New York University professor Irshad Manji, who describes herself as both a lesbian and a Muslim, goes where President Obama disdains to tread–Manji says that the Orlando massacre was at least partially motivated by Islamic radicalism and that this has ramifications for moderate Muslims.
She was interviewed on CNN but Hot Air has both the interview and astute comments on what Manji said:
CNN asks Manji what she thinks about Omar Mateen’s radicalization and the subsequent claims by moderate Muslim groups that the shooting had nothing to do with Islam. Even as the host asks this question, Manji rolls her eyes. “So moderate Muslims use the Mantra ‘this has nothing to do with Islam’ because they are not willing to face the fact that there are regressive verses in the Koran,” she tells CNN.
“And by the way, I speak as a faithful Muslim, as somebody who chooses to remain within my faith because I love it enough to point out that there are ways to reform how we practice Islam so that it really is a religion of peace,” Manji continues.
“But when moderate Muslims say this has nothing to do with Islam, that is rubbish. After all, here was this gunman who shouted ‘Allahu akbar!’—God is greater. Now, that doesn’t mean that he was motivated only by religion but clearly there was some religious symbolism that helped incite this incident.
“And so, frankly, moderate Muslims—who are not so moderate today—have to own up to the fact that we have got a problem in our community. And until we solve it with honesty, we will only see more damage done.”
In the first segment of the interview Ms. Manji did talk about shifting attitudes towards gun control, which, as Hot Air notes, is what you would expect from a professor. It is the second half (from which above quotes come) that is the bombshell.
In his speech after Orlando, a speech in which many straw men were slain, President Obama said it wouldn't be "magic" for him to use the dread words "radical Islamic terrorism." Nobody said it would work magic. But why does the president persist in refusing to see what Ms. Manji sees? John Podhoretz has a great column on this.
Podhoretz points out that rather than putting Omar Mateen in the context of the killings at Paris' Bataclan club, the Boston Marathon attack, or the Fort Hood slaughter, he invoked the shootings at the school in Newtown, Conn., and at the Aurora movie theatre in Colorado. Podhoretz observes:
Both of these mass shootings were the work of schizophrenic madmen, not determined fifth columnists. Indeed, to make the comparison to Adam Lanza of Newtown and James Holmes of Aurora all but explicit, Obama described Mateen not as a jihadist but as a “single deranged person.”
The president did so because he doesn’t want us to view Mateen as a volunteer in a war against the United States in which he served as a combatant against a cleverly chosen soft target. He wants us to view Mateen as another psychotic American with improper access to dangerous weaponry.
Rubbish.