FP: Fair enough, thank you. Sometimes I get a little aggressive just to get all the cards on the table and have things crystallized. You are right Dr. Cagaptay, this is a time bomb and half indeed. Mr. Bayegan?

Bayegan: Going back to the subject of encountering fanaticism, I should say that my own greatest authority on this topic is Amos Oz. whom I have mentioned before and who deals with this issue even-handedly and with great intelligence. In one of his addresses to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, he said that "fanaticism is ancient and comprehensive. It is older than Islam, older than Christianity and older than Judaism. It might be a potential presence in every human being. It might be a bad gene. It is everywhere." He suggests that in different countries schools, colleges and universities should offer courses in what he calls "comparative fanaticism", contrasting the moral disease of fanaticism in various cultures and searching for a creative remedy.

Murawiec quotes Albert Camus that "Suffering bestows no right". Camus here speaks about right in order to show its moral limitations. Furthermore, Camus exalts human responsibility over a mere right. In both his fiction and nonfiction writing, Camus' existentialism consists of human responsibility for ourselves and each other. Camus also has another famous saying which might be useful for the purpose of our discussion. He says: "We are all special cases. We all want to appeal against something! Everyone insists on his innocence, at all costs, even if it means accusing the rest of human race and heaven". (The Fall, 1956)

Keeping in mind Camus' statement, let us also not forget that an 'eye for an eye' was not invented by Muslims. Let us not forget that the violence and mayhem in Mosaic books such as Leviticus and others of the Old Testament like the book of Joshua make the Koran sound like a book of nursery rhymes. The point is that the moment we insist on our own innocence and accusingly point a finger at other people's guilt, we should remember the wisdom of Christ's words that "He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone". The problem of fanaticism is a curse for all humanity and its eradication requires universal effort and solidarity.  Dr. Luther King was right when he said that "we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools".

Jamie mentioned that Osama and al Zarqawi refer to Surahs in the Koran to justify their violent acts and that they are referring to real Surahs. Osama and Zarvagi will see in the Koran what they want to see in the Koran, like David Koresh saw in the Bible what he wanted to see in the Bible and the fanatical puritans of the Massachusetts when they were burning 'witches' at the stake in Salem interpreted the Bible to suit their fanaticism. No, Islam is not intrinsically incompatible with peace and humanity. Interestingly enough, every Surah that Mr. Zarvagi reads like all other Surehs in the Koran start, with the words: "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful."

Fundamentalists however, are unable to see any message of peace and human solidarity in it because their religion is not in the service of humanity, but is in the service of an ideology. If in our fight against fundamentalism we fall into the trap of an ideology ourselves and supplant sound judgment with knee jerk reactions, we too become infected with the virulent virus of fanaticism.

What we have to recognize is that Islam is in need of reformation. The Enlightenment that helped to evolve Christianity and Judaism and brought them up to date with the needs of the modern world, for historical and geographic reasons did not occur in Islam. Years of foreign domination, mass poverty and illiteracy rampant in Islamic states have not helped the burgeoning of this process either. What is hopeful, however, is that Moslems have started looking critically at themselves and a sense of humor that Amos Oz singles out as an important element which fanatics are deprived of, is developing within the Islamic community regarding matters that were untouchable until quite recently. Maybe Moslem "beauty pageants and hilarious self-critical stand-up comedy routines" that Jamie refers to - presumably as signs of progress -  are rare or non-existent in Islamic world, but I can tell you that as far as Iran is concerned, Iranian cinema today deals with topics that were taboo not very long ego. A recent movie called 'The Lizard' lampoons mullahs and criticizes their greed and detachment from society. Malaysian born Saudi woman poet, Nimah Ismail Nawwab in her marvelous verse criticizes gender inequality, human rights abuses and fanaticism in Saudi Arabia without for one moment attributing those problems to Islam. Moreover, she sees them as symptoms of a retrograde society that does not live up to Islam's moral and humanitarian message:

Fanaticism rearing brazenly flouting
The very principle Islam espouses
Of the equality in the eyes of one God

This kind of reading of Koran is possible as it was also possible to adjust the Bible with the realities of the modern world and not take literally those verses in it which exalt men over women .

On Sunday June 19 the results of elections to France's Muslim Council were a positive step in the direction of strengthening moderate forces and integration of Muslims into France's secular society. Reuters reported that the voting  brought gains for a "moderate mosque network and rebuffed an activist group that had flirted with defiant Islamic stands".

In France, as elsewhere, an agenda for hope and peaceful coexistence needs to be espoused by all major religions. Muslims want to keep and protect their religious heritage. They know that it is a sine qua non to their identity. They need all the help they can get to realize that the greatest dangers to their collective soul and their spiritual heritage are backwardness and fanaticism.

FP: Mr. Bayegan, even though it was your last turn, I will return to you now, as I really need to see your evidence for your arguments.

You made an analogy between Islamic violence and violence that was perpetrated by someone that you alleged was a Christian and that you argued engaged in violence for Christian reasons. I emphasized that Osama’s violence can be legitimized by Islamic texts and that is why Osama refers to them when justifying his violent jihad. Again: nowhere can an Adolf Hitler refer to anything in the New Testament to legitimize what he did – and that is why he didn’t, because he wasn’t a Christian and he wasn’t acting for Christianity. Hitler was the ultimate anti-Christian and the Holocaust was the greatest of anti-Christian acts.

Instead of responding to this crucial distinction, you simply start throwing more dust into the eyes. You move on to new accusations, this time comparing violent Islamic jihad with David Koresh and Christian “witch” burners.  Since you hide from showing the verses that Hitler could point to in the New Testament to justify the Holocaust, do tell what it was that Koresh did that you compare to Islamic jihad and what verses in the New Testament he would have used to legitimize it. Also please give me verses in the New Testament that fanatical puritans of Massachusetts would have used to justify burning “witches.” The verses, of course, need to be as specific as Surah 9:5 (the famous Verse of the Sword) in the Koran in terms of a specific instruction.

Mr. Bayegan, instead of substantiating your charges, you make an implied accusation against an argument I never made, saying: “No, Islam is not intrinsically incompatible with peace and humanity.”

Where did I say this? Who are you arguing with? I specifically stressed that we need to work with Muslim forces that seek to reform Islam, to make it pluralistic and tolerant, and to bring it into the modern world. That is why I mentioned The Free Muslims Against Terrorism. Why would I promote this organization and stress that we need to work with it if I believe the whole enterprise is pointless?

Your point that the Old Testament makes the Koran sound like a book of nursery rhymes is so absurd that I cannot even dignify it with a response.

In the previous round, you brought up the absurd and utterly false contention that the Muslim community is just as diverse as any other community. I delegitimized this blatant falsehood by naming just a few (out of an infinite number) of obvious realities that do not exist in the Muslim world – realities that would (and must) exist in a world that can be described as being “diverse.” Instead of defending your contention, you again shift to an unconnected and illegitimate theme.

I asked you to name me ten fatwas that have been issued by Muslim clerics against Osama. I asked you to name me beauty pageants and stand-up comedy routines in the Muslim world. I did not ask you these things looking for your moral approval for the existence of these realities. I asked you them because the non-existence of these phenomena demonstrates the non-existence of diversity in the Muslim world.

Instead of trying to prove your argument that there is diversity in the Muslim world, you dismiss beauty pageants and stand-up comedy routines, quipping that I mention them “presumably as signs of progress.” I am shocked that an individual who is supposedly fighting for freedom in a certain part of the world would make a snide remark about this phenomenon, especially in the context of the millions of human beings who have been tortured and killed because of the demonization of the female body and humor.

So let’s narrow in on these themes in case you do not understand their importance. Women’s right to be seen, and their freedom to have the right to personal self-determination, which includes the right to sexual self-determination, is a crucial right for a free and democratic society. A society cannot be free and democratic if it does not allow this type of freedom to its female gender, just like free speech is instrumental for a free society.  I am not asking you what you think of beauty pageants. I don't care what you think of them. I raise them as an example to show that their non-existence reveals the lack of diversity and freedom in a culture. The key here is that if an attempt was made by humans to hold a beauty pageant, it would be forbidden and there would be punishment for those involved. If you do not understand that this is a reflection of totalitarianism, I do not know what to tell you.

I also make the same point about humor and laughter by using the example of stand-up comedy. Any serious person that studies totalitarianism understands the crucial nature of the phenomenon of laughter and the threat it poses to a despotic society. Anyone who is cognizant of what is fundamental for a society to be truly free and diverse will understand the example I raised in connection to the freedom of laughter and self-critical comedy.

I would suggest rethinking what wisdom or nobility exists in dismissing the crucial role of comedy in society. When you watch Chris Rock in his stand-up performances and try to picture if a Muslim Chris Rock-type of comedian could do the same thing in front of Muslim audiences throughout the Islamic world – it means everything. It crystallizes what freedom is. There cannot be freedom if there is no Chris Rock allowed to do what he does in a society. Mr. Bayegan, it doesn’t matter what you think of Chris Rock. The point is that society can only be free if it allows an individual to engage in that form of entertainment, and allows people who like it to be an audience, and for all the participants involved not to fear punishment for being involved. If a society cannot allow the freedom for that possibility and for the incarnation of that form of comedy, than it is by necessity a totalitarian society.

It is depressing that I have to take the time here to explain these things, which one would think were simple givens.

It is shocking that my examples of female freedom and the right to engage in self-critical comedy, and these phenomena being directly connected to freedom, is mocked by a person that is supposedly fighting for freedom in a part of the Middle East.

If anyone, a person connected to the Middle East would understand these things, since the connection of women and laughter is the key phenomenon that represents the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism in the Middle East. I had a fascinating discussion with journalist Steven Vincent, the author of The Red Zone, who, fortunately, unlike you Mr. Bayegan, takes these issues to heart. He gave some fascinating insights into why militant Islam regards female laughter as such an evil threat and why it forbids it – especially in young girls. His analysis of what laughter, especially a woman’s laughter, represents, and why it is such a threat to totalitarian structures in militant Islam, is fascinating. I encourage everyone to read his insights.

In any case Mr. Bayegan, I am listening and waiting for answers to my questions. Please do not throw more dust into the eyes or start new arguments. Give me specific verses out of the New Testament that would legitimize your analogies.

Bayegan: Thank you Jamie,

When at your insistence I accepted to participate in this symposium, I thought it would be a civilized exercise with you as a moderator. A moderator's job first and foremost is to listen. With all due respect I don't think you have even bothered to comprehend my interventions. This is what scares me most: if we cannot hear each other out intelligently and impartially here in a democratic forum such as this, then where? Cant and rant are two deadly enemies of ratiocination and enlightened arguments which will hinder us from arriving at a meaningful solution.

You say if I talk the way I do, how can I be a human rights activist? You say my argument is a crock. You say your dignity is beyond replying to my points. You ask for my reply by saying: can you answer "without throwing more dust into the eyes." I am your guest here remember? I was invited because you deemed my views important. The least you can do is to treat your guests with courtesy and reply to them without discrediting them or resorting to personal attacks. For me human rights activism consist above all in doing my best to think justly and argue objectively.

If you had read my last intervention carefully you could have seen that you and I are saying exactly the same thing as far as the need for sense of humour, self-criticism and laughter are concerned. I even quoted Amos Oz and his views that a sense of humour is one of the best remedies against fanaticism. So why are you making out as if I am saying something different?

Yes, you do say that one should support moderate Islamic groups, but you also say that you are not going to waste your time here going over how Islamist terror finds its roots in Muslim texts and you also mention that Osama and al Zarqawi refer to real Surahs in The Koran. By the way, I do agree with you on this. But saying that and at the same time failing to mention that there are also many Surahs in The Koran (the learned members of this symposium can testify to that) that are invitation to peace, kindness and compassion is to imply that Islam has no room for tolerance and peaceful coexistence.  I was simply trying to say that the Islam that came to existence in the context of 6th century tribal Arabia has the capacity to recreate itself as a spiritual force for the modern world of the 21st century. The challenge is to turn The Koran into a spiritual source against political corruption and social decay instead of a manual for running the political life of the country, as for instance is happening in Iran today.

You challenged me to cite verses from the Bible that could be used as justification for violence. If you would have read my intervention carefully you would have found out that I said that fanatics see in the Bible (that is they misread) what they want to see in the Bible, the same way that Islamist fanatics interpret The Koran to suit their deadly agenda. For an example of using the Bible to suit a deadly agenda please read "A People's History of The United States" by Howard Zinn, HarperCollins, p.14 where he discusses the Puritans' carnage of Indians and confiscation of their land. He writes:

"The Puritans also appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." And to justify their use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

FP: Mr. Bayegan, I apologize to you if I am not being a very gracious host. I have lost all sense of manners I suppose.

The problem, sir, is not that I am not listening to you, but that perhaps I am listening a little too much. When you make allegations (i.e. the Muslim community is as diverse as any other, Islamic violent jihad has equivalent parallels in Christian texts, etc.) and then do not substantiate them when asked to, but simply move on to make other dubious charges, these are very serious things. And I am sorry, but the suggestion that Adolf Hitler could have found some kind of inspiration or legitimacy for the Holocaust in Christianity, as Osama and al Zarqawi find the inspiration for violent jihad in Qur’anic texts, is an allegation that does not instil tremendous cheer and a spirit of camaraderie in me, especially when I keep asking for substantiation and do not receive it.

Incidentally, I don’t need the learned members of this symposium to testify to the fact that there are Surahs in the Qur’an that are an invitation to peace, kindness and compassion. I have read the Qur’an. I study it everyday. I know those parts exist. When did I ever say they did not? And how is this a substantiation for the points you have made and I am pressing you on?

Again, no one here is saying that Islam has no room for reform and that it does not have the capacity for it. That is why we all agree that we must support moderate forces that seek to bring the best out of Islam and to let it subordinate the parts that militant Islamists use to inhale their jihadist oxygen.

While you might want to rethink referring to Howard Zinn’s interpretations as back-up for your arguments, I am still to get the evidence backing up your arguments about diversity in the Muslim community and about Hitler, Koresh and “witch” burners and what it was specifically that they found in the New Testament that inspired them to do what they did. But I give up.

As for your reference to Psalms 2:8 and Romans 13:2, I really don’t know what your point is in connection to our discussion. I am at a complete loss at how these verses serve as an analogy to the Surahs in the Koran that command violent jihad against unbelievers until the whole world is submitted to Islam. Incidentally, the “damnation” in Romans 13:2 refers to damnation in the afterlife; it is not an instruction, as the many Surahs in the Qur’an instruct, for believers to become God’s executioners and to smite the unbelievers on this earth.

In any case, Mr. Bayegan, we share the same aspiration to bring Islam into the modern world and to separate it from the political sphere. The question, of course, is how this can be done – especially in the context of Islam not recognizing the separation of church and state.

I apologize to our guests here for this sideline debate and am grateful to them for waiting patiently. But these questions regarding diversity within Islam and the roots of Islamic jihad are, as we all know, all crucial to the terror war and, of course, to the precarious situation in France.

Dr. Ibn Guadi, I hope you are still with us my friend. Feel free to say whatever you wish in your final comment and kindly include a last word on the ticking time bomb in France.

Ibn Guadi: Thank you, Jamie.

I just would like to reconsider the references of Reza Bayegan to Psalms 2:8 and Romans 13:2. The passage of the Psalms does not start with verse 8 but with verse 7 until verse 9. Actually, for the Christians, this chapter talks about the Messiah and not the israeli people. Thus, the Christians see the fulfillment of this verse in the book of Revelation 2: 27 where it is written: He shall rule them with A grinds of iron ; They shall Be dashed to parts like the potter's  vessels. That’s exactly the same verse of Psalms that Reza Bayegan quoted.

In the same way, it’s not sufficient to quote Romains 13: 2 in order to understand. This verse is famous among Christians to be the guide of the respect of the political authority and not a justification to break the law. The majority of the Arab Christians in the Muslims countries apply this text to respect the laws of the Muslim country where they live. In this chapter it required to Christians to respect the country in which they reside. According to Christians, the believers should not rebel against the human authority because this authority was instituted by God. For this reason Paul asks Timothy (1 Timothy 2.1-2) to pray for the authorities, the kings, the governors, etc...

So, the roots of the separation of the religion and state are anchored in the Bible even if in the history that were not always the case. But, for the Christians, there were sufficient data in their texts to re-examine the question. Unfortunately, the similar process was not the same one in Islam. That’s why I said that Muslims community present some new sociological challenges for the French people.

As Bayegan says, it true that some Christians can want to read what they want. We have many examples of it. Nevertheless, the problem really does not come from there. No matter what our discussions on the contents of the Bible might be, France is a completely Dechristianized country. The ticking time bomb is already here. I' m afraid, as Laurent and Soner pointed out, the French society won't react or won’t admit these problems, as today. And some French Muslims have understood it.

FP: Final word goes to you Mr. Murawiec.

Murawiec: Well I guess we have strayed from our explicit subject, but being led astray may be very useful: some of the issues tackled in the detour are crucial to our debate about Muslims in France, and elsewhere. We have two terms: the French (country, state, nation, culture, society, etc.) and the Muslims. We already discussed a number of the problems of the host country. If France "felt" better about itself - if it were in better shape - it would be better able to help the guests. It is not the case, though. France is sick, and it is receiving a steady inflow of people from a very sick culture. Islam is the Sick Man of the world. And while France's diseased state is a noxious and oftentimes aggravating problem, we can live with it. With the disease in Islam, we can die. This dictates some priorities.

Mr. Bayegan states, and, undoutebtedly, believes, that "Islam has the capacity to recreate itself as a spiritual force for the Muslim world for the 21st century." I welcome his proclamation, but unfortunately, it is only that, a proclamation. It may have the "potential," but it is not implementing or using it. Far from that, what Islam, or to be more precise, the world of Islam, has produced since, say, 1945, is sadly at odds with the proclamation. Not only has it not exerted that "capacity to recreate itself," it has in fact done exactly the contrary. Al Azhar, for the Sunni world, and Qom, have been dominated by nihilism, by  a self-destructive adhesion to a mythical (delusional) self-image based on a nonsensical image of the past. Islam is mired in its own dream of itself, and gets very angry when awakened by reality. Hence violent reactions when reality intrudes.

If "Islam ha[d] the capacity to recreate itself as a spiritual force for the Muslim world for the 21st century," it would be abuzz with scholars' debates and popular interest in such debates:

- the confusion, rampant in Koran, hadith and sharia, between the tribal code of honor, and morality, must be dissipated

- quranic and shariatic law concerning apostasy need to be abolished wholesale 

- the very concept of dhimmi needs to be abolished

- the idea that the world is divided between a dar al-Islam and a dar al-Harb must be thoroughly reexamined

- quranic and shariatic prescriptions concerning jihad must be revised entirely

- the untying of things legal, things religious and things political is urgent and fundamental

How fundamental these points are barely needs to be stressed. In turn, this would demand a serious debate on the spurious and deadly concept of the Koran's "uncreation," one of the strongest possible impediments to sustained progress in both Islam-religion and the world of Islam. Ditto with the conception of change: as long as the Koranic equation of bida, heresy, with innovation, remains, it wil stand in the way of any progress.

When Mr. Bayegan states "What we have to recognize is that Islam is in need of reformation. The Enlightenment that helped to evolve Christianity and Judaism and brought them up to date with the needs of the modern world, for historical and geographic reasons did not occur in Islam. Years of foreign domination, mass poverty and illiteracy rampant in Islamic states have not helped the burgeoning of this process either "  his faulty diagnosis exemplifies at least in part what the problem is: The Enlightenment was not a meteor that fell upon Christian heads - it was the product of Christian, or Judeo-Christian, civilization and culture, and history. It was a self-generated movement. Islam's failure to generate from within anything remotely comparable  is the problem. There are figures in the world of Islam that exemplify the existence of a potential: Sir Syed Ahmad Khan [1817-1898], the great Muslim reformer in India, was a case in point. And today, we have the magnificent figures of Kanan Makiya, Fouad Ajami, Irshad Manji, we have the cases of Nasr Abou Zeid, of Abdelwahhab Medeb, of Youssef Seddik: there are seeds for a renaissance, just as, in other contexts, Havel and Walesa, or Sakharov, were. But let us not forget that sometimes the critical mass is reached, and reform occurs, while in other cases, as in Russia, it fails.

The first precondition for success is to be ruthlessly truthful with oneself, one's own culture, one's own past history. "Attempting to live in the truth," Havel wrote. Seeing the seeds of today's problem with Islam in "years of foreign domination, mass poverty and rampant illiteracy" is a sure recipe for failure. Why do I never hear those words from Indians? Unless Muslims once and for all give up a self-conception as aggrieved victims of others, and thereby acknowledge the reasons for the decadence and decline that befell that part of the world that was ruled by Islam, they will go nowhere. And going nowhere, many of them will seek to blame others for their own folly. And whenever and wherever they are able to do so, they will express their angst in aggressive forms. The kind of thrust for modernization that U.S. guns have spearheaded has become necessary and irreplaceable. But it does not replace the critical self-examination of Islam. It is not for vague "historical and georgraphical reasons" that Islam failed to renew itself: the reasons were (and are) religious, theological, cultural, psychological, societal.

In my mind, it is difficult to disentangle the ticking time-bomb of Muslims in France from the global problems of Islam. Muslims in France carry the decline and decadence of their culture of origin with them. They arrive in a sick culture. There is a frightening risk of explosive developments in France, because France seems to cumulate the problems of both worlds.

FP: Mohamed Ibn Guadi, Soner Cagaptay, Laurent Murawiec and Reza Bayegan, thank you, we are out of time. It was a pleasure to have you here on Frontpage Symposium.

Previous Symposiums:

Murdering Women For “Honor”, Dr. Gudrun Eussner, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz and Seyran Ates. 

The Radical Lies of Aids, John Potterat, Dr. Stuart Brody, Matthew Hogan and Steve Hands.

A Crack in the Saudi Berlin Wall, John R. Bradley, Rasheed Abou Alsamh, Ali Al-Ahmed and Prof. Khaleel Mohammed.

Iraqis on Liberty,  Nasir Flayeh Hassan, Esam Pasha Azizawy and Nour al-Khal.

Turkey: The Road to Sharia? Soner Cagaptay, Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz, Michael Rubin and Daniel Pipes.