A rchive Date
[ 04-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Arab-Muslims ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/richardson.html
Mideast writer inspires vibrant debate
By MARK RICHARDSON - For the London Free Press
March 4, 2003
I have no idea how, but the Jewish Community Centre has another celebrity-status guest speaker.
On Feb. 9, official Churchill biographer and eminent historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, gave a history of Jerusalem to a packed and appreciative hall. Next Monday at 7.30 p.m., there will be a lecture by controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes.
There should be a difference in tone. While Gilbert spoke about the struggles of Jerusalem in the past and invited listeners to reach their own conclusions, Pipes brings dire warnings for the future and a finger pointed at Islam.
Pipes appears regularly on CNN, Nightline and the American TV news show circuit. The author of 11 books, the latest being Militant Islam Reaches America, he wrote as long ago as 1995 that, "Unnoticed by many Westerners, war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States." Some hail him for it.
Others simply hate him. In late January, 300 people protested a speech by Pipes at York University, claiming his Web site, www.campus-watch.org, encourages the targeting of academics critical of Israel.
Yet, in his speech at York, it was Pipes who said academic freedom was being threatened by an alliance led by "Palestinian nationalists and extremist Islamists." Said Pipes: "These are barbarians who would close down civilized discourse."
To get a sense of just who is being targeted, I listened to Pipes' interview on CBC Radio One's The Current. Host Anna Maria Tremonti did her snippy best to expose mean-spiritedness, but came up empty. Campus Watch is about Middle East studies, Pipes said, not Israel. There is no list of targeted academics, he added; he is simply trying to alert the world to the analytical failures of academia. I was impressed. Especially when he made it clear to Tremonti, "Militant Islam is the problem. Moderate Islam is the solution."
Then, however, she quoted something Pipes had said to the American Jewish Congress in 2001: "I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature and affluence and enfranchisement of American Muslims . . . will present true dangers to American Jews."
Hmm. No distinction there between Islamism and Islam. So I e-mailed Pipes for clarification and he was good enough to respond.
"As the number of Muslims increases in Western countries," he wrote, "those countries are going to become more Muslim in nature, and that will inevitably be to the detriment of some elements . . . I was speaking to a Jewish audience. I would make the same point to audiences of women, gays, civil libertarians, Hindus, Evangelical Christians . . . among others, all of whom face similar 'true dangers' as the number of Muslims increases and threaten their interests. For an example of a country, Denmark, that is experiencing advanced problems along these lines, see my article . . . at www.danielpipes.org/article/450."
So I did. In his New York Post article, Pipes says, among other things, "Muslims are only four per cent of Denmark's 5.4 million people, but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim."
This is not a pleasant fact to point out, Pipes noted in closing, but all concerned are better off dealing with the truth and not hiding from it.
Well, not so fast.
Even if Pipes' stats about Denmark and other countries are accurate - which, not surprisingly, has been debated - his conclusion about supposed Muslim domination "inevitably" threatening other groups is questionable.
Are gentiles, for example, rotten to the core because of the Holocaust? Was Auschwitz inevitable?
No one can blame minorities for feeling threatened. But that applies to Islamic minorities, too. I suspect the root cause of the problems Pipes associates with Muslim immigration are the very lack of stature, affluence and enfranchisement he fears.
And given the Forest City's large Muslim population, Monday night could see a lively debate.
Mark Richardson is a London freelance writer. His column appears Wednesdays. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA) ]
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