If you want proof that even so-called "moderate" and "educated" Muslims haven't internalized the concept of freedom of speech, one need look no further than this column by Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi, a Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Islam and Democracy Programme at the Centre for the Study for Democracy, University of Westminster. The column, appearing on al-Jazeera's website, starts off with a rather jarring analogy.

When the controversial Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie was awarded the European Union Literary Award in 1996, of all places, Denmark Muslims were immensely infuriated by this added insult.

The very idea of giving Rushdie a literary prize after his book Satanic Verses was like offering Hitler the Nobel Peace Prize after Auschwitz. And the very inability of Western intellectuals and leaders to understand this simple fact lies at the heart of the threatened "clash of civilisations".

Writing and publishing a book that offends Muslims, then, must be the equivalent of the industrialized mass slaughter of millions. Failure to "properly" defer to Islam is the eqivalent of the gas chambers and crematoria of the twentieth century's worst attempt at genocide.

Is this guy serious?

And given that he presumably is serious, does that starting-point allow us to take anything else he has to say seriously? And if this represents the view of moderate, educated, Westernized Islam, is that form of the faith ultimately any more compatible with Western civilization than the fundamentalist Islamofascism of Osama bin Laden?

Hat Tip -- Jawa Report, Dread Pundit Bluto, Vince Aut Morire

Posted by: Greg at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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