Born Muslim, Part One

August 19, 2010 4:51 PM

As I am writing this, the perfect political storm is howling outside. I am referring to the proposal for Cordoba House, the Islamic complex to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero of the site where the World Trade Center once stood, before being destroyed by militant Muslims on September 11, 2001. The Imam-to-be of the Cordoba House mosque, one Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, has publicly refused to call Hamas a "terrorist" organization and has publicly come out as a promoter of Sharia Law, which, according to strict Islam, would replace the US Constitution and the American rule of law. President Obama, far from denouncing or even criticizing Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, has designated him a special envoy to represent the United States of America in the Middle East. Whatever else Obama might say (after "defending the rights" of Muslims to build the Cordoba House Mosque near the 9/11 Ground Zero, Obama then publicly questioned the wisdom of building it on that site) Obama's name is now permanently linked to the Ground Zero mosque project. (I am tempted to call it the Obama Mosque—anything that will help to get Obama out of the White House is a worthy endeavor) but I will stick to calling it Cordoba House.

The promoters of Cordoba House claim to want to promote understanding between Americans and the world's Muslims. Believe it or not, I share that goal, but make no mistake, I do not share the agenda of the so-called Left (Bolsheviks, who call themselves "Progressives" as well as "The Left") to bring about that understanding. As I have written, and I stand by what I wrote, Bolsheviks and Islamic militants share a common goal, the destruction of the "Great Satan", capitalist America, a goal which I call the Anti-Capitalist Jihad. I have also written about the uncanny similarities between militant Islam and Bolshevik socialism. A defense of Muslims by Bolsheviks, and their fellow-travelers, who call themselves "liberals," is a defense of any and all Muslim designs to destroy the US Constitution and replace it with something else. The Bolsheviks are enemies of capitalism, the United States, and the Constitution, and since Cordoba House is part of the Bolshevik-Muslim assault on America, Cordoba House and their initiative, whatever their peacy-weacy propaganda, is anti-American. Imam Rauf himself has stated that the USA is a "leader of the dance" which "causes" militant Islamists to wage jihad against us.

On the other side of the discussion are the critics of Islam, many of whom include former Muslims, secularized present-day Muslims, Christians who are converted Muslims, Christians who were born Christian, Christians who were born again, secularized Christians, and, of course Jews who are concerned, and correctly so, by the fact that Islamic militants have declared a war of extermination on the world's only Jewish state.

Notable on this side are Pamela Geller, Salman Rushdie, Geert Wilders, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Walid Shoebat, Bat Ye'or, Phyllis Chesler, and Wafa Sultan. (There are others, and I apologize to them for having omitted them.)

However, this binary view of Muslims is an over-simplification: (Muslim good - the Bolshevik view, Muslim bad - the apparent, but not necessarily accurate, view of the critics.) Why do I say so? Every day thousands (or is it tens of thousands?) of babies are born into Muslim families all around the globe. They cannot be ignored, not so much as the possibility that they are a threat, as the fact that they are human beings. As Shakespeare wrote about his Jewish villain Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, "If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?" Muslims are no less human than Christians, Jews, or secularists.

And that is the point of this blogpost. (I suppose I must add, Bolsheviks are human too.) It is not enough to fight Bolsheviks and Islamic militants; the September 11, 2001 assault by them on the World Trade Center has made it necessary for rational Americans to consider (and accept!) the existence and humanity of all the world's Muslims. What to do about it is another story. I will discuss that in Parts Two and Three.