anarkismo.net: Sam Harris, New atheism and Islam by
Mazen Kamalmaz
This is a comment on the Sam Harris - Glenn Greenwald debate about Islam; see:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/category/islam --
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus ---- I think
that the Harris - Greenwald debate missed the main issue of the matter they debated, that
is Islam and Muslims. We could agree with the poll quoted by Greenwald, that only 7% of
Muslims are radicals, and religiously devoted. And that the rest (93% of Muslims) are
moderate and good. But unfortunately both writers wasted their time arguing about the
goodness of this 93%, while I think that the whole issue related only to the other 7%, who
neither argued about their "goodness". For Islamists, those 7% of Muslims, they used this
debate only to stigmatize ant criticism of their dogmas as racism and bigotry, etc. But I
don't think that convinced and devoted Nazi or fascists never exceed 7% of German or
Italian population at any time. And that the remaining 93% were always moderate and good,
even when they were used by the ruling 7% to inflict atrocities on others.
Being controlled, brainwashed and suppressed themselves, they became tools in the hands of
the 7% to suppress and control others. What we saw in Iraq after 2003 and in Syria and
Libya after 2012, that this 7% claimed superiority and hegemony over the rest (the 93%),
as self-proclaimed, sole representative of the divine, the sacred. They assume moral and
intellectual authority over others, then using this authority, combined with brutal force;
to suppress the rest, who couldn't fight back properly. In fact, both Harris and Greenwald
are dangerous representatives of their ideas. Harris didn't hide that his atheism is an
authoritarian, Euro-centric one; as he called for repressive measures to counter the
Islamist fundamentalist threat. In fact, this type of atheism is not new to Middle East or
"Islamic" countries, where generations of autocrats and dictators practiced such atheism
for a long time now. Not only that any "victory" won by such measures was only a false and
transient one, but that this authoritarian atheism has no libertarian content at all, it
is just another dogma to support some brutal and harsh dictators.
Greenwald is also a dangerous "friend" of the 93% of Muslims, whose goodness he wishes to
prove. By underestimating the threat of the 7% on this good majority, and the potential of
using Islam as undisputed justification of the hegemony of this 7% upon the rest of
Muslims and upon other minorities and neighbors of Muslim societies, Greewald is not of
real help to this 93% he wishes to defend... Finally, it is true that Harris questions (1)
that the present situation of Muslim countries could be Euro-centric or even racist, but
they are very serious ones, that dismissing them simply as being racist is a lost
opportunity for the 93% of Muslims to look thoroughly in their present and try to find
deeper answers to such serious questions....
(1.) Harris questioned basic and fundamental beliefs of Islam as being inhuman,
anti-freedom. He wondered that if Saddam's dictatorship was the only possible barrier
against sectarian Sunni-Shi'a war or the rise of fundamentalists, this would tell how
bleak and miserable Islamic societies are.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/28399
