The philosopher Peter Singer is a thoughtful man, and isn’t given to shooting from the hip. So when he criticizes the U.S. government for failing to call Islamic extremism something that’s truly based on religion, we’d best listen up. In a piece at Project Syndicate called “Countering Islamic extremism,” Singer argues that, for several reasons, we can’t deal effectively with the problem of Islamic militancy unless we recognize its religious roots. (His quotes are indented below.)
1. It makes politicians look dumb.
The first problem is political. The conservative US Senator Ted Cruz, who may be about to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, has said, “You cannot defeat an enemy if you refuse to acknowledge what it is.” That line could win votes. Indeed, it is never a good idea for a politician to appear to be denying what we can all see before our eyes.
2. It won’t make Muslims less extreme or less ostracized to use euphemisms like “violent extemism.”
Moreover, because it is obvious to everyone that most violent extremism is being carried out in the name of Islam, avoiding the word is unlikely to prevent attacks on Muslims in response to this violence.
3. It puts the onus on those knowledgable about Islam to convince the more radical ones that there’s a more benign form of the faith.
At the Washington summit, Obama said that “all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent Islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative.” At least this statement, unlike the White House Fact Sheet, acknowledges that groups like the Islamic state claim to be Islamic. Otherwise, what would be the relevance of this statement to “countering violent extremism”?
Nonetheless, Obama’s assertion that “all of us” have this responsibility needs to be more narrowly directed. If I tried to get into a debate with any moderately well-educated Islamic State supporter about whether that organization is true to the teachings of Islam, I would lose the argument. I am not sufficiently expert in the Islamic tradition to be confident that extremists are misinterpreting it, and few of us are. The responsibility to which Obama was referring rests with those who are much more learned in Islam than “all of us.”
So here’s Singer’s main reason to call a spade a spade:
By now, the problem with trying to counter those who seek new recruits for “violent extremism” without focusing on this extremism’s Islamic basis should be clear. Those considering joining an extremist Islamic group should be told: You believe every other religion to be false, but adherents of many other religions believe just as firmly that your faith is false. You cannot really know who is right, and you could all be wrong. Either way, you do not have a sufficiently well-grounded justification for killing people, or for sacrificing your own life.
Granted, some people are not open to reasoning of any kind, and so will not be swayed by such an argument. But others may be. Why rule it out in advance by denying that much extremist violence is religiously motivated?
In other words, Singer’s suggesting that extremist Muslims should be subjected to John Loftus’s “Outsider Test for Faith” procedure, which basically argues what Singer said above: people get their faith from their upbringing and geographic surroundings, not through a reasoned examination of all faiths from which they pick their own. And since every believer is dubious of all other faiths except his or her own, thje most rational approach is to subject your own faith to the same scrutiny you apply to others. That, of course, ultimately leads to atheism—or, in Singer’s view, perhaps to a more moderate form of Islam.
I’m a bit dubious about Singer’s claim, as how many jihadists are really going to be persuaded by moderate Muslims who tell them that there are perfectly grounded but less extremist forms of Islam? And of course virtually none will be persuaded to abandon their faith completely, which is the logical outcome of concluding that “your faith is false”? As we know from Graeme Wood’s analysis of ISIS, its adherents are absolutely, positively convinced that not only are they following the precise dictates of the Qur’an, but that other Muslims are simply wrong. The end result of Singer’s argument would seem to be a claim that all of Islam is false. And, as we know, that’s simply apostasy, seen by many “moderate” Muslims as a capital crime.
h/t: rodney
Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself.
That includes the religion that must not be named.
Since Peter Singer is a well-read atheist, I’m wondering if he’s aware of my book on the outsider test for faith, or if he has encountered my arguments online somewhere. Who knows, right? It seems that more and more people are using it. That’s pretty cool. I just hope people who use it refer to my book on it for further reading, like Jerry does. Cheers.
Already read Christianity Is Not Great, and very much enjoyed it. Lots of bad stuff to learn in that book.
Randy Schenck, and anyone else who might say so here, thanks so very much!
With respect, your “test” is an idea that occurs quite naturally to anyone pondering the existence of multiple religions each claiming to be the ultimate truth.
Well, that’s a bit like saying that this is an idea that occurs quite naturally to anyone to whom it occurs.
IMO it is important that there are lots of people (most?) for whom this question does not occur naturally. That’s why, I believe, John makes a point of explicitly posing it to consideration of those for whom the “natural” hasn’t happened.
One would doubt that Singer needed help arriving at it.
It occurred to me when I was about 15 or so…
‘…And, as we know, that’s simply apostasy, seen by many “moderate” Muslims as a capital crime.’
Putting scare-quotes around the word “moderate” doesn’t mean that you are correct.
Even in the most extreme countries, where virtually everyone is Moslem, and virtually all Moslems believe that Sharia Law should be the law of the land, there is disagreement about how strongly that particular provision should be enforced.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/
How in the world could you possibly expect to convince anyone that can read the relevant graph at the link you provided that “many moderate Muslims” is an inaccurate statement?
Next you will, with even more indignation I’m sure, expound at greater length how there are many Muslims who don’t think that death is an appropriate punishment for apostasy, adultery and theft, and are no different than most other decent people.
Yes. That is so. What makes you think that those two claims in any way invalidate the other? They happen to both be accurate.
But, the claim the OP makes, which sure as numbers and conventional language use is accurate, is the one that causes problems, and is therefore the relevant one in this context.
So, by your definition, the term “Moderate Moslem” doesn’t exclude people who want to kill you if you decide you disagree with them?
How do you mean the term “moderate” with regards to the general population of Muslims? Moderate in comparison to your ethical standards or the standards of the general population of Muslims?
The statistics you referenced, which are in line with other poll statistics, indicate that in “many” Muslim populations the view that death is an appropriate punishment for many trivial offenses such as apostasy is, unambiguously, the norm. On one side of that norm are a lower percentage that don’t think death is appropriate, and on the other side is another lower percentage that back their views up with direct actions like helping to kill people.
How is moderate not an appropriate descriptor for that large middle of the road group?
How do you not understand that the scare quotes that you have taken issue with were intended to communicate the irony that the moderate Muslims being referred to are not equivalent to a moderate, lets say Christian for example, in a typical “Western” country or similar?
You cited a Pew research poll that states a majority of Muslims in 10 different countries support stoning as an acceptable punishment for adulterers.
That’s hardly compelling evidence of the moderation of the faith.
Obama, so far acts correctly by avoiding going in whole hog as the republicans would do. But the talk is silly and makes him look out of touch. Most Muslims know what ISIS is and do not need any clever wording by Obama. The Shea does not need any help understand the Sunni. George Bush is still working on that.
“. . . the talk is silly and makes him look out of touch.”
I agree and I wonder if this will become a political liability for Democrats in 2016.
Unless DAESH is defeated before then, it will be an issue. And the Democratic candidate will have to out-hawk the Republican if the current narrative is allowed to stand. The situation has to be explained clearly to the public before then so they’re not sucked in by the GOP narrative.
Yes, it’s the getting sucked in by the GOP narrative part that concerns me. the democrats are setting themselves up for a tough 2016 election if they allow the right to define this issue, a mistake they’ve had a habit of making pretty much the entire time I’ve been alive.
The very same logic applies to why we should call Ukraine ‘fascist’.
Less than one percent of those with facsist adgends were successful, so Ukraine is not fascist. I don’t see the comparison.
Nobody is saying Islam is extreme. The argument is we should be calling DAESH Islamic, specifically Islamists.
Peter Singer is correct, and there are several other arguments he could have used too. We need to differentiate Islamism from run of the mill Islam. It’s by not doing this that ignorant people, or just scared people, think they’re the same and all Muslims are thought to be the same.
We have no difficulty differentiating the different types of Christians in our society – it should be the same with Muslims. That’s not going to happen if people like Obama with a bully pulpit don’t even acknowledge the issue.
OK Heather, then I will. Islam is extreme. At least to our view. But I think that ISIS is practicing the faith pretty much to the letter of the law as stated in their holy book. Stonings, beheading, it’s all there. And how do you call Daesh (or ISIS) Islamic and not call Saudi Arabia Islamic? Or Pakistan? Because it is.
There are nicer forms of it and we all wish they would take up the nicer forms just like there are bad forms of Christianity and Buddhism out there and we like the nice ones. That doesn’t mean they aren’t Christian or Buddhist even if they are “extreme”.
I obviously haven’t explained myself very well because you haven’t understood my point. I have argued several times that DAESH et al need to be called out as Islamic, most recently here: http://www.heatherhastie.com/calling-it-like-it-is-islamic-terrorism/
I’ve also called out Saudi Arabia: http://www.heatherhastie.com/the-injustice-of-sharia-in-saudi-arabia/
Whether or not Islam is extreme depends on the way it is practiced, like all other religions. I don’t like any religion, and at the moment I think Islam is the worst. But there are plenty of people I can get on with who subscribe to various religions because they’re secular and believe in free speech, apart from having this weird bit in their brain I used to have too.
There’s a difference between Islam and Islamism. Because people like Obama don’t mention the religion of DAESH, people don’t know the difference. Therefore they think all Muslims are like the extremists and those Muslims who aren’t suffer.
Here is one video on it, but there are several others. Search for stuff on Maajid Nawaz, as he’s very good at explaining it, and why we should be calling the terrorists Islamists. There is a very good HardTalk interview I also recommend, which is longer.
https://youtu.be/9EqSuNewrQs
I can imagine Heather knows all this, but for any onlookers who don’t can I also encourage you to go check out Irshad Manji, particularly her stalwart performance on Mehdi Hasan’s Head To Head show. Like Majid Nawaz she is one of very few genuinely liberal Muslim voices out there and they need shouting about at every opportunity. There’s a good double interview with her and Sam Harris too. These people are crucial, and have more bravery in a single finger than most liberal apologists put together. They are fighting the good fight in a much, much more parlous and complex environment and they pay for it with constant death threats and societal ostracism. Shout their names from the rooftops if you can.
I don’t expect any true, dyed in the wool Muslims to be convinced by Singer’s argument. I think the priority right now is simply to get the people who have real sway to acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place, or, if they do acknowledge it but are too afraid to come out and say so(for fear of accusations of racism, etc.). to create a left-wing liberal groundswell large enough that criticising Islam isn’t seen as automatically aligning yourself with the right. So every voice from the left that’s willing to argue this point is valuable, not so much for the impact they have on their opponents but rather for the weight they carry in the eyes of onlookers and fence-sitters. I’m very glad Singer’s made this argument – I hope there are a lot more like him, and a lot less like Sean Hannity, or Peter Hitchens.
Excellent point – that’s a big part of the problem in the US. More liberals need to stand up because an extremist Republican narrative is dominating which is never a good thing. I heard again yesterday on Fox Eric Bolling, for at least the fourth time, that much, much more bombing is needed. Just wipe them all out. He ignores the hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom are trapped in the region, who would be killed too.
I don’t think we have anything as extreme and obnoxious as Fox in Britain so in that sense I suppose its slightly more understandable(if not justifiable) that the American left is so reticent. By comparison even our most charmlessly conservative newspapers would blanch at Fox News rhetoric – which puts the pathetic, gutless flatfootedness of British liberals in an even worse light. They’re not involved in anywhere near as zero-sum a culture war – what’s keeping them?
You do have UKIP though, and a lot of ultra-nationalists doing well in the European elections. It’s not telling anyone here anything to say a lot of people equate racism and Islamophobia. And no-one wants to be seen as racist. Perhaps that’s it, as you alluded to above?
At least Britain understands the difference between your average Muslim and an Islamist better than your average American.
As atheists we mostly understand religion better than your average theist, and have no problem criticizing it. Other liberals think any kind of criticism isn’t PC – they see it as a failure to understand. They forget about liberalism and stick up for religion while it abuses women, LGBT people, children, and several other categories depending on the religion. They see all religion through Karen Armstrong’s glasses.
Heather, I think there are different problems in Britain and Europe with regards to criticism of Islam and Islamic violence. In Europe Muslims are far more likely to be working or lower class, while in the U.S. Muslims are more middle class. Hence the argument in Britain and Europe, post Charlie Hebdo, that still one must refrain from criticizing Islam because it could lead to individual retribution on individual Muslims who are already weak politically, economically, socially and culturally.
For that reason, it feeds into the discourse that in attacking Islam you are being racist because racism usually involves the demonization of socially marginalized groups. I myself have been called ‘racist’ twice in the last few months (once by a bloke with an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname, and as a Paddy living in England, I found that more than a little galling). But that goes with the argument.
Even when your interlocutor admits that you know more about Islam than her, pace your observation that she sees it as a failure to understand on my part, she still will not admit that I may have a point. Perhaps, I am arguing in the wrong way: perhaps it would be better to use Socratic question and response, but sometimes life is too short for that.
The problem of European atheists, socialists and liberals assuming that Islam is like all other religions in some fluffy sort of way is deeply ingrained. It requires a tipping point of authoritative figures, political, cultural, academic, public intellectual to continue the debate.
Allele akhbar. x
I vaguely remember a jesus ‘n mo cartoon about this. The solution to radical islamists cherry picking from the koran is moderate muslims cherry picking from the koran.
Ofcourse the answer is staring us in the face. Islam is BS from the first to the last letter.
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Sometimes the people who are most passionate about their faith end up being the most likely to throw it over completely. They care about whether or not it’s true and belief plays an active role in their daily lives. They need to be certain. Truth matters.
Disillusionment with ISIS or any crack in the theological facade and extremists often have a hard time dialing back and playing the little rationalization dance of metaphor and analogy and gosh it’s about trusting your little inner voice and finding God in ordinary things and so forth. I’m not sure the jihadists are all that unreachable with arguments against religion and faith in general.
I keep coming back to the reverend in the HBO special on Darwin who said that if the bible said that 2+2=5, he wouldn’t question it, he would just examine the book more and attempt to understand it. Some people do just lose all perspective.
Sure. And some people get overconfident and think religion can win in a fair fight. Remember too fundamentalist preacher Dan Barker deciding he wanted to convert atheists and thus reading lots of stuff regarding their reasons for nonbelief so he could better understand how to change their minds. Yeah, guess how that went. FFRF.
The issue is not that moderate Muslims can dissuade jihadists but that moderate Islam is the seedbed from which jihadism can grow.
The issue is also whether weakening the power of religion per se by advancing atheist arguments like the Outsider Test for Faith will work on Muslims who are or might become extremists.
“It puts the onus on those knowledgable about Islam to convince the more radical ones that there’s a more benign form of the faith.” – I think that nails it.
Sufism, anyone?
Gedankenexperiment: Substitute “Jewish” for “Islamic.” Where does it lead you? – nowhere good, I assert. And it’s not because Judaism is free of terrorists.
The problem is ascribing the properties of a subset (self-proclaimed Jihadis) to whole set (all the many Muslims in the world, most of whom are not Salafists).
Who is “ascribing the properties of a subset (self-proclaimed Jihadis) to whole set”?
That’s why we need to name them as Islamists. Islamism is a different word, but because everyone sees Muslims as one big homogeneous group, they don’t notice. It’s lack of knowledge, and it is created by those who refuse to acknowledge that some forms of Islam are a big part of the problem.
There are 73 sects of Islam. How many people know much beyond Sunni, Shi’a and Salifism/Wahhabism (the extreme type of Sunni prevalent in Saudi).
Sorry messed that up – there are currently between 2 and 50, depending how you count them. Muhammad predicted there would be 73, but only one would be saved.
Officially there are two – Sunni and Shi’a, but both divide into several other groups and there’s also Sufism, which further divides, and reform groups, of which there are several.
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Sorry but I see this entirely different. To me the radical forms of a club are the ones who go contrary to the basic dogma/code of said club. An radical member of the KKK would be someone who believed all people are equal regardless of pigmentation and who would happily genetically mix with other humans of a markedly different hue.
Andrew Sullivan as an openly gay man is a radical catholic. Ratzie is a fundamentalist. Either could be an extremist version of their viewpoint in how they presented it to others.
Their foundational books say what they say. Any rewrite/sophistry of them is radical.
Point of Inquiry’s latest podcast episode Josh Zepps talks to Eli Lake about ISIS, it’s interesting, although it doesn’t really go over new ground.
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/eli_lake_how_islamic_is_islamic_extremism/
Lake talks about how be believes Sam Harris tries to tell Muslims what “the real Islam is”, or the correct interpretation of the Koran. I disagree that this is Sam Harris’s point. Sam Harris is not trying to tell Muslims the “correct” interpretation, he is just trying to show that ISIS’s is one possible interpretation, and you can’t say ISIS is not based on Islam. Which is exactly what so many Muslims claim.