[lit-ideas] Olivier Roy, Daniel Pipes and Oriana Fallaci

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:59:15 -0800

Hey Eric, are you going to the Olivier Roy lecture?  He is one of the two
experts Fukuyama invokes in his disenchantment with the Neocons book.  The
other one is Gilles Kepel.  They don't see the Islamist threat as being as
serious as most of the rest of us do.  He assumes among other things that
there are relatively few Militant Islamists.  The vast majority of Muslims,
he, Kepel and Fukuyama argue are moderate.  

 

Interestingly, the book I'm reading now, Militant Islam Reaches America by
Daniel Pipes is making the same assumption as far as I've read.  He argues
that there are vast numbers of moderates and the only reason we aren't
hearing from them is that they know that when they speak out they shall
probably be killed.  Pipes does think there is a battle going on for the
soul of Islam.  He sees Iran on the Islamist side and Turkey on the secular
side.  He thinks we (and the EU) should do everything to encourage Turkey.
If Turkey becomes a great success, that will weaken the Iranian argument
that Islam has the answer to every question.  The Iranian economy is worse
than it was under the Shah.  It would weaken their exportation of their
revolution if Turkey became more of a success.  

 

But there are powerful voices weighing in on the side of our war being not
just against the Islamists but against all of Islam.  I just read Oriana
Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride.  She was in New York within walking
distance of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and afterwards she saw Muslims around
the world on TV dancing and singing over America having got what it
deserved.  She knows how to hate and she knows how to hold a grudge.  She
hates the cicadas, the politically correct who apologize to the Muslims
while they engage in the most outrageous behavior.  They can behave anyway
they like back in their own country but when they come to the West, they
should behave in accordance with our standards.  She has examples and she
names names.  Of course someone issued a fatwa calling for her death after
she wrote The Rage and the Pride.  

 

Fallaci worries about the treasures in Italy that the Islamists have no
respect for.  They would destroy the works of Michael Angelo just as they
did the 
Buddhas of Bamiyan.  She lists many of Italy's treasures and concludes, "I
also worry for the Academy Gallery where we keep Michelangelo's David
(Shamefully naked, my God, therefore particularly blamed by the Koran).  And
should the poor-little-things destroy one of those treasures, only one, I
swear: it is I who would become a holy-warrior.  It is I who would become a
murderer.  So listen to me, you followers of a God who preach an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth.  I was born in the war.  I grew up in the war.
About war I know a lot and believe me: I have more balls than your kamikazes
who find the courage to die only when dying means killing thousands of
people.  Babies included.  War you wanted, war you want?  Good.  As far as I
am concerned, war is and war will be.  Until the last breath."

 

Lawrence

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Steven G. Cameron
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:46 AM
To: Lit-Ideas
Subject: [lit-ideas] [Fwd: SPECIAL INVITATION: Olivier Roy - March 30, 8:00
AM]

 

 

For those who may live in this area and are so inclined...

 

TC,

 

/Steve Cameron, NJ

 

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:SPECIAL INVITATION: Olivier Roy - March 30, 8:00 AM

From:       info@xxxxxxxxx

To:   stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Carnegie Council presents:

 

A SPECIAL INVITATION

 

On March 30th distinguished French Islamic scholar, Olivier Roy will be

speaking at a breakfast program at the Carnegie Council. He will be

addressing such questions as "What is the future of Islamic radicalism?"

" Is it possible for Muslims to integrate into Western societies?"

 

Olivier Roy

 

Speaking on Globalized Islam

Thursday, March 30, 2006

8:00 AM - 9:15 AM

 

The spread of Islam around the globe has blurred the connection between

a religion, a specific society, and a territory. Accordingly,

neofundamentalism has been gaining ground among a rootless Muslim youth

-- particularly among the second- and third-generation migrants in the

West -- and this phenomenon is feeding new forms of radicalism, ranging

from support for Al Qaeda to the outright rejection of integration into

Western society.

 

OLIVIER ROY argues that Islamic revival, or "re-Islamization," results

from the efforts of westernized Muslims to assert their identity in a

non-Muslim context. A schism has emerged between mainstream Islamist

movements in the Muslim world -- including Hamas of Palestine and

Hezbollah of Lebanon -- and the uprooted militants who strive to

establish an imaginary ummah, or Muslim community, not embedded in any

particular society or territory.Thus contemporary Islamic fundamentalism

is not a single-note reaction against westernization but a product and

an agent of the complex forces of globalization.

 

OLIVIER ROY is a professor at EHESS, the School of Advanced Studies in

Social Sciences in Paris. Among his books are The Failure of Political

Islam, The New Central Asia, and (with Mariam Abou Zahab) Islamist

Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection.

 

Please RSVP by replying to publicaffairs@xxxxxxxxx

<mailto:publicaffairs@xxxxxxxxx?subject=Olivier Roy 3/30/06> or by

calling 212-838-4120.

 

Location: Carnegie Council, 170 East 64th Street, New York.

 

Non-members, $25. $200+ members, free.

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 03-2006