Daniel Pipes -- Militant Islam reaches America ================================================ My interest in this book is a bit narrow and skewed: I'm interested in Turkey in particular and what lies in its future and how it will influence the Middle East. Pipes has comments about Turkey in this book and at his Web site (`www.danielpipes.org`_). Important to Pipes's account is drawing a distinction between traditional, moderate Islam and militant Islam. Only the latter is something to worry about. So, what are the differences? (1) Militant Islam demands an extreme enforcement of Shari'a law. (2) Militant Islam pushes for rejection of all aspects of Western life and culture, but militant Islamists do use modern technology. It's an "ism", a totalitarian world view, and a utopian belief system about ordering power and wealth. Pipes warns that: (1) The danger from militant Islam is huge. (2) Militant Islam is political, not religious. The expertise of Islamists in in the areas of politics and technology, not religion. (3) Islamists are modernist and cosmopolitan. They know multiple languages and operate in Western societies. And, they use new technology, for example, cell phones, the Internet, and other modern forms of communication. Muslims migrate to Western countries, especially in Europe in large numbers. They attempt to turn their host country into an Islamic society. They attempt to acquire political power and to promote an Islamic influence in politics and society. Muslim birth rates among immigrants are much higher than non-immigrants in the host country. Elsewhere, Pipes has said some very inflammatory things about Muslim immigrants to Europe, but later claimed he was misinterpreted. Pipes worries about which form of Islam will grow and become more influential, traditional or militant Islam? A significant part of the answer to this question may come from Turkey. Pipes believes that the important battle will not be between Islam and the West but rather between moderate Islam and radical, militant Islam. And, if we want to see the fist battles in that war, we can look at Turkey and Iran. Turkey is threatening to Iran (at least to the leadership in Iran) and to militant Islam in general (1) because it is an economic success, (2) because it proves that a predominantly Islamic nation can successfully operate with a mostly secular and democratic government, (3) because Turkey's population is strongly against terrorism and terrorists. It will take time before we learn whether Turkey will trend toward a more religious and less secular form of government. The Turkish military, which was a supporter of secularism, is losing it's power; and the current government seems more supportive of Islamic traditions. If that trend continues, it will be significant whether they can do so and yet *not* support militant Islamist factions. One question that we need to ask is whether Pipes is serious about castigating militant Islam as evil but not moderate or traditional Islam. Although he claims that he is, he still criticizes the U.S. government for supporting moderate Islam, and his reasoning is that moderate Islam is connected with and supportive of radical, militant Islamists, or at least is not active enough against militant Islamists to satisfy Pipes. This makes me uncomfortable because it does not seem necessary to demonize even militant Islam. Pipes himself claims that militant Islamists are not particularly religious. So, why target any "Muslims"? Why not focus on those that are threatening violence regardless their religion? Pipes warns about the negative consequences of becoming an Islamist state: (1) economic decline; (2) a tendency toward becoming a rogue state with growing militarism; (3) repression of moderate Muslims. I'd like to see some independent evidence that these really happen. Again, Turkey seems to provide some evidence that the association of Islamification with these negative consequences is not a necessary one, though perhaps they become more likely. One of Pipes's warnings is against avoiding this conversation because of our need for political correctness. Perhaps we need someone like Pipes to prod us to have this debate and to do this analysis. Certainly, we need to be careful to distinguish moderate Islam from militant Islam. Whether Pipes or we should be encouraging moderate Muslims or traditional Muslims to act against militant Muslims, seems to me, to be an open question. Would we attempt to require moderate Christians take action against some extremist Christian sect? And, I question whether Pipes's recommendations in this regard will do much good, because they may anger non-militant Muslims more than encourage them. Pipes has plenty of criticisms of Islam: (1) Positions that Pipes claims that Islam takes on loans and interest, government ownership of property, private property rights, etc., he claims, lead to poverty and totalitarianism, are not new (it's mostly Marxism), and ignore recent history of the failure of socialism and success of capitalism. (2) Moderate Islam will *not* restrain militant Islam, and so, the spread of even moderate Islam is likely to strengthen militant Islam. (3) The requirement for the perfection of the Prophet Muhammad conflicts with the traditions in the West for free speech and individualism. Much of what Pipes says and proposes seems reasonable, but some of the proposals, in particular in the chapters titled "Fighting militant Islam, without bias" and "Catching some sleepers" will make those of us who believe in protection of individual rights very uncomfortable, for example, his recommendations that we remove regulations that restrict the FBI and the CIA and that we allow the use of "secret", classified evidence. And, the recommendations for recognizing and catching "sleepers" sounds a lot like instructions on how to turn in your neighbor. In general, while this book is on a very important topic and has much of interest to say, I'd recommend that you apply a thick layer of skepticism to what you read in this book. For more recent comments by Daniel Pipes on Turkey, see `Is Turkey Going Rogue? - http://www.danielpipes.org/10169/turkey-rogue `_ and other articles at `www.danielpipes.org`_. .. _`www.danielpipes.org`: http://www.danielpipes.org 10/12/2011 .. vim:ft=rst:fo+=a: