Islam - Where are the moderates?

It's a good question that begs another question.

I am reminded of this story not only because this year is the 50th anniversary of Khrushchev's "secret speech," but also because it may provide at least a partial answer to the questions: Where are all the Muslim moderates? Where are those who oppose terrorism, religious wars, hatred and intolerance? Where are those who think it crazy to attempt to re-create the eighth century in the 21st century? Where are those who want not to destroy the Free World but to join it?

They are out there, I suspect, in larger numbers than we might be led to believe. But if most are silent and fearful of speaking out, can you blame them? The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims live in countries ruled by illiberal and oppressive regimes. And in the few relatively free countries -- Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia -- there is no protection from the long arm of militant Islamism. Indeed, even in Europe it can be dangerous to challenge religious fascism. And last year, Shaker Elsayed, leader of Dar al-Hijrah, one of the largest mosques in the United States, told American Muslims: "The call to reform Islam is an alien call."

But, but, but, the Left and the lying left wing media keep telling us that Islam is the religion of peace. If that's true, what do these people have to fear?

Is it "militant" Islam that is intolerant of all other religions, gays and denies freedom to women and to free speech? Is this the result of "militant" Islam?

Muslims who dissent from this orthodoxy have received precious little support from anyone. As far back as 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called for the murder of British author Salman Rushdie. Such a frontal attack on freedom of speech should have prompted Western governments to send Iranian diplomats packing. Instead, Rushdie went into hiding while most Western intellectuals persuaded themselves this quarrel was none of their business.

Western intellectuals meaning the Left. Of course we now know that, in their blind ambition for power, the Left long ago formed an unholy alliance with Islam - no matter what freedoms it costs us.

The disasterous results of the Left's unholy alliance is plain for all to see.

"Meanwhile, in Jordan and Yemen, editors who thought their readers deserved to judge the cartoons for themselves were jailed.

The pandering has escalated: Last month, Columbia University held a conference that included as a "highlight" a video of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi presenting "his views on the prospects for democracy in the twenty-first century." Columbia's teachers and administrators are apparently untroubled by the fact that Libya's leading dissident, Fathi Eljami, is currently rotting in one of Gadhafi's dungeons.

And in Tunisia, democracy advocate Neila Charchour Hachicha is under police surveillance -- her phone and Internet connections severed, her car confiscated, her daughter threatened and her husband in prison. What did she do to deserve such punishment? It's not clear, but she did give an interview to Middle East Quarterly (www.meforum.org/article/732) about impediments to reform in Tunisia and she spoke at the "neo-con" American Enterprise Institute about the need for democracy in the Middle East.

The routine imprisonment and torture of dissidents in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia almost never prompts U.N. officials to consider interfering -- or even criticizing. Once in a while, a Western diplomat expresses concern.

"I keep hearing, 'Why are liberals silent?'" Said al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian judge and author, recently said. "How can we write? Who is going to protect me?"

Certainly not the Left.
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