Storm off the Show

Good thing public musings isn't a talk show for woman, because just linking to this provocative article would cause several to storm off....

Leading Islamic Scholar Bernard Lewis:

The degree of thought control, of limitations on freedom of speech and expression is without parallel in the Western world since the eighteenth century and in some cases longer than that. … It seems to me it’s a very dangerous situation, because it makes any kind of scholarly discussion of Islam, to say the least, dangerous. Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.

This is coming up now because in the Netherlands they are prosecuting Dutch MP Geert Wilders for hate speech. For saying this:

I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state. Islam is totally contrary to our values.

As the story goes, prosecutors didn't even want to bring the case, but the judiciary forced their hand. The rest of the article basically goes on to attack Islam as not a "religion of peace," but rather a totalitarian ideology incapable of coexisting with other faiths and systems.

Well...it certainly poses an interesting challenge of values...say the free practice of a particular religion encroaches upon the freedom of other rights such as speech, property, etc. How do we balance these things? Very provocative article. Very good, too.