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Rushdie et al's manifest
En række intellektuelle med Salman Rushdie i spidsen har, som reaktion på bl.a. balladen om Jyllands-Postens Muhammed-tegninger, skrevet og underskrevet et manifest, der advarer mod islamismens farer, som sammenlignes med truslen fra nazismen og stalinismen.
Manifestet er bl.a. gengivet her.
Cosmic Duck har en glimrende analyse af manifestet, som forklarer hvorfor ideen om "islamismen" som den næste helt store trussel mod verden er - helt ved siden af, og noget over målet:
To begin with, the authors of this letter make a big mistake in comparing islamism with fascism, nazism and stalinism. They should not be compared in that way. Fascism and nazism were all encompassing ideologies for both secular and mythological leadership of society. Stalinism was a more leftist variant of the same. They developed in industrial societies that were at odds with hostile environments. By equating islamism with the other totalitarian ideologies in this way, it is so to speak "removed from the historical process" and made unchangeable. And that is not the case. When it is considered how the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved in Egypt, it must be concluded that there may be development in islamism. Before democracy was introduced in Europe, and in the early phases of democracy - there were also fundamentalist Christian movements. They developed to a position where they could exist alongside with basically secular societies.Og det er nok en meget præcis analyse: Vi behøver ikke dele den paranoide frygt for Islam og muslimer, som er den ny-antisemitiske højrefløjs kendemærke - Rushdie et al. skyder ganske enkelt helt ved siden af: Den største trussel er ikke den udemokratiske anti-islamisme, men de borgerlige rettigheders udvanding i takt med højredrejningen i Vesten.
(...)
The writers of the address seem to presume that the resistance to the printing of the cartoons in the US and other places is an acceptance of cultural relativism. That is not the case. It is a clarification of what freedom of speech implies when it is applied in real life. All societies have laws that impose some limitations on freedom of speech, such as libel, racist utterances and blasphemy. It is up to the courts in those societies to interpret the limitations.
Islamism does contain a recipe for an islamist, theocratic state, but it is more a relic of traditional society. Islamists are standing with their backs to the wall in a world where development passes them by.
Den frygt for Islam (for mange koblet med et tilsvarende had til muslimer), så mange har så travlt med at prakke os på, er ikke andet end en afledningsmanøvre - ny-antisemitismen er ligeså irrationel og destruktiv som den i dag mere marginaliserede "gammel-antisemitisme" (dén, der er rettet mod jøder) var det.