Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I've written many times about the distinction between radical and moderate Muslims and the need to reach out and strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims around the world. After all, radical Islam is every bit as much a threat to them as it is to us. Unfortunately, there are many who think so simplistically that they see all Muslims as bad and they derisively dismiss the notion that Muslims can be moderate. Daniel Pipes, who certainly can't be accused of being "soft on Islam", puts the lie to this claim:
"Moderate Unicorns," huffed a reader, responding to my recent plea that Western states bolster moderate Muslims. Dismissing their existence as a myth, he notes that non-Muslims "are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities."It's a valid skepticism and a reasonable demand. Recent events in Pakistan and Turkey, however, prove that moderate Muslims are no myth.
Here are some of the details:
In Pakistan, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated on April 15 in Karachi, the country's largest city, to protest the plans of a powerful mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, to establish a parallel court system based on Islamic law, the Shari'a. "No to extremism," roared the crowd. "We will strongly resist religious terrorism and religious extremism," exhorted Altaf Hussain, leader of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement, at the rally.In Turkey, more than a million moderate Muslims in five marches protested the bid of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take over the presidency of the republic, giving it control over the two top government offices (the other being the prime ministry, currently filled by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan).
The first march took place in the capital city, Ankara, on April 14, organized by Şener Eruygur, a former general who is president of the Atatürk Thought Association. An estimated 300,000 secularists (i.e., moderate Muslims) held up banners with pictures of the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, chanting slogans along the lines of "We don't want an imam as president," "We respect belief, but not radicalism," and "Turkey is secular and will stay secular!"
A young woman carrying a huge Turkish flag, Muge Kaplan, explained that the crowd is Muslim and believes in Islam, but it doesn't want Islam "to become our whole way of life." A farmer, Bülent Korucu, asserted that the crowd is defending its republic "against religious fundamentalists."
Repeating these themes, a second march on April 29 in Istanbul boasted 700,000 marchers. On May 5, smaller marches took place in the western Anatolia towns of Manisa, Çanakkale, and Marmaris.
Nor are the masses alone in resisting AKP's Islamists. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer warned that, for the first time since 1923, when the secular republic came into being, its pillars "are being openly questioned." He also inveighed against the imposition of a soft Islamist state, predicting that it would turn extremist. Onur Öymen, deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party, cautioned that the AKP's taking the presidency would "upset all balances" and create a very dangerous situation.
We need to support such movements; pretending they don't exist only helps the extremists.
Comments
Turkey is most certainly not perfect, but I admit that my initial reaction on hearing about these protests was one of appreciation, in two ways. First, that there is a non-radicalized Islamic country in the Middle East whose citizens want to keep it that way. And second, that the country maintains it secularism with a democratic government (compare Iraq, pre-invasion, as a non-radical Islamic country kept that way via brutal dictatorship).
Posted by: THobbes | May 10, 2007 10:00 AM
And don't forget Indonesia--the largest Muslim majority country in the world, and one of the youngest democracies. In certain parts of the country, elected local officials have sought to restrict women's rights only to be met by law suits and protests by moderates.
And in the wake of the Bali bombings, the Indonesian government (with the help of a couple of former radicals who turned away from jihadism) have aggressively pursued and publicly prosecuted the perpetrators (in direct contrast with America's gulag, chargeless detentions, and secretive court hearings).
Posted by: tacitus | May 10, 2007 10:46 AM
My roommate here is currently taking Arabic, and knows a bunch of Arabs, and the ones from Turkey actually love their coups. He said one Turk spent half an hour expounding on how great a coup would be. I think that Turkey is more or less a model of what the rest of the middle east needs to become: secular and damn proud of it.
Posted by: Stuart Coleman | May 10, 2007 11:52 AM
Well, this is quite encouraging! I had the impression that these people were about as scaterred as magnesium in the sea, but a million secularists in Turkey willing to take a stand is very nice number.
Posted by: valhar2000 | May 10, 2007 12:17 PM
My impression of secularism in Turkey is that it largely seems to be motivated more by a cult of personality surrounding Atatürk than by a genuine desire to keep religious extremism at bay. I could be wrong about that, though.
Posted by: Cairnarvon | May 10, 2007 1:48 PM
Also keep in mind the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan and other Muslim countries, the majority of whom are neither Islamists nor fanatics. (Despite the small but dangerous Ansar al-Islam group and the recent story about an honor killing by Yezidi Kurds.)
Also support and spread awareness of truly moderate Muslims in the West, including Asra Nomani, Salim Mansur, Irshad Manji, M. Zuhdi Jasser, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Free Muslims Coalition, and others while being wary of phony "moderates" who are actually radicals and fundamentalists.
2001 Salon article on radical group CAIR
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/26/muslims/
Posted by: Colugo | May 10, 2007 1:53 PM