Revamping of Islam in the image of neocons

[Bakar]

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

 

“Direct confrontation and military conquest are now secondary tools to dominate cultures and markets. Habits and lifestyles are primary targets of change in order to guarantee an open market based on a free consumer who has an open mind.â€

 

This premise sets the tone of the agenda-driven study of Rand Corporation, a Washington-based think tank, about Islam and Muslims. The study, titled “Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies,†is written by Cheryl Benard, a sociologist and fiction writer.

 

As US Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, a leading newcon, confided on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003: "We need an Islamic reformation and I think there is real hope for one." The Rand Study, released on March 18, 2004, apparently unveils the newcons’ plan for global revamping of Islam.

 

Cheryl Benard, arguing that Islam is not necessarily a very “accessible†religion, arbitrarily compartmentalizes the 1.4 billion Muslims into four categories depending on their degree of affinity for Western values and concepts:

 

1. Fundamentalists , who reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture.

2. Traditionalists , who want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation, and change.

3. Modernists , who want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity. They want to modernize and reform Islam to bring it into line with the age.

4. Secularists , who want the Islamic world to accept a division of church and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere.

 

Although Benard arbitrarily divides all Muslims into four categories – fundamentalists, traditionalists, modernists and secularists – but pay attention to what’s there, but not spelt out. For her objectives all Muslims, except modernists, are virtually the same.

 

 

Source: http://www.amperspective.com/html/americanization_of_islam.html