A number of brave Muslims have spoken up against Islamist totalitarianism. And then there are the others — like Sa'id ibn Nasser Al—Ghamdi. Al—Ghamdi was awarded the highest university honors for his 1988 doctoral dissertation at the Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia — Ibn Saud being of course the founder of the Saudi royal dynasty. Al Ghamdi's dissertation provides the legal justification for killing more than 200 Muslim intellectuals.
Muslim reformers are upset — and no wonder. According to the Middle East Media Reserach Institute (MEMRI):
"Egyptian poet and literary critic 'Abdallah Al—Samti ... said: 'The most dangerous thing in this book is its outright call to murder, and the fact that it legitimizes the killing of Arab intellectuals..."
And Dr. Shaker Al—Nabulsi, a Jordanian—American, has protested to King Abdallah that
"The university that granted a degree to a cultural butcher like Sa'id Al—Ghamdi has become a cultural slaughterhouse in which more than 200 modern Arab intellectuals have been slaughtered and skinned..."
American liberals still shed tears for the heroes of Hollywood, who were blacklisted during the McCarthy period, fifty years go. But there were no wild—eyed terrorists cruising the Hollywood Hills looking to murder them with AK—47s. The real heroes we need to celebrate are not Stalinists of 50 years ago. It is the Islamic reformers of today.
Harold Pinter recently assaulted the Bush Administration for liberating Iraq, in his Nobel Prize address for literature. Yet every day we read of scores of innocent Muslims being slaughtered by Islamic fascists in Iraq. They count on the moral support of such as Harold Pinter.
Something is deeply wrong with a culture that celebrates intellectual corruption and ignores real heroes — those who are risking their lives bringing real change to the Middle East.
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