Comment on Belmont's "The First Front"
A Belmont Club post entitled "The First Front" examines the intellectual battle against Islamic extremism:
If developing "norms that challenge and expose extremist thought" are a prerequisite to challenging Islamic extremism then the road will be long and hard. Intellectual challenges to radical Islamism have largely been the effort of outcast intellectuals like Oriana Fallaci, Bat Y'eor, Hirsi Ali and others like them. They live in a shadow world, "scorned by the academic establishment for their politically incorrect views", as Bruce Bawer puts it; and literally on the run. Fallaci in fact, has been ordered to stand trial for "defaming Islam" in her native Italy. Hirsi Ali leads a precarious existence under round-the-clock protection from the Dutch government. ... Islam's intellectual challengers live a fugitive existence while its defenders move in a celebrity world. If challenging Islamic extremism intellectually is a necessity then the enterprise has gotten off to a bad start.
Comment "Skipsailing" said: "If there are any so called moderate muslims out there, let's see them." I replied to Skip with these remarks:
Skip, here are three places where you can find them - the business schools of American University of Dubai and American University of Sharjah and Education City in Qatar.I required this term that all my strategy students this term at AUS create their own blogs. They blog mostly about business and somethimes political issues with business implications. If you are interested to know what some of them had to say about things like Dubai Ports world and the Danish boycott, check the sidebar of my blog, The Business of America is Business.
Among the notable student blogs are Lina the Warrior Princess; Sara Strategy, she's been reading John Stuart Mill lately; she also has an interesting take on the Middle East versions of those Dove soap ads that sprung up all over the states last summer; Nothing is Crystal Clear; Qais Sedki's Unimaginatively Titled MBA blog; Sultan's blog who did a very nice analysis of the Saudi banking industry; Nazia's "Guiding Star" , see her very interesting, semi-autobiographical short story about escaping arranged marriage and studying in the West; and Omair's Anecdotes, Uncensored, the best writer in the class. My point is that there are a lot of people here who are "moderate"...
Skipsailing also said: "I don't think we're shoving our culture down anyone's throat."
Here we agree. You don't generally have to push that which people already strongly desire. There is a huge and uptapped demand in the Middle East and Gulf States for more knowledge about American values, about everything from politics, education, media, art, science, and business. The only thing people here don't seem to have an interest in is our religion, which is fine by me because that's not what I teach or am here to promote.