Dean's World

Well, I'd never heard of Miftah before. But Nonie Darwish and that Ayaan Hirsi Ali have been all over the righty blogs.

Anyway, if you want to convince more righties that Muslim moderates are more than a mere mirage, what really needs to happen is more Muslims standing up for people like Miftah. Clearly something is rotten at the IST and your suggestion for democratic reforms is excellent, but where are the moderate groups to counter them? If organizations like CAIR are full of moderates, where are they on this?

As I've said before, the moderates' is the most onerous burden in this ideological struggle. In their place, I'm not sure I would have the courage to risk the ostracization and death threats from the extremists. But Muslims need to decide whether the soul of Islam is worth fighting for.

By the way: anything that's clearly sent to a large list of people tends to get ignored.

It needs to be targeted as a specific individual. To be blunt, any time I get an email asking me for a link, if my name is not clearly at the top, or there are more than a small handful of people cc'd on the thing, I delete it without looking more than 95% of the time. I suspect I'm not alone on that; obvious spamming is just rude.

I certainly second Dean on his tactics. In fact, I'll go further and say each message requesting attention has to be individualized to the particular blogger. No mailing list; no cc's.

That's a lot of effort, admittedly. It gets even harder when you have to go through the target blog and find the citations that you're asking to be followed-up. I think that's why they call it 'work'.

But waiting for people to notice isn't a very productive use of time, even if you're not doing anything.

"None of these girls will dance with me. Stuck up bitches!"

"Uh, dude, did you think to ask?"

zach.,

I think Ali's point here is that by and large all of the attention this story has gotten is like "Moderate Muslim gets ostracized over editorial." It's the ostracization that is getting the airplay, and perhaps rightfully so.

Unfair or not, the sensational and controversial gets the press. That's not just true of stories on moderate Muslims.

But the issue is that no one is bothering to a) find out what Mifta has to say, or b) spread his message. If a blog claims to care about moderate muslims, they should be trumpeting the moderate message instead of (or at least in addition to) engaging in point-scoring over how this or that moderate was treated.

Well, Ali is doing something few blogs do: reporting. Dean has done it from time to time. Michael Totten and Bill from INDC and a few other bloggers have made it a habit (or a passion). But most bloggers only comment on the news someone else reports. For them to trumpet the moderate message, someone else has to report it first. Like Ali. (I would slap him on the back for that and tell him to keep up the good work, but that would piss him off.) But then the reporter also has to bring it to their attention somehow.

Martin, et al.

News is man bites dog.

Since there are so many moderate Muslims out there--just ask Dean--a moderate message is dog bites man. Shouldn't be news.

Since there are so many moderate Muslims out there--just ask Dean--finding a large number of immoderate Muslims giving a moderate Muslim a hard time is man bites dog. It's such a rare thing, and so unlikely, too, considering how few immoderate Muslims there are.

Some of you seem to think the moderate message is a huge deal. That's a problem. Because it's only a huge deal if it's extremely rare. If it happened all the time, there'd be no reason to remark on it. Careful how you frame this thing.

The hard time the guy gets isn't news only to the extent it's quite common. So if you don't think it's news, you must think.... See what happens when you get enthusiastic and speak before considering?

I was being a bit nasty about suggesting a new mosque. If being in a mosque run by nutcases were any reason to start your own, there'd be a bunch of folks meeting in temporary quarters trying to work out a building fund. From the outside, it appears that being in a congregation run by nutcases isn't driving out the moderate Muslims, who, remember, are the majority.

I've only got so many liberal/left/other than habitual blogs I view on any given day. Can't say I've ever stopped by yours except when you point out something of interest, Ali. I suspect nobody saw it so getting pissed is just infantile. "Hey, I'm so important and nobody notices! waaaaa-ah" That's the attitude of a baby. sheesh, stop embarassing yourself.

Ali - I'd echo Dean's point too. Most other writers have said the same thing. The hardest part of writing is the marketing. You have to send out a lot of letters and make a lot of pitches before you get a reasonable response.

I am alarmed that many Rightosphere pundits no longer wish any discernment be made between the radicals and the rest of the Muslim populace.

I am alarmed that many Muslims assume that to be true, and don't even make the effort to reach out to people on the right who can't comment on what they don't know about.

I'm sorry, I have to rant just a little further. I hate to harp on you, Ali, but I think this is important.

I had a Jordanian Muslim roommate. I've had Muslim classmates and coworkers. But I didn't know many Muslims, and not many well. So I was one who used to say, "I've got nothing against Muslims, but why aren't they speaking out against the nutjobs? Where are the moderate Muslims?"

And Dean said, "Everywhere. Just look." Living and working in the Dearborn area, he lived with moderate Muslims and did business with them every day.

And then to prove his point, he made a distinct effort to hunt up and publicize every story of moderate, terror-condemning Muslims he could find. And I stopped asking the question any more. Dean proved to me that if I wasn't hearing from moderate Muslims, it was because the major news outlets couldn't be bothered to put their message out. Oh, they would put on Muslim firebrands to get on some TV shout fest; but a simple guy like Jamal Miftah, speaking his mind and standing on his principles, would never get attention. He might make a local outlet like the Tulsa World; but he wouldn't make it to a national outlet.

And then Dean made it a point to invite Aziz, and now yourself, to contribute to his blog, because he wants a diverse community where intelligent voices from every viewpoint and background can be heard. He didn't invite you as "token Muslims", else he would exercise control over what you write; but your perspectives and experiences as Muslims are definitely a part of the value you bring to this conversation. I've learned a lot from both of you, perhaps especially when I disagree with you.

And Lord knows, Dean has caught all sorts of grief and even lost readers and possibly friends for his tireless efforts to confront, mock, and discredit genuine Islamophobia of every sort. He steadfastly believes that alienating moderate Muslims is a horrible error, because we need you on our side against the kooks. And for that, he gets mocked, and some commenters go out of their way to point out what they perceive as his naivete at every chance they get.

So if you want to go to some corners of the center-right blogosphere and complain that they don't care about moderate Muslims, go ahead. I still think you're off base, and should try to work with them to get your message out. Some of them might surprise you. Still, you might have a case there.

But to come to Dean's World and make that complaint makes me wonder whether you have any idea what Dean's about at all. I gotta tell you, it's pretty discouraging for a guy like me, who's trying to open my mind and understand more, to see a guy like Dean get tarred with this particular brush. If there's one non-Muslim out there who's trying to help moderate Muslims and non-Muslims to understand each other and learn to work together against a common enemy and toward common goals, it's Dean Esmay.