Tuesday, August 26, 2008
How to respond to a Muslim argumentative: Rhetoric 101, by Noémie Cournoyer
Born in Transylvania in 1979,
Radu Stoenescu lived in France for two decades. A graduate in philosophy from the Sorbonne University, he is the author of Gandhi, the voluntary exile published in 2007.
He has published in the latest issue of the journal French riposte Lay an article which discusses classical rhetorical traps with which readers point BASCULE are now familiar. "Keywords" which he speaks are "contextualization", "essentialism", "defamation" and "Islamophobia". Using arguments based on reason, Stoenescu thwarts each of these pitfalls of a strong and convincing.
We also join in the bottom of page one two-page leaflet giving arguments in a discussion with Muslims, and you can download. There is particular question outline tactics and the dialectic of Islam. The objective of the authors of the leaflet is to enable you to meet, after his reading, the following questions: Islam is the religion like any other? This tract is available on the internet in french and english.
We also recommend the ticket of 27 February 2008 from Swiss Alain Jean-Mairet. It provides a valuable General Council to criticism of Islam.
"What is Islam?" Wondered how anxious a lot of our citizens. Let words on our fears we fear that the Muslim ideology is a doctrine fascisante, misogynist, anti-democratic, which aims to subvert republican laws in order to establish its own law, sharia, the whole population , As it does in some Muslim countries. But how do we know if we are right? Who to believe? Malek Chebel, Tariq Ramadan, Ben Laden, Abd al Malik, suburban youth who cry "Allah Akhbar", Robert Redeker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali?
Sources of Muslim ideology
The sources of Muslim ideology are fairly easy to identify: it is the Koran and the life of Muhammad. The life of Muhammad is the key interpretation of the Koran, and it is the perfect example of a Muslim, according to the Koran itself. Muhammad brings the Koran, which itself presents Muhammad as the ideal model of Muslim life. This means that one must study the Hadiths, ie collections more or less apocryphal "acts" of the prophet of Islam. These collections are enormous, and their respective validity is challenged by different currents of Islam.
In the public debate around Islam, whenever one speaks what is most problematic in the Koran and the life of Muhammad, fierce defenders of the Muslim ideology using a series of keywords , And in a specific order. When we cite facts honourable little of the life of Muhammad, such as the consumption of his marriage to a girl of nine years, or the massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banû Quraïdza, we are told that " contextualize "these facts and gestures.
When we cite verses can not be more explicit about the violent attitude to deal with non-Muslims, as the notorious "Verse of the Sword", which says "Kill the infidels wherever you find", c It is still summing interlocutors "contextualize" that attempts to justify the unjustifiable. Then, when you try to enunciate a clear judgement on the nature of Islam, such as the fact Ayaan Hirsi Ali, saying that Islam preaches violence or that Islam is incompatible with democracy, Semi-skilled denounce in their interlocutor "essentialisation" of Islam.
At the same time, they rush to relativize the incompatibility of Islam with democracy recalling the evils of Catholicism five centuries ago, as the Inquisition and the Crusades, or the most obscure verses of the Old Testament As if the Republic had something to do. If one goes even further, and if we advance that Islam and the example of Muhammad are immoral, those who otherwise have no pity nor for circumcised women in Africa, nor adulterers stoned Iran, nor for apostates executed in Afghanistan feel wounded in their sensitivity and cry to "insult" or the "defamation".
And finally, they will threaten a trial for "incitement to racial discrimination", while accusing you know nothing of Islam, "surf on fear" and be "Islamophobic." I will try to thwart all these rhetorical traps to provide intellectual weapons to those who want to express in public their concern over the development of Islam in France.
1. Contextualization
Start with the summons "contextualize". Those who denounce the fundamentalists as "false Muslims" because it lifted out verses from their context, not ever noticed that on the contrary, the fundamentalists recall ever a context to justify their actions. The fundamentalists spend their time to contextualize, ie to try to find and reproduce in their daily lives the same context as one in which Muhammad took this or that decision, then to reproduce the same decision.
The Muslim exegesis works by analogy with the paradigm of the life of Muhammad, "the beautiful model." This is evident in the statements of bin Laden, but also in religious opinion on matters as trivial as how to greet others, or dressing or bathing. For this context, there is a model in the life of Mohammed, you need to copy to be a good Muslim. The call for Jihad against the unbelievers is associated with a context: we have to define the mécréant, and the situation of legitimate self which the rejoinder violent.
This is not about the meaning of the verses in their context that different Muslim fundamentalists of those peaceful, but on the existence of this in this context. The question is not is it that a Muslim must seek reconciliation rather than war when it attacked, no, the question is: today's context is the same as in Medina 627? When the murderer of Theo Van Gogh decided to kill him, he has only a faithful reproduction of Muhammad, Muhammad ibn Maslama, made when the Jewish poet Ka'b Ibn Al-Ashraf was mocked Muslim women: he killed with his blessing. The obligation to contextualize the verses is perfectly followed by the fundamentalists!
Unfortunately for Islam, there is no moral laws to follow in a non-contextualized. Muhammad did not take the Ten Commandments of Moses. The context is precisely what prevents the emergence of a peaceful Islam, not the best way to guard against violence, because the calls for mercy and kindness are also contextualized that calls murder!
In Islam, peace must not be sought at all costs, in absolute, but only if there is a numerical inferiority. The mercy against non-Muslims should only be performed if the unbelievers are not hostile to Muslims. Christians and Jews must not be tolerated in Muslim societies that they submit to Muslim and accept the humiliating status of dhimmis. To put it in philosophical terms: the moral imperatives Muslims are not categorical, but hypothetical. So whenever you're objected that you exit a fact of life of Muhammad from its context, replicate that this episode is itself an enabling environment for teaching and decided that the Muslim believer is called to reproduce.
2. Essentialisation
Turning to the accusation "essentialize Islam." This is a ploy éristique very well explained by Arthur Schopenhauer in his little treatise art have always right. This is the trick 32: "We can quickly eliminate or at least make a statement suspicious of the opponent opposite to ours in putting in an execrable category, as long as related by similarity or even very vaguely. For example, "It is Manichaeism, it's arianisme, (…) is idealism, and so on." In doing so we assume two things: 1) that the statement in question is actually identical in this category, or at least contained in it, and we therefore écrions: "Oh! We are aware, "and 2) that this category is already totally refuted and can not contain a single word of truth."
When you are told "you essentialisez Islam," said qu'essayer you understand precisely what Islam and the judge is essentialism! But this is a lie. Because essentialism is a philosophical doctrine (disproved) that men have a fixed nature makes them always in the same way, in short, they have no free will. But Islam is not a man, but a doctrine. A ideology has a nature, it has no free will as a man.
You can not accuse someone of essentialism that seeks to define precisely the nature of Islam. This does not fall within the category of essentialism. Nobody is accused of essentialism in seeking the exact nature of Christianity, Kantianism, Judaism. Why would you if you try to define Islam? It is difficult to define its nature, but it is the task of thought and all university chairs history of religions. Islam is an object of study, albeit multifaceted, but still definable.
When we come anyway, after much effort, to accept that Islam is étudiable and it is not very nice, its defenders are quick to reduce its harm recalling the tasks of other religions or Other doctrines, including Christianity has generally their preference.
It recalls the Crusades and the Inquisition to relativize the wars waged by Muhammad, and hardness of the Shariah. This too is a ruse rhetoric, for two reasons. First, this does not diminish the harm of a doctrine if others have been equally criminal. Then we confuse historical facts of a certain group of Christians at a certain time with the fundamental teaching of Christianity. The actions of the Crusaders or Torquemada had no exemplary value, while the actions of Muhammad are absolutely paradigmatic. The teaching of the Gospels is not corrupted by the criminal acts of some Christians, while the actions of Muhammad are warriors from the base of Muslim teaching.
3. Defamation
When you arrive at this point in the debate, often rational discussion ceases and defenders of Islam retreat in a pose injured, and began to scream blasphemy, insult and defamation. They treat these words of provocation to racial hatred and accuse their opponents of Islamophobia, praying very strongly that one day a law was passed in France to prohibit criticism of the "beautiful model" Muhammad. Here several legal clarification is needed: "Any allegation or imputation of an act which infringes the honour or reputation of the person or body to which the act is charged is a defamation.
The publication directly or through reproduction of the allegation or imputation that is punishable, even if it is made in the form doubts or if it is a person or body not specifically named, but whose identification is made possible by the words speeches, shouts, threats, written or printed placards or posters in question.. " Wikipedia says: "The author of defamation may exempt itself from its responsibility by providing proof of alleged or charged by demonstrating its good faith.
In a judgement delivered on June 6, 2007, the Cour d'appel de Paris recalls the conditions inherent in each of these possibilities exemption. As "proof of the truth of defamatory facts must be perfect, complete and the corresponding charges in both their materiality and in scope and in their defamatory meaning." As a good faith, "four elements must be met for that [his] benefit (...) can be recognized warned the legitimacy of purpose, lack of personal animosity, prudence and the extent to l 'Expression, and the quality of the investigation. "
In other words, tell the life of Muhammad is not a defamation of Muslims who claim because the facts are defamatory attested by Muslim sources themselves, including by Ibn Hisham, who wrote the biography's oldest Prophet of Islam and which, according to his translator Wahib Atallah, is the most recognized in the Muslim world, "official biography" in some way. So for defamation. The tactical error by Robert Redeker was not cite sources for Muslim support his remarks.
Apart from the alleged defamation, sensitive souls outrées by denouncing the example of Muhammad, accusing critics of Islam to make "incitement to racial discrimination." But the law on this point is very clear: "The images forced the words unpleasant and criticisms are not sufficient alone to be a provocation, with no provocation if formulas too general, vague or ambiguous ( Examples: accuse immigrants of abusing sick leave, controversy among politicians, ...) if those words do not lead to hatred or violence. "In this case, this French law is used exactly by those who might fall under his coup: if political Islam seeks the establishment of a discriminatory social system, in which non-Muslims would have a lower status (dhimmi), then political Islam is "a provocation to racial discrimination because of the MEMBERSHIP NOT a religion. " Political Islam, intimidating, threatening, harassing critics of Islam does exactly what he accuses others to do against him.
One could go further and ponder the implications of the last sentence of each of the five Muslim prayers must impose a daily basis: "there is no other god but Allah, we are sincerely faithful Him in His adoration and our religion DESPITE THE HATRED OF MECREANTS." What are the implications due to be repeated each day that all non-Muslim hate you? Is not this a terrible prejudice against all non-Muslims? How can we live together when the obligatory prayer of every Muslim ends on the free assertion that the hate unbelievers, especially since the Muslim must respond to aggression in a violent manner?
Someone who solemnly repeat five times a day that all others are hostile does not finish it by seeing nothing but enemies around him, then feel entitled to retaliate violently? The reflex Muslim shouting to injustice and oppression when it makes the slightest criticism against Islam, would it not purely Pavlovian induced by this ressassement daily? It seems to me that it might even be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy: strength to say that you hate the other a priori, we end up watching them with mistrust, fear and hatred, which will not fail to provoke return to a hostile reaction on the part of these unbelievers, thus confirming the initial statement. The mécréant eventually give evidence of its "Islamophobia" unfairly assumed in the first place. "You do not seek m'aurais if you do not find me."
4. Islamophobia
I come in the last term used in the debate with Muslims, the term Islamophobia. We already know that this is a term coined by Khomeini to stigmatize all criticism of Islam and equate to racism. Nevermind that Islam is not a race, he is not a group of people, but a doctrine, and as such criticism as any other. What I would like to stress is that when someone accuses of being Islamophobic, it actually tries to cripple mentally.
When we make criticisms against Islam it is usually driven by fear before the conduct of Muslims and to the policy of Muslim countries. It was a fear of Islam. When we reply "you have a phobia of Islam", it tells us two things: 1) your fears are not legitimate, there is an irrational fear, a phobia, and 2) you n 'Have no right to be afraid. But it was always reason to feel something, our feelings are not guilty or reprehensible.
It is the expression of these sentiments which may be questionable. Then, these fears are legitimate, because based on verifiable facts, whether by reading the biography of Muhammad, or by observing the history of Islamic civilization and the fate of non-Muslims.
In conclusion, prohibiting non-Muslims to be afraid of Islam, his minions actually forbid them to resist. For the courage for a condition of existence… fear! Courage is not the opposite of fear, but it is "the fear of something attached to the hope of avoiding the damage caused by this object resisting." Those who are not afraid, can be no courage. I'm afraid of Islam, but I hope to avoid the damage it could cause the Republic, resisting. Surfons on our fear, with the board of our hope!
Labels: Hostile races, Human mistake, Islam, Noémie Cournoyer, Religion and fanaticism
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