Failing Islamic States - 2011

[CougarKing]

While the world's attention was focused on Iraq and Syria, in Yemen things got more than a little out of hand when the Shia Houthi rebels captured the capital last month:

*Btw, isn't it time we changed the title of the thread? Since the events reported here have gone way beyond the Arab Spring of 2011.

Reuters

Yemen on the brink as rebels oust the old guard

By Peter Salisbury and William Maclean

SANAA/DUBAI (Reuters) - The Houthi rebels who stunned the Arab world with the sudden seizure of Yemen's capital will have to strive to cement their power in the face of well-armed rivals, a test of strength that could tip the unstable country deeper into turmoil.

A suicide bombing last Thursday that killed 47 in Sanaa is an example of the indiscriminate tactics Yemenis fear some armed groups are prepared to employ to check the ascent of the Shi'ite Muslim movement that swept into the city on Sept 21.

The attack was claimed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), apparently furious at the ability of Houthi fighters to take over Yemen's fragile state and dictate terms to its embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The mood in Sanaa is apprehensive.

"This is just the beginning,” said Mohammed Saleh, a taxi-driver who ferried passengers away from the scene of the blast.

"It is a war now between al Qaeda and the Houthis and those who will be hurt the most are ordinary people."

(...SNIPPED)

 

[a_majoor]

Many people here have suggested that the real "Solution" would be for some sort of "Reformation movement" within Islam. Well perhaps we are going to get our wish:

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2015/01/03/egypts-al-sisi-makes-extraordinary-speech-on-islam/?print=1

Egypt’s al-Sisi Makes Extraordinary Speech on Islam
Posted By Roger L Simon On January 3, 2015 @ 10:20 pm In Middle East,Uncategorized | 98 Comments

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech [1] on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam.  This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education.

Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisi’s speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchev’s famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to do so has world-changing implications.

Here are the key parts as translated on Raymond Ibrahim’s blog [1]:

I am referring here to the religious clerics.  We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic [2] a couple of times before.  It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.  Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world.  It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands. [bolds mine]

Al-Sisi is certainly correct.  The whole world has been waiting for a long time for the next move of these imams or for somebody, anybody that will modernize Islam as other religions have done..  Whether that will happen, of course, is another question, but what al-Sisi is saying here is in many ways more revolutionary than the “Arab Spring.”  People ask, where are the “moderate Muslims”?  Well, one of them may be the president of Egypt. The boys from Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Boko Haram, al Qaeda, etc., etc., are probably not too happy about what al-Sisi said.  Let’s hope he doesn’t suffer the fate of Anwar Sadat for his courage.

Also at PJ Media:

A Modest Proposal to Combat Islamic Violence [3]

Article printed from Roger L. Simon: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2015/01/03/egypts-al-sisi-makes-extraordinary-speech-on-islam/

URLs in this post:

[1] extraordinary speech: http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/egypts-sisi-islamic-thinking-is-antagonizing-the-entire-world/
[2] addressed this topic: http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/gen-sisi-religious-discourse-greatest-challenge-facing-egypt/
[3] A Modest Proposal to Combat Islamic Violence: http://pjmedia.com/blog/a-modest-proposal-2/

 

[Kat Stevens]

Well, he should be dead before Ramadan ends.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Wow, that both needed to be said by a major figure and took huge balls to step forward.  I hope it starts the dialogue Islam and the rest of us so  desperately needs.   

 

[cryco]

I wonder how many imams went into apoplectic shock when hearing those words.
At least they were said though, let's see how far this goes.

 

[OldSolduer]

Is number 22 judged with a large balance scale and a duck?

As long as the scale is balanced with some very small rocks.....

 

[a_majoor]

Free speech for me, none for thee. Stifling free inquiry is a big part of why Islamic states and societies are falling behind, and their efforts to "criminalize" blasphamy are intensifying both their self inflicted problems and radicalization:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/11/defending-islam-free-speech-muslim-oic-un-hate-speech-criticism-column/21609273/

Defending Islam from free speech: Column

Robert C. Blitt 11:25 a.m. EST January 12, 2015

Powerful, mainstream Muslim groups must recognize they're breeding religious intolerance.

Many have taken false comfort in blaming the cold-blooded attack of Charlie Hebdo on the fanatical action of a small minority of Muslims. But attributing the horror perpetrated in Paris to a band of Salafist radicals alone betrays a willful blindness to a longstanding campaign by broad-based Islamic groups to silence those they consider blasphemers.

The Islamic State and al-Qaeda are by no means the most powerful purveyors of the destructive idea that Islam demands unqualified protection against perceived insult. In the aftermath of the Paris attack, reputable Muslim groups around the world have denounced the violence, but important bodies such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League, as well as many of the individual states comprising these groups, must bear responsibility for nurturing an environment that breeds violence in the name of defending Islam.

Moderates, radicals agree

The OIC, whose member states range from moderate U.S. allies such as Jordan to adversaries such as Iran, describes itself as the world's largest international body after the United Nations. For more than a decade, "the collective voice of the Muslim world" has spread the belief that any insult directed against the Muslim faith or its prophet demands absolute suppression. Quashing "defamation of Islam" is enshrined as a chief objective in the organization's charter.

With countless internal resolutions, relentless lobbying of the international community and block voting on resolutions advocating a prohibition on defamation of religion at the U.N., the OIC continuously pushes to silence criticism of Islam.

Translated into practice inside Islamic nations and increasingly elsewhere, this toxic vision breeds contempt for freedom of religion and expression, justifies the killing of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and casts a pall of self-censorship over academia and the arts.

By building the expectation that dissent or insult merits suppression, groups such as the OIC and the Arab League have emboldened extremists to take protection of Islam to the next level. With the most authoritative Muslim voices prepared to denounce violence but not to combat the idea that Islam should be immune from criticism, a meaningful response to counteract the resulting violence continues to be glaringly absent.

An OIC statement released after a 2011 Charlie Hebdo issue "guest-edited" by the prophet Mohammed typifies this troubling position: "Publication of the insulting cartoon ... was an outrageous act of incitement and hatred and abuse of freedom of expression. ... The publishers and editors of the Charlie Hebdo magazine must assume full responsibility for their ... incitement of religious intolerance."

This ominously prescient declaration tepidly closed by urging that Muslims exercise restraint.

Blasphemy is a crime

Likewise, after the attack last week, the OIC "strongly condemned the terrorist act," but quickly added "that such acts of terror only represent the criminal perpetrators."

It had nothing to say about the principle of free speech. Perhaps that is because blasphemous speech is a crime in a vast arc of Islamic countries from Morocco in the West to Indonesia in the East.

If the OIC, Arab League and Muslim states genuinely want to distance themselves and the religion of Islam from such ghastly acts of terror, they must reversethe years spent advancing the motive that spawned them. As a start, they should stop punishing their own citizens for failure to properly respect Islam.

Support for a prohibition on defamation of religion must be decisively repudiated. To counteract the damage that has been done, OIC members should embrace the promotion of tolerance, including sponsorship of moderation and tolerance efforts in mosques and madrassas globally. The OIC and its members should compensate Charlie Hebdo and the victims' families.

Clinging to the position that a prohibition on defamation of Islam is somehow a justifiable and measured response to perceived insult will continue inciting attempts to silence critics.

With millions marching in France and increasing unrest across Europe focused on Muslim immigrants, let's hope the leaders of the Muslim world acknowledge that the effort to turn blasphemy into a crime has done more to breed religious intolerance than any cartoon or YouTube video.

Robert C. Blitt, a University of Tennessee associate professor of law, was an international law specialist for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion e-mail newsletter.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

We tend to forget that freedom of expression was developed and came into being as a fundamental freedoms specifically to protect speech from two sources of censorship: Religions and Undemocratic states action.

It developed so that the Religions in Europe (all of them "Christian" by the way) would stop being able to use the power of the state to impose their view (and yes, through "blasphemy" laws amongst others) and their religious practices on those of other (Christian) religions and put an end to centuries of useless religious waring. The American founders, an enlightened bunch, saw fit to introduce the concept in their state right of the bat, including the corresponding need for a state without any religion in its government.

That is why, other than incitement to violence against a identifiable group, the only other limit on freedom of speech is found at the individual level: You cannot defame an individual. When Muslims around the world clue in to that concept, all will be fine. Heck! They may even find that it protects them from each other in their fights amongst all their various schismatic interpretations of their own religion.