[Mb-civic] A war of values, not religion - Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

A war of values, not religion

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  November 6, 2005

THE PRINCE of Wales was at the White House last week, hoping, the Daily 
Telegraph reported, ''to convince President Bush of the merits of Islam 
. . . because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the 
religion since Sept. 11, 2001." This is a drum Prince Charles has been 
beating for years. In 1993, for example, he scolded those in the West 
who peddled ''unthinking prejudices" about Muslim culture -- for 
example, ''that sharia law of the Islamic world is cruel, barbaric, and 
unjust." Two months after 9/11, he was lambasting the American attitude 
toward Islam as ''too confrontational."

More to Charles's liking, presumably, would be something more 
conciliatory and politically correct. Something like this:

''The killers who take the lives of innocent men, women, and children 
are followers of a violent ideology very different from the religion of 
Islam. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for 
terrorist murder against anyone who does not share their radical vision. 
. . . Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, 
often citing chapter 5, verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing 
an innocent human being is like killing all of humanity."

If that's the way Charles thinks Bush ought to speak about Islam, I have 
good news for him: It is. Those were Bush's words. He spoke them on Oct. 
17 at the fifth annual White House ''iftaar" dinner during the Muslim 
month of Ramadan. He praised the ''countless acts of kindness" that 
followed the recent earthquake in Kashmir. ''For the first time in our 
nation's history," he said to applause, ''we have added the Koran to the 
White House library."

Too intolerant? Considering that America is at war with the forces of 
Islamofascism, and that for 25 years Americans have been attacked or 
killed by radical Muslim terrorists, the president's words about Islam 
were remarkably benign and uncritical.

As indeed they have been since 9/11, when he went out of his way to 
proclaim the peacefulness of Islam -- sometimes in the company of Muslim 
leaders whose history has been far from peaceful.

Of course, it goes without saying that most Muslims are not terrorists. 
Of course many people professing Islam are compassionate and generous. 
Of course Islam should not be gratuitously insulted. But neither should 
it be sugar-coated or kowtowed to. Yet too many Western elites are 
unwilling to speak plainly about the problems within Islam itself, or to 
hold Muslim culture to what should be universal standards of decency and 
justice. Far from being ''too confrontational" in their attitude toward 
Islam, they have been too indulgent and deferential, careful never to 
say anything that might be deemed insensitive. One result has been an 
increase in extremist behavior: Witness the ''Eurofada" raging in the 
streets of Paris.

We do Muslims no favors by excusing attitudes or practices that ought 
always to be deemed inexcusable. In Australia's Victoria state, the 
Herald Sun reported recently, police have been issued a ''religious 
diversity handbook" that advises them ''to treat Muslim domestic 
violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and 
habits." The Australian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau's handbook 
provides guidelines for modifying police procedures to accommodate 
minority sensibilities.

Sikhs, for example, ''should not be disturbed" when reading their holy 
scriptures, a practice that normally takes 50 hours. Photographing 
Aborigines is discouraged, since it might raise fears of ''sorcery and 
spiritual mischief." And Muslim wife-beaters should be treated with kid 
gloves, in deference to Islamic norms. ''In incidents such as domestic 
violence," the handbook instructs, ''police need to have an 
understanding of the traditions, ways of life, and habits of Muslims."

Could anything more perfectly capture the moral bankruptcy of 
multicultural relativism? The Koran may tolerate wife-beating (Sura 
4:34: ''As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and 
send them to bed apart and beat them"), but why on earth should Australia?

''All Muslim husbands are not wife-beaters," remarks Robert Spencer, a 
scholar of Islam, ''and it is condescending and irresponsible . . . to 
give those who are a free pass, instead of denouncing the practice 
unequivocally and calling upon Muslim men to heed the better angels of 
their nature." In much the same way, he says, the West's unwillingness 
to ''confront the elements of Islam that jihad terrorists use to justify 
violence, for fear of offending moderate Muslims, " ends up undercutting 
the ability of those very moderates to demand reform from within.

The war against radical Islam is above all a war of values -- the values 
of liberty, equality, and human dignity against the values of jihad. The 
jihadis don't hesitate to proclaim their values. We must not be shy 
about defending ours.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/06/a_war_of_values_not_religion/
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