Spencer’s chronic, dangerous ambiguity

Though Robert Spencer, substantively, always points to facts strongly suggesting that Islam is not reformable, Spencer, rhetorically, always leaves open the possibility that Islam can be reformed; indeed, he consistently expresses fond hopes for such reformation. Thus he says in a FrontPage Magazine symposium:

All sincere and genuine attempts to reform Islamic theology so as to reinterpret and/or remove violent and supremacist elements are to be welcomed. They are to be welcomed all the more wholeheartedly when they keep a consistent focus on the purpose that all such efforts have or should have in the first place: to convince Muslims that jihad violence and Islamic supremacism are not “pure” and “true” Islam, as the jihadists themselves claim, but that there is another way to live out their faith that is consistent and authentic on its own terms.

May one respectfully point out that this is not helpful? As long as Spencer, an influential scholar and critic of Islam, keeps suggesting that somehow Islam can be reformed, he prevents the decisive realization in the public mind of the truth about Islam—the truth that Muslims are eternally commanded by their god to dominate, subdue, and destroy non-Muslim societies, and that there is no way this can change so long as Islam remains Islam. The discovery of this truth is the indispensable condition of the West’s saving itself from Islam. Yet Spencer withholds this truth from his readers.

Some, including Spencer himself, may think he is being very clever, very artful, very politically adroit, with his endless ambiguity on this subject. They may think that by leaving the question of Islam’s reformability always open, he avoids the necessity of making a categorical declaration that Islam cannot be reformed, which in turn enables him to dodge the label of anti-Islam bigot. If this is the reason for Spencer’s verbal shuffling, it is not a good one. Without a categorical realization on our part about the nature of Islam, followed by policies based on that realization, we are doomed.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 10, 2008 12:07 AM | Send