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Video capture of President Obama "bowing" to King Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia at a formal reception for the G-20 Summit in
London, earlier this year.
Is there a possibility that you’re a Muslim and don’t even know it? If President Obama’s comments regarding the size of America’s Muslim population compared to that of other countries, millions of Americans may have joined the ummah - the worldwide community of Islam – unbeknowst to them, or at least that would have to be the case in order for his claim of America's importance as a Muslim nation to be correct.
Speaking to a journalist from French television network Canal Plus on Monday, Obama was quoted as saying:
Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples. (Emphasis mine - BSM)
The full text of the interview is available on the White House website.
Much has been made today about the error of Obama’s claim, an exaggeration so large you could fly four jet fuel-laden passenger jets through it.
Michael Goldfarb, writing at The Weekly Standard Blog:
Surely President Obama is smarter and more worldly than the last White House occupant, but there are not 57 states in the Union -- and if there were, the United States would still not be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. Eight million Muslims seems to be at the high end of estimates of America's Muslim community. That number barely puts the United States in the top 40. There are more Muslims in tiny Jordan than there are in the United States, and twice as many in Syria.
Goldfarb is absolutely correct, of course. A well-documented and researched page at Wikipedia on the demographics of Islam worldwide ranks the United States as 38th in terms of the number of Muslims. If an NCAA football team was ranked 38th in the AP rankings, their coach would be lambasted for claiming that they were one of the best teams in college football.
But it is not Obama’s latest example of creative math that should be of concern. It is the purpose for the exaggeration that should be examined. Obama’s call for Americans to “appreciate” Islam begins sound similar to Europe’s metaphorical opening of its gates to Muslim culture, and the subsequent contortions to accommodate that culture which is, in many ways, incompatible with Western values of individual rights, tolerance, and the idea that secular law is not subordinate to church law. The liberal policies of tolerance have been a green light for hard-line Muslims in Europe to carry on with practices of honor killing, genital mutilation, abuse of women, etc. The Europeans have refused, for the most part, to instruct Muslim communities that they must integrate into European society and have failed to punish acts that are crimes by domestic law, but which are allowable under the laws of the Quran.
Many pundits will claim that Obama is merely extending an olive branch, and there are many times when that is the proper thing to do when a country is fighting a war as we are fighting against Islamic terrorism. But there is patent absurdity in the suggestion that the reign of terror surging from radical elements within the Islamic community either stems from or will be abated by the hands across the water approach advocated by President Obama. The terror groups, and jihadists who finance and support them, do not simply desire to be understood. They do not desire a world of mutual existence.
A great deal of good can come from having moderate Muslims, moderate Christians, moderate Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, secularists, et al. develop greater appreciation, understanding, and tolerance for their differing worldviews. The rapprochement between different sects of Christianity, and Christianity and Judaism has aided on the overall cooling off for hundreds of years. After centuries of religiously-inspired bloodshed, a period of cautious truce was understandably required even before cool heads could place religious differences in a category other than reasons to go to war.
But because moderate Muslims have been shown to have very little control over their radicalized theological cousins, and those organized extremists do not seek peace, Obama’s call is another of many sweet nothings that will undoubtedly become a line on the resume of his legacy while achieving no concrete objectives to make the world a better place, or Americans safer from terrorist threats.
For more info, I suggest reading Bruce Bawer’s excellent new book, Surrender, available at Amazon.com, in hardcover and for Kindle. Where Bawer’s previous book, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, described how Europe has appeased harsher elements of its Islamic population, Surrender focuses on the danger now present in America.
Comments
"Is there a possibility that you’re a Muslim and don’t even know it?"
And if you are a Muslim, what exactly would be wrong with that. And while we are at it, what is wrong even with being a Mormon? It is the ignorance and myopic perspective of so-called conservatives like you that make prejudice and intolerance a stable in American culture. You need help.
Let me assure you that I am more comfortable with a Muslim than a Christian that held the Bible in one hand and put chains on my legs and hands and hauled millions of people like me into slavery.
James makes some good points. Bryan is releasing the same type of red herrings Republicans and conservatives were releasing during the Presidential campaign. His implications that Muslims and Islam need to be distrusted do little to advance the mutual understanding Obama is promoting. Indeed, it looks like Bryan and his clan of Republicans and conservatives are trying to prevent mutual understanding from occurring, for reasons they know and won't state publicly. During South Africa's apartheid system, Republicans and conservatives were not nearly this vocal in their distrust of the White South African government's oppression of their Black population. In fact, they were more vocal about mutual understanding between our government and theirs. Reagan called it a "constructive engagement" between the American government and the South African government and implied Mandela deserved to be in prison.
James makes some bad points. Victor is an idiot. You both can't see the forest for the fog in your heads. How much carnage does any entity or organization have to perpetrate before someone exclaims that the emperor is naked? BOTH Islam AND Christendom have spread warfare, murder, and bloodshed from one end of the earth to the other, for not ten, or a hundred, but THOUSANDS OF YEARS down to this very day, while BOTH of them publicly declare that they are the TRUE religeon of love and peace. You're both dancing around the truth. As Mr. Lee once said during O.J. Simpson's trial, "Something wrong here."
OMG James! You were a slave????
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