Academic liberal intellectual Clay Shirky, of whom I have been a fan, goes rather too far implicating “gays” and Irshad Manji in his plea for liberal intellectuals to stick up for U.S. Muslims. We’ll think about doing that once they provably begin to stick up for us. (This very much is a litmus test.) Shirky and I have rather different definitions of “we” and “us,” which is the operative problem in this discussion.
I wonder if Shirky, who in the same piece defends Park51, will endorse Manji’s questions about same:
Will the swimming pool at Park51 be segregated between men and women at any time of the day or night?
May women lead congregational prayers any day of the week?
Will Jews and Christians, fellow People of the Book, be able to use the prayer sanctuary for their services just as Muslims share prayer space with Christians and Jews in the Pentagon? [...]
What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy?
Where does one sign up for advance tickets to Salman Rushdie’s lecture at Park51?
Shirky seems oblivious to the fact that, in the fervent desires of Muslim extremists, liberal intellectuals’ heads will be cleaved from their bodies at the righteous blade of a sword. We’ll be first, then the Jews, than apostates like him, and that’s the only way he, Manji, and us are related in this discussion. As for Muslim nonextremists: Well, sword’s in their court.