysee Palace was paved not only by the mini-Intifada in the Paris banlieues, but also by a memorable public exchange about Islam. An intellectually confident Sarkozy, then the interior minister, debated suave, articulate Tariq Ramadan, the grandson and heir of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. With 6 million viewers watching, Sarkozy asked Ramadan, famed as an Islamic version of a Euro-Communist, if he agreed with his brother Hani Ramadan—who had argued, in line with Muslim law, that adulterous women should be stoned to death. Pressed to agree or disagree without obfuscation, Ramadan, his Western facade crumbling, said he favored a “moratorium” on such stoning. Sarkozy responded with anger, “A moratorium?” He went on to mock the Islamists’ leftist apologists. “If it is regressive not to want to stone women, I avow that I am a regressive.”
''Across the channel, the British elites went even further than did the French in abasing themselves before Islamic extremists. In the wake of the 7/7 London bombings, Prime Minister Tony Blair named the same Tariq Ramadan—hailed as a moderate by supposed liberals like Oxford’s Timothy Garton Ash—as an advisor on Islamic matters. In a similar vein, London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, praised Sheik Quaradawi as a moderate and treated him as an honored guest. Many British intellectuals and pols had once rallied to the defense of Salman Rushdie when the Iranians issued a fatwa for his death, but in more recent years they’ve ignored or downplayed his plight. Similarly, the Danish cartoon affair, which raised the most fundamental issues of freedom of speech, produced a cowed response from the British press and pols about the importance of not offending Muslims.''
''The British have tried multiculturalism; the tolerant Dutch have allowed Muslims to create a separate “pillar” within their society; the French insist on the model of Jacobin uniformity; the Spanish have been merely craven. All have failed. But as Hutton argues, the best route for the West is to be true to its own heritage. If, like the courageous Danish prime minister Anders Rasmussen, Europeans unambiguously stand up to the Islamists, they will flush out double dealers like Ramadan while allowing the Ed Husains of the world to directly engage the extremists.''<<Read More>>
