Is ‘moderate Islam’ relevant?

[notice]A view that Islam does not pose a threat to Christianity because only a small fraction of Muslims are radical could cost the West dearly, writes the author of an analysis in InContextMinististries‘ A World in Motion, Issue 61.[/notice]

The White House is now calling the assault on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, a “terrorist attack.” “It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, told reporters. “Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials.” In a highly charged political atmosphere, the mere use of the term “terrorist” is loaded, not least because the phrase conjures up an image of America under attack, something the White House wants to avoid. (NYTIMES)

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Fundamental mistake
From a Christian perspective the denial that Islam as a whole should not be seen as a threat to Christianity, only radicals like the Salafists, is a fundamental mistake that could cost the West dearly. From the 48 countries that experienced protests against the anti-Islamic film, most were of a peaceful nature. Those who turned violent were organised or fuelled by radical Islamist groups like the Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood who are bent on undermining moderates. Only a fraction of the world’s Islamic population took part in the protests, however, the silence of the moderate majority could be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as support.

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Dr Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist gave the following perspective on moderate Islam.
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.

Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

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Meaningless fluff
We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 60 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.. China ‘s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

Missing point of history lessons
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts – -the fanatics who threaten our way of life.