Og hun ER vidunderlig, klar som kildevand i sine analyser.
Hun har lige været i Indonesien, et land som IKKE havde islamister af
betydning indtil for omkring 10 år siden. Kulturkampen mellem de moderne
muslimer som gerne vil leve i nutiden og sabeltigrene fra bevægelser som
salafisterne, er i fuld gang. Desværre ser det også her ud til at det bliver
uhyrerne der vinder, DE er parate til at bruge vold og chikane, og det kan
ingen stille noget op imod.
Først fortæller hun om en flot pluralistisk festival og så:
For all its promise, exemplified by last week's national elections favoring
secular parties, Indonesia nonetheless flirts with peril. In only 10 years,
Islamism has gone from being a joke to a force. Once an authoritarian state
whose military quashed any inconvenient element, Indonesia introduced
democratic reforms a decade ago. Since then, a free press has emerged. So
has political Islam.
Like Muslims elsewhere, Indonesians are watching the import of Saudi-style
Islam. Sometimes known as Salafism, it preaches a borderless caliphate
anchored in the moral absolutes of the Prophet Muhammad's initial
successors. A global village for the virtuous and valorous, Salafism
purports to offer a way-no, the way-to combine reverence with modernity.
Binding black and white, rich and poor, woman and man, mighty and weak, the
theory of Salafism is transcendently pluralistic.
Then there's reality. In practice, Salafis displace pluralism with
puritanism. True to the dictates of dogma, they use intimidation and
violence to spread their gospel. This summer, a small but steroidal gang of
Islamists assaulted human-rights activists in Jakarta. Police stood by as
the extremists crashed a religious freedom rally, organized after
Indonesia's government imposed restrictions on a minority Muslim sect.
Salafis call the move a defense of Islam's integrity. Pluralists call it a
violation of Indonesia's Constitution. Moderate Muslim leaders call it none
of their business. Those moderates embody the communal silence that has
allowed militant Islamism to metastasize worldwide. Emanating from a secular
democracy like Indonesia, such silence is made all the more tragic-with
implications that can be frighteningly personal.
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Reinterpretation will be painfully messy because it demands excising tribal
tradition from the practice of Islam. It's not just Salafis who confuse
culture with faith. Seemingly integrated Muslims do, too. I remain amazed at
how often Muslim-American students whisper to me what is, in fact, an open
secret: that they can't voice their support for progressive Islam because
they would be accused of "dishonoring" their communities.
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Now for the irony. Moderate Muslims are ignoring this frustration while
Salafis are eagerly tapping into it. Hard-core Islamists open the doors of
inquiry, usher the vulnerable through and then extinguish the very curiosity
that attracted their recruits. They achieve this by providing "safe" spaces
in which Muslims who feel suffocated by their own can question conventional
teachings, especially those of mainstream imams whose smug feudalism oozes
the warning: do as you're told. Tribalism to a T.
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Denne taktik fortæller Ed Husain den tidligere islamist og indpisker for to
muslimske rabiate grupperinger i UK om. Man er specialister i at lokke folk
ind i folden, man lader dem tale om deres frustrationer og er venlige og
forstående, - langsomt får man dem ledt i retning af "salafisme" - "vi har
løsningen på dine problemer" - og så hænger de fleste og spræller i
edderkoppespindet og kommer aldrig ud. Men det gjorde Ed Husain altså, og
har fortalt om sin udvikling fra teenager til han indså at han havde mere
til fælles med en vantre englænder end med en krafttroende muslim i Saudi
Arabien, - hvor han underviste.
Men det ser altså ikke særlig godt ud for tiden, intet tyder på at de
"progressive" muslimer i verden vil vinde kulturkampen, når de ikke vil
eller KAN, gå op imod de rabiate kræfter som findes over alt og som vokser
dag for dag.
Læs hele Irshads artikel i Newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195490