(en) anarkismo.net: Sam Harris, New atheism and Islam by Sam Harris
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
