Muslims turned up in droves for the Coptic Christmas mass Thursday night, offering their bodies, and lives, as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community Beyond just being something of a “feel-good” story, what is important about this story is the sense of solidarity these people feel because they’re all Egyptians. This underlines the fact that personal identity is, or should be, complex and nuanced. People aren’t, or shouldn’t be, exclusively “Christian” or “Muslim” or whatever. The Islamists, like all fundamentalists, want a world in which all Muslims are not only the “right” kind of Muslim, but are nothing buy Muslims, or at least are primarily Muslims. This is recipe for conflict, and worse. But it seems that many Muslims in Egypt consider themselves to be Egyptians, and they regard Coptic Christians as fellow Egyptians first, non-Muslims second. That’s a victory for secularism, pluralism, and civil society, and a defeat for fundamentalism and doctrinaire theists. That’s the whole point of a secular society—creating a “neutral” civic zone where everybody is ideally equal before the law and relate to each other fundamentally as equal citizens. Otherwise, you get societies based on exclusive and divisive criteria such as race, ethnicity, language, or religion.
Good post overall, but you're wrong here. Muslim majorities and prominent figures have been standing up against the extremists for a while now. This latest example is a really powerful one, but it's hardly the first.
Yeah, I regret that part; I actually do know better. It was an unfortunate choice of words and maybe I was bending over backwards to demonstrate that I do recognize that some Muslim societies do have a problem with rampant extremism. But you're correct--that wasn't a fair statement. EDIT: You know what? I'm just going to take it out. I'm not at all sure why I phrased it that way.
"Islamists" and violent extremists are not the same thing. I consider myself to be an Islamist. I'm pretty sure many people in that crowd also consider themselves to be "Islamists" too, including that preacher Amr Khaled who the article referred to. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiTd2yWQU84"]YouTube - Amr Khaled's Quest for Muslim-West Dialogue[/ame]
I don't know. I think a number of of Muslim political scientists have used the term "Islamists" as shorthand for extremists, but all the terms are a bit slippery. Heck, there are pro-Palestinian peaceniks who self-identify as "Zionists." Eqbal Ahmed liked to use "Islamofacsist." And of course, "Islamist" might translate differently depending on language and context.
We wont see Guardian for a while - there was a terror attack in the US which didn't involve Muslims, and there was communal violence in Nigeria when seven Muslims were killed by a mob whilst trying to make their way back from a wedding in a Christian area. These tragic events don't fit in with his world view, so he'll be awol for a bit I presume.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Islamist I guess that it could also mean a peaceful extremist. Just like the Christians that pray for Armageddon, where people like me will burn in hell. Islamist according to this definition could be a person that wants Islamic values, morals to be applied to all. All people? all Muslims? voluntary? by Islamic law? I guess it would depend on the person. There is also this moderate website. http://www.islamist-watch.org/