10,000 Moderate Muslims Protest Islamic Extremism
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, Religion, The War On TerrorismWell done.
Tens of thousands of people have protested in the Pakistani city of Karachi against a radical mosque and its religious schools in Islamabad.The chief cleric of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), Abdul Aziz, had announced a Taleban-style Islamic court would be set up to curb “vulgar” activities.
He also gave the government a month to close video shops and brothels.
The protest organisers, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), branded the mosque “religious terrorists”.
Slowly but surely, Islam will reform. But we must ask ourselves is our foreign policy helping that reformation or hurting it? Is it creating a climate that breeds more extremists or hinders them? And if not, how can we reform our own policies?
Please share your thoughts.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 and is filed under Foreign Policy, Religion, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I’ve slowly come around to the idea that the U.S. really can’t do anything substantial to help Islam reform. Indeed, the very fact that the “Great Satan” would like to see such reform is the Islamic supremacists’ #1 propaganda point. That’s a lot for the reformists to overcome even without our “assistance”.
This may be the single most frustrating thing about this entire Long War - the fact that the U.S., for all its military, economic and geopolitical clout, has no significant control over what is likely the war’s single most decisive factor, namely which vision of Islam prevails over the others.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
It is probably correct that the US can’t do anything to help Islam reform. Which is not the same as saying that we cannot do anything to make the cause of reform harder. THAT we can do. And some days seem likely to do.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Being positive is america’s weakest suit. We difinitely learn the hard way if we learn at all. Finding a way out of this is a long way off. Peace takes courage, and we only know fear.