Islamic reform and me

Robert Spencer

It has been brought to my attention (thanks, James) that several people are claiming a contradiction between these two statements I have made recently.

The first one is from here:

Many strange things have happened in history and I would never say that Islamic reform is absolutely impossible, but Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of it actually happening on a large scale. We need instead to focus on efforts to defend ourselves both militarily and culturally from the jihadist challenge, and to continue to call the bluffs of pseudo-reformers who intend ultimately only to deceive Western non-Muslims--many of whom are quite anxious to be deceived.

And the second is from here:

Here again an increase of interest in and commitment to Islam apparently coincides with involvement with jihadist activity. The implications are many, and American and British Muslim groups that profess moderation ought to be the first to be examining them. But of course, instead they are still engaged in denying that any such correlation exists, despite a superabundance of evidence to the contrary.The claim is being made that by saying that "American and British Muslim groups that profess moderation ought to be the first to be examining" the fact that "an increase of interest in and commitment to Islam apparently coincides with involvement with jihadist activity" I am contradicting my statement that "Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of [Islamic reform] actually happening on a large scale." In other words, if I really believed that Islamic reform were virtually impossible, I wouldn't be asking American Muslim groups to face the facts about the connection between devoutness and attachment to jihadism.

Of course, if people want to find difficulties, inconsistencies, contradictions, they will find them no matter what, but there is not actually anything of the kind here. I spoke in the first statement above about calling the bluffs of pseudo-reformers, and in the second I was doing just that, by pointing out that the self-proclaimed moderate Muslim groups were doing nothing to deal with the connection between the seriousness of one's Islamic commitment and involvement in jihad activity.

And that is supposed to be evidence that I actually do believe, contrary to what I've said all along as well as in the first statement above, that Islamic reform is likely and that Western non-Muslims should count on it happening -- and, indeed, not defend themselves because the reformist Muslims are taking care of the problem for us! This preposterous farrago says a great deal about those who imagine it and pretend to analyze my writing -- but nothing at all about me or anything I've written.

What these critics apparently fail to realize is that most Americans continue to take at face value the claims to moderation of the most prominent American Muslim advocacy groups. Again and again these claims need to be challenged, by using their groups' own self-definition against them and pointing out the disparity between their stated mission and their actual behavior -- and by asking them questions, as above, about why they aren't doing what one would reasonably expect them to be doing if their claims to be benign, peaceful and moderate were genuine.

This both challenges those pseudo-moderate groups, and plants a question in the mind of any reasonably open-minded but uninformed people -- should any happen by -- about just why those groups aren't doing such things, and what that shows about where their sentiments really lie.

And I am going to keep doing this, as well as to keep insisting that the West needs to recover its self-confidence, its sense of its own identity, and defend itself. I am also going to keep pointing out the many virtually insuperable obstacles to Islamic reform, while encouraging any courageous individual Muslim who actually admits that there are elements of Islam that give rise to violence and supremacism, and that those elements need somehow to be rejected. Anyone who finds in this evidence of my inconsistency, dishonesty, or lack of a serious commitment to the defense of the West needs a basic course in reading comprehension, or logic. If you find yourself in a bar sitting next to one of these characters, move to another establishment and watch that the guy doesn't tag along after you, tugging at your sleeve and muttering bitterly about his unrecognized genius and crystalline, unimpeachable correctness..