The first shows the efforts of “moderate” Muslims at the counter-demonstration to contain the violent impulses of the Salafists. The excesses of the radicals apparently made some of their more pragmatic co-religionists worry that their zeal for the pure faith would make the dhimmi politicians nervous and weaken their support for their Islamic allies.
Many thanks to Henrik for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Did Salafists fire shots at the Bonn demo? There are conflicting accounts (translation: Henrik):
But there were definitely knife attacks directed at the police (translation: ESW):
4 comments:
From the tone of voice, the choice of words (in the original German) and the manner of speaking, I would judge that this man is sincere in his belief that "this is not Islam".
His pragmatic arguments are attempts to convince those whose theological take is different from his, that whether or not they agree with him on the theology, there is also a practical reason to desist.
There are good people who are Muslim. This man is one of many. He and his like deserve to be credited for both their words of moderation, and the spirit behind them.
His tone and words might indicate that he is perturbed by what he sees, yet that does not necessarily mean his emotion comes from disapproval of the Salafists' actions themselves, for it could as easily owe to fear of how their acts will appear to the German public at large.
He still identifies himself as one of them, his "dear siblings." He asks them to refrain from throwing stones at the police not because such an act is categorically immoral, but because the police are "on [their] side." And he says to them, "We will lose the politicians," surely indicating that his political interests chime with the Salafists, that he considers himself to share an ideological sphere with them, though within that sphere he be (perhaps) in a different area.
There is no way that we can judge whether a Muslim is "moderate" by our understanding of the word without knowing his thoughts on sharia. "Moderate" Muslim in a western context should mean a Muslim who is loyal to his adopted country and its laws and who therefore is anti-sharia in his new home. However, such a "moderate" is not even a Muslim by Muslim standards since their religious duty is to promote sharia everywhere and in every way. When are people going to educate themselves and understand this instead of automatically giving the benefit of a doubt to the so-called "moderate" Muslims as in the above comment? Moderate Muslim is an oxymoron, a western fantasy. The devout Muslim Turkish P.M. has stated categorically there is no moderate Islam, only Islam. Why do westerners refuse to believe such an authority and imagine things that no mainstream Muslim can actually live by? This fantasy world of liberals is getting to be too much. The only thing that's certain about the man in the clip is that he disagrees with the extremists on the pace of their hostile activities and the unwanted attention it brings to Muslims in general. To be a devout Muslim, he has to believe in ultimate Muslim supremacism but apparently thinks slow and steady inroads to takeover are a better tactic. And for that the gullible are falling all over themselves to give him brownie points. Frankly, I'm becoming appreciative of the honest haters who just can't contain themselves and might shock a few westerners into wakefulness. In the long run, they may be less dangerous to western civilization than the clever takiya artists who have westerners believing their "moderate" guff. To summarize, unless a Muslim specifically works against sharia in western countries (like Tarek Fatah in Canada), he is not a moderate by our definition of the word. And a Muslim who works against sharia is considered an apostate by the vast majority of Muslims and puts his own well being at risk. Moderate Muslim is an oxymoron.
I disagree with the first commenter: when the speaker declares "we will lose the politicians" it seems to me that he is only worried out of sheer political expedient, not because of some morality or civilized values. He's appealing to his "siblings" by which he means muslims: he does NOT refer to them as "Germans". He seeks to avoid a confrontation with the police in the same manner that their prophet seeked to avoid confrontation in Medina... just until their numbers are right and overwhelming. And then, all pretense of civility will fall aside along with the machetes.
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