Thursday, October 06, 2005

Progressive Wedge Politics

This is to be expected, of-course. The Progressive Muslim (PMUNAist type) Jawad Ali of Muslim Wake Up, decided to indulge in some good 'ol PMUist type name calling (barely a day into the month of Ramadan).

Jawad Ali states:

Sunni path and Aryan pride A prominent Dear-Abby/paint-between-the-lines/Daddy-knows-best fiqh websites in America is called Sunni Path. Does anyone else find this name to be just a little bit creepy? I know that this is a minor offence in the grand scheme of things….


Seeker's Digest responds:

If they’d bothered to ask, we could have explained that the site is called SunniPath because we seek to explain how to live the sunna of the Beloved Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in a reliable and relevant manner–in keeping with both the form and spirit of the sunna, without engaging in polemics or negativity.

While affirming our differences with our Shi`a brethren–differences long-established and only facile to deny–we also affirm that Shi`a are Muslims, and we owe them full rights as our fellow Muslims; as People of the Qibla; and as people who believe in Allah and His Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace). After that, we agree to disagree. This is the way of tolerance–not the way of pretending to bulldoze away differences, and then creating disputes and fitna without need.

See: Seeker’s Digest - True Moderate Islam - Statement of Islamic Conference Held in Amman - June 2005.

Most readers of this blog are familiar with the Rand Report that divides Muslims up into "moderate" "modernist" "traditional" etc.

But there is a another, lesser known, Rand Report: This second report lays out a strategy of going even deeper into identifying “fault lines” in the Muslim community. And they recommend that the United States exploit these divisions to “promote” its “objectives.”

Abdus Sattar Ghazali wrote in an article:

A new Rand Corporation study suggests that Sunni, Shiite and Arab, non-Arab divides should be exploited to promote the US policy objectives in the Muslim world.

The recently released Rand study - titled “The Muslim World After 9/11” – was conducted on behalf of the US Air Force. One of the primary objective of the study was to “identify the key cleavages and fault lines among sectarian, ethnic, regional, and national lines and to assess how these cleavages generate challenges and opportunities for the United States.”

And in a recent article titled Splitting Islam, James Kurth - a Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, further details this strategy.

The United States did not create the Sunni-Shi’ite split in Islamism, just as it did not create the earlier Sino-Soviet split in communism. It can, however, put itself in a position to take advantage of the divide as it very likely will develop, as it did with the analogous split during the Cold War.

This Ramadan, given the above US strategy against Islam and Muslims, we could use some internal dialogue and discussions. BUT we do not need polemics, and useless Progressive (PMUist type) name calling, that only serves to further harden rifts in the Muslim communities.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Asalam Aliakum,
Ramadan kareem. It seems Jawad Ali is a student of the Tarik Fatah school of smear tactics.
Only a desperate slimeball would imply that SunniPath and Aryan racists have anything in common. I think he's ready for the "honest interview" treatment, what do you think?

Anonymous said...

Salaam 'Alaikum

I notice Kurth says not "Islam," but "Islamism," so that every single one of us is smeared with that word that is fast become synonymous with fundamentalist, extremist, fanatic, regardless of our personal philosophies and politics. We're all Islamists.

Did you read the whole second report? I read parts of it, but I never got around to the whole 400 pages or whatever it is. It's one of those "someday I'm going to..."things.

Anonymous said...

Salaam Alaikum - yes dr. max - some honest interviewing would be good :-) - Umm Zaid, i have'nt read the entire report, parts of it... but i think i need to now, read the whole thing... Do i really wanna do that during Ramadan --- ?

Anonymous said...

And you're not being divisive? ...

publicdebate said...

sarcy? you for real, or a spam?

you mean exposing the wedge politics of PMUists and the neo-cons is divisive? The problem is, and has always been, the PMUists *false* painting of just about every Muslim group as extremists (in this case "aryan nation")... This is nothing new, just look around this blog - you'll see plenty more examples.

The PMUists engage in danielpipeism and christopherhitchenism on a regular basis --- exposing them has helped North American Muslims not being pitted against one another.

Anonymous said...

And by painting PMUNA as Pure Evil, you are also neglecting the real issues that plague us. Every obsessive anti-progressive that is doing NOTHING but celebrate the collapse of PMU is unhelpful and pure negative. PMU obviously has problems. But the whole attack-smear-attack-smear approach is really rather BORING. What ELSE do you have to offer?
And sir, just because I am a critic does not mean I must be spam, right? Come on, give other people some credit and try to escape your black-and-white universe.

Anonymous said...

OK - I catch your drift - sorry you find this blog boring :-)

Anonymous said...

Sarcy, you're a joke. Obviously you're a proggie, and one who practices projection.

Anonymous said...

I expected that, drmaxtor. Exactly how MWU responded to critics in Comments sections after Sex & Ummah articles. No difference. Drmaxtor is a liability to your "movement."

Anonymous said...

movement? what movement? this is a blog...me think drmax has a point re: "projection"

Anonymous said...

oh please. this isn't the only blog you guys are involved in. you're saying the same stuff all over a variety of comments sections in other websites. it's a campaign, not just a single blog. at least take credit for what you're doing if you can't be public about who you are.

Anonymous said...

>>if you can't be public about who you are.<<

This coming from a dude calling himself "anonymous." I love it.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but I just make comments. I don't run a blog - nay, an entire campaign against a whole bunch of people -- anonymously. Drmaxtor is on the defensive ... Gets very irritated with criticism but loves to criticize others constantly. That (criticism of others) is pretty much all his online work currently comprises, it seems. But he can't stand critique himself. And he certainly can't take it constructively. Every substantive comment, he simply reacts with name calling. Maybe he doesn't want to hear from anyone except people who say "Yes saheb, you are absolutely right."

Anonymous said...

You're tightly wound arent you? If you're turned of by name calling, you should have something to say about your friends in pro-regressivestan shouldn't you?
Its the content of this blog which makes it great, not who runs and how. End of story. Deal with it, troll.

Anonymous said...

Name calling again. And total intolerance of dissent. Note: I have not once called you any names. Meantime, you're foaming at the mouth with "proggie," "troll," "a joke."

Anonymous said...

>>Intolerance of dissent<<

Have you been to a meeting of the PMNUA? I will admit to being intolerant of lies and exagerrations, the sort which are a hallmark of mwu and its entourage.

>>Meantime, you're foaming at the mouth with "proggie," "troll," "a joke."<<

Sorry, no foaming here, sarcy. "Proggie" is short for "pro-regressive." And you most definetly are trolling. You have not raised any real issues, but obssessed with the blog owners identity. I think you're a proggie pretending to be a neutral observer, practising projection.

Anonymous said...

Someone's pretty knee deep in paranoia ...