Name the apologists

March 21, 2015 • 9:55 am

NO CHEATING BY GOOGLING!!

Here are two statements by different apologists. If you know your weasels, you should be able to identify both of them. If you do cheat and Google the quotes, do not put the answers in the comments.

1. On the 9/11 hijackers:

“The hijackers themselves certainly regarded the 9/11 atrocities as a religious act but one that bore very little resemblance to normative Islam. A document found in Ata’s suitcase outlined a program of prayer and reflection to help them through the ordeal. … The principal imperative of Islamic spirituality is tawhid (“making one”): Muslims truly understand the unity of God only if they integrate all their activities and thoughts. But this document atomizes the mission, dividing it into segments — the “last night,” the journey to the airport, boarding the planes, etc. — so that the unbearable whole is never considered. The terrorists were told to look forward to paradise and back to the time of the Prophet — in fact, to contemplate anything but the atrocity they were committing in the present.”

As the analyst dryly commented, “The 9/11 hijackers were not being good Muslims, then, because they printed up an itemized schedule.”

2. On the Charlie Hebdo massacre. When asked if the magazine Charlie Hebdo helped polarize Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe, this apologist responded:

“Well, it’s not a justification by any means at all, but what Charlie Hebdo represents for a lot of people in Europe is precisely this clash of civilizations. Look, the editors of Charlie Hebdo would unapologetically say they make fun of everybody, every religion, and they make fun of Muslims for a very specific reason to sort of show, or maybe demonstrate, that look if you maybe want to be in this country, if you want to be in France, then you have to deal with the French values, you have to rid yourself of your own values, ideals, norms, and you have to take on French values. And there have been a number of laws passed not only in France, with regard to prohibitions on Islamic dress, but throughout Europe about whether you can build mosques, about whether build minarets, et cetera. And this tension, this polarization I’m afraid has led to a lot of acts of violence. Not just the tragedy yesterday..”

70 thoughts on “Name the apologists”

    1. Concur with 1. Am inclined to say Aslan is 2.

      Feel I’m on really thin ice, trying to recollect each ones unique verbal articulations and “pretzelations.”

    2. 1. I had considered Atran because of the references to ‘normative Islam’, to ‘tawhid’, an Islamic jargon phrase examples of which Atran always likes to use. But the second half of the quote isn’t Atranish: Armstrong, perhaps?
      2. Sounds British: ‘I’m afraid…’ and ‘Look…’ a verbal tic of Blair. I plump for Tone.

      Allele akhbar. x

    2. Me too – I read number two as pure Aslan. (Yes, that was deliberate- more number two from Aslan.)

      I’m not sure about one – could be Hasan.

  6. Well, apologist #1 certainly got the part about the “whole” being “unbearable” right.

    And isn’t the whole idea behind religion to “contemplate anything but the … present” ?

    I think we need some sort of apologist bingo bullshit card with entries such as “normative”, “clash of civilizations”, “polarization” and so on. First person to fill a row, column or diagonal wins.

    1. Actually, in view of many of your prior posts, you’re great at spotting weasels, just maybe not so great at naming the species. :>)

  10. The Charlie Hedbo quote exemplifies something I noticed in the aftermath. Following from the truism that “but” – rather than introducing an exception – usually nullifies the clause before it, proponents of blasphemy laws mention the murders first (in this case, “Well, it’s not a justification by any means at all, but…”), and the defenders of freedom of speech begin by commenting on the qualities of the cartoons. This applies to many subjects. I’ve worked to eliminate “but” from my arguments (but I wll use it for actual exceptions).

    1. ‘But’ still works in parallel constructions. The Qu’ran says to kill unbelievers but most muslims still want to remain in the familiar community so they ignore that part just as most christians ignore Leviticus.
      ISIS is muslim but most muslims are horrified by what ISIS is doing.

    2. That’s spot on. I did clock that too – that you could sort the apologists and the rest by noting how they ordered their condemnations of CB ‘racism’ on the one hand and the killings on the other. ‘There’s no excuse for the killings but…’ one the one hand, ‘I disagreed with Charlie Hebdo but…’ on the other. The sentences are identical in the information they convey, but the respective ideological attitudes are quite different(although not different enough IMO).

  11. The first one on 9/11 sounds more like a reporter – Greenwald?

    The second is more like a Aslan?

  12. I have read little from such people, but for the first I would bet Karen Armstrong — “Muslims truly understand the unity of God only if they integrate all their activities and thoughts.”

  13. I guessed them both correctly–checked by googling afterwards.

    Recognizing them is NOT something I would have been able to do if I weren’t a regular reader of this webpage.

    1. As I said above, I think #2 is Aslan, but if it’s not him, I can imagine those words coming from Blair too.

  17. The first is some sort of academic I’d guess – although I suppose they all are. The first…someone with a fairly good feel for Islamic theology. I don’t read any Glenn Greenwald and only a little Karen Armstrong so I wouldn’t be able to tell between those two, but I’d guess one of them.

    The latter quote’s presumably culled from a TV/radio interview, so the speaker might be some kind of enormous media tart with a vampiric hunger for fame, an endless skill for specious waffle and plugging into left-wing prejudices and, although I’m just guessing here, a gruesomely smug face. On that basis I’m going for Reza Aslan.

    1. Your faultless portrait of Aslan confirms my hunch to the max.
      Another hint: Something we always see with Aslan, he begins the second sentence with the unctuous, condescending, “Look,…”.

      1. “Look, it’s only reasonable to, y’know (laughs) take a step back here. (in bored, talking to a three-year-old voice:) Of course these people say they’re doing it for religious reasons – (laughs again) no-one’s denying that. But (puts on faux-reasonable voice) from looking at the western media you’d think these guys were, like, highly religious killers who explicitly stated that their motivations were scriptural! (laughs, then turns a bit serious) Are we forgetting that in 1776 an American sailboat smashed headlong into an Arab fisherman’s boat killing him and his three co-workers? What about the 1906 massacre, where ten Muslims with Polio were murdered by western medics whose colonialist, materialistic scientific approach failed to save them – effectively killing them, in a way, probably? We need to take the political climate into context, and it’s those kind of atrocities that fuel Muslim dissatisfaction with the west. (laughs) Of course, Fox News don’t see it that way” (flashes crocodile smile at MSNBC reporter who promptly swoons under his desk)

        1. I dunno what you’re doing now, but spruce up your resume. You’d be more than welcome as a writer for The Onion.
          😎

          1. Well that’s very kind. I’m actually slogging my way through a putative sitcom script, as well as a few sketches. Fumbling in the dark really. 🙂

  18. I’ve carefully scrolled to the comment section without reading anything between…to guess what would seem to me to be the obvious: Reza Aslan and Karen Armstrong, respectively.

    Now, to see how good my guesses are….

    b&

  20. The first apologist is definitely Karen Armstrong. She always points to spirituality like apologist number 1 does. And apologist number 1 knows islam better than the hijackers do. So #1 is Armstrong.

    Second one is whining about persecution, even though muslims have more liberty in the Western World than in islamic countries in the Middle-East and Idonesia. Clearly, this apologist identifies as a muslim with fellow muslims in Europe. So, I guess that must be Reza Aslan then.

    No islam, but Aslan.

    And I pre-emptively offer my apologies if I’m wrong.

  23. The second one sounds familiar. Hasn’t Jerry quoted that before?
    My money is on Aslan then.

  25. The first sounds like Karen Armstrong, as many fellow posters have suggested. As for the second, I’d guess the quote shows that he doesn’t know his Aslan from his elbow.

    1. Yeh, I think it could only be Armstrong who would imply that the 9/11 attacks weren’t planned holistically enough to count as true religion.

  26. The hijackers themselves certainly regarded the 9/11 atrocities as a religious act but…

    Well, it’s not a justification by any means at all, but…

    The first quote was from Butthead #1, and the second from Butthead #2.

  27. They all sound alike to me. So did the sermons I had to listen to as a teen. Same BS, all the time.

    I wonder if there might be a reality TV show idea here? Or a talent show format? In the first case, a bunch of people from various faiths who have to be together and defend their faith. In the latter, judges who listen to various apologists and vote them off the show. I like the idea of turning faith into entertaining spectacle.

    1. If we could combine it with Total Wipeout and Gladiators, so they had to demonstrate the strength of their belief by trying to run across four enormous, suspended rubber balls, and go at one another with those big double-ended q-tips – then you’d have a show.

  28. 1) Aslan
    2) Aslan
    An old trick is if you expect that one answer will be right for one of two questions, then use that answer for both questions. I am practically guaranteed to be 50% correct.

  30. 1. Karen Armstrong. Gotta be.

    2. No name came to me at first; I just had a mental image of a smarmy obnoxious male Muslim apologist who’s in the news about every week. Then I saw everyone else say Aslan, and he definitely fits the bill. So I’ll go with Aslan.

    1. I swear Jerry answered who they were somewhere in here. I remember seeing the answer.

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