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February 28, 2006
Clash of Civilizations? No, Modernity Vs. Barbarism
Wafa Sultan's lucid argument in support of free speech, Western Civilization, Western science, and secular modernism destroys attempts by her interviewer to shift the blame from rioting Muslims to a Western scholar (Samuel Huntington and his thesis), and an Imam (who avoids debate by resorting to name-calling), all on MEMRI TV:
Imam: Are you a heretic?
Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...
Imam: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...
Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you. Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me.Sultan, as an Arabic woman of Muslim background (a reasonable extrapolation), is able to say things that would garner any Western pundit charges of racism, neo-colonialism, and Islamophobia. Perhaps those with first-hand knowledge, like those living under Hitler and Stalin, seeing the depravity, atavism, and lack of respect for human dignity first-hand, can most passionately and persuasively argue in favor of the rational alternative to medieval barbarism.
Also posted at Slapstick Politics.
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Posted by at February 28, 2006 2:20 AM
Comments
If I were you I would be very alarmed by Wafa Sultan's almost violent denunciation of Islam. Though she claims she is a psychologist, she seems to me ignorant of her own internal psyche. Her reaction to being raised demonizing Israelis and idealizing Islam is to simply flip in the other direction completely thereby reproducing the very psycho dynamics she wants to renounce. Now she idealizes Israelis and demonizes Islam. In pyschology, Ms Sultan, I am sure knows, this is called the defense mechanism of "Splitting" defined as a " Primitive defense mechanism-when a person sees external objects or people as either "all good" or "all bad"." The extremeness of the reversal, the good becomes the bad and the bad becomes the good, reveals a very disturbed personality. I would not trust her just because, untreated, she is very likely to reverse back again renouncing everything she said and creating herself an opposite position.
What she engages in is not political discourse, but the discourse of the mentally ill. I think we are all advised to not take her seriously.
Posted by: Lama Abu Odeh at October 1, 2006 3:29 PM



