Comment on a Comment

Peace be upon everyone. I'm sorry about not updating this blog sooner, but I've been really busy lately. Anyhow, I'd like to address a comment in an old post titled Kafir Watch? that echoes a rather poignant sentiment:

Nothing in this world is perfect. Life is not easy for anyone, including western people. Everyone has to work to succeed. Don't blame the whole western society for the problems because they aren't the only source. Open that mind to the possibility that some nonbelievers are more than immoral bastards.

I almost wholly agree with this sentiment. But I did not blame the "whole western society". I should indeed have differently phrased or downright edited some of my views had I known they would be interpreted as such. Yes, but I acknowledge some hostility to the West in my words, but they weren't to be chucked on every Western bystander. I wrote:

Not reporting on the real issues faced by the downtrodden does not make them 'free people', however much they may invoke the Enlightenment period which as the Muslim commentator Amir Butler pointed out was a result of conflicts within Europe and its religions. Muslims, on the other hand, have no need of an Enlightnment. No thank-you, Mr Tariq Ali. You may continue to rail against the capitalists who hover around the other end of your system and preach to Muslims and the capitalists may continue to dominate and slaughter Muslims outside the system.

I wrote this in reponse to a popular belief that Western Reformation must be wilfully forced on Muslim populations, as outlined by authors and pundits like Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. But a closer look at world history suggests that Western Reformation has never been successfully transmitted nor has it been seen as a virtue by centres of power that would like to enforce it. It has merely been an excuse for colonialism. I'm not denying that people in the East haven't benefited from Western virtues, but the concept of virtue is universal and democratic. It flows to and fro. When I wrote Muslims aren't in need of a European Enlightenment, it was to counter the new intellectual methods of global order that present virtue as a guise for economic and political greed. Moreover, I don't consider all Muslims innocents. But rather I'm very worried about "the recent terror fitnah being perpetrated by Muslims that has gripped all corners of the world as we know it".

The Western civilian population is as innocent and good as any. And most non-Muslims are not "immoral bastards" and if they were, Muslims wouldn't be very differerent from them, because we're all human beings to start with. There are extremist groups on both sides, and Muslims are equally to blame.