Islam - Muslim women speak out

When will we see any of these brave Muslim women on Oprah?

When will the feminist movement stand up for these oppressed women?

When will the Left stand against Muslim oppression?

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations," Sultan said in that interview. "It is a clash between civilization and backwardness... between barbarity and rationality... between human rights on the one hand and the violation of these rights on the other, between those who treat women like beasts and those who treat them like human beings."

Then she went even further.

"The Jews have come from tragedy and forced the world to respect them," she said, "with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.

"We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant... Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. ... The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind before they demand that humankind respect them."

Perhaps inspired by Sultan, on March 11, the Syrian poet Adonis said on Dubai TV: "When I look at the Arab world, with all its resources, the capacities of Arabs individuals, especially abroad - you will find among them great philosophers, scientists, engineers, and doctors. In other words, the Arab... can excel - but only outside his society. I have nothing against the individuals - only against the institutions and the regimes... we Arabs are in a phase of extinction, in the sense that we have no creative presence in the world." (translation by MEMRI)

The taboo has been broken. It has become impossible to prevent Arabs from questioning the mantra that has sustained oppressive regimes for so long: both denying backwardness and blaming it on America and the Jews.

Perhaps the most striking and radical entry in this "Muslim Spring" of fresh thinking, however, was an op-ed in this week's New York Times by author Irshad Manji.

"Like all Muslims, I look forward to the day when neither the [IDF] jeep nor the wall is in Abu Dis. So will we tell the self-appointed martyrs of Islam that... before the barrier, there was the bomber? And that the barrier can be dismantled, but the bomber's victims are gone forever?"

Manji is even more heretical to the Muslim ear than Sultan because she not only defends Jews, but Israel, and not only Israel, but the security fence.

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