Hi Lindsay,
I'm beginning to regret promising to post my comments on this, as
they're also far from coherent! But here goes:
1. Mozafferi is looking at the issues from an Iranian perspective. The
war in Iraq is not his central concern. I believe he is mainly
concerned with the regime in Iran. To him, Saddam's Iraq would prove
his point that the problem is not a religious one - that
totlitarianism was the problem there, as in Iran. He might also view
the present problems in Iraq as being driven by Iran.
2. Re the war in Iraq. Speaking to a range of Iranians both before and
since the Iraq war, I was aware of a great ambivalence towards it -
much more than that in the general Australian population. Typical of
the comments, from a Muslim Iranian, is that it would be 'messy' and
'unwise - because the West doesn't understand Muslims'. He didn't
condemn it as wrong.
3. Also speaking as an Iranian of the diaspora, Mozafferi seems more
certain that Islamists can be isolated from Islam than I think other
Muslims are. After all, Iranians have seen what more than 30 years of
'theocracy' has done in Iran. While educated Muslims in Indonesia, for
example, may also take a lesson from Iran, there are plenty of others
who regard an Islamic state as the utopia they desire - a place where
they could practise their religion without hindrance.
4. There's another reason why I believe it's impossible to reduce it
to politics. Mozafferi says that Islamists are "insatiably trying to
convince Muslims of two things: 1) Islamism is the true face of Islam,
and 2) the west is an enemy of Islam". The problem is, Islamists truly
believe that. When they talk about a conspiracy of Christian nations
that are trying to destroy Islam [in the case of Indonesian Islamists,
they believe that part of that is by encouraging separatism and
disintegration within Indonesia] is that the manipulation of the
masses by a few, or is it evidence of a higher spiritual struggle?
[Or as Charles Kraft has said, "Islam is not the enemy. The Enemy is
the enemy."]
5. I do agree that dialogue with moderate Muslims is helpful.
Effective support for democracy and pressure on Islamists? - I don't
know whether Mozafferi or anyone else has the solution.
Sue
On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:27:01 +1100, Lindsay Brash wrote:
>G'day All,
>
>Thank you Sue for posting this link. But I'm interested in how much you
>would agree with it.
>
>Because it seems to lack coherence at some points. The author is
>apparently pro-war. OK. But then he paints the Iraq war as a critical and
>strategic assault on Islamism. That goes against what we know about * the
>lack of WMD, * the lack of links between Iraq and terrorists, and * that
>Saddam's regime was largely secular. On the dangers of the Iraq war
>serving as a catalyst for Islamism, he is silent; only that the US must
>now complete their task.
>
>He does say that democracy needs to be fostered from within.
>
>It is interesting to note the changes in Bush's language regarding Islam,
>but tends to underline the problems of their previous ham-fisted approach.
>
>Kind regards,
>Lindsay Brash.
>
>
>At 09:04 AM 7/11/03 +1100, Sue Bolton wrote:
>>For an Iranian perspective on the problem:
>>"How To Combat Islamist Terrorism Without Combating Islam?"
>>http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=11&d=06&a=5
>>This is the text of a speech given in Copenhagen this week
>>by Mehdi Mozaffari, of the Department of Political Science
>>University of Aarhus, Denmark.
>
>
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Sue Bolton
Sydney, Australia
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