Pipes recently spoke in Toronto. I didn’t attend the event but Blogwrath did.
(Blogwrath is one of those fellows who escaped Communist persecution and therefore has a rather — to polite Canadian ears — tart, candid impatience with cant.)
The audience sensed that they were receiving inadequate answers. After all, theorizing about the possible evolution of Islam on the day when in London two Muslim savages beheaded a British soldier in broad daylight is not the best way to address the threat of Islam or Islamism.
The lively discussion and the concerns of the people who showed up at the event were the most interesting part of it. That was when real issues were brought up and that video is much more interesting. (…)
The last round of the argument was started by a guy who had a very simple question – where are the moderate Muslims? What happens in the Muslim world is shocking – if let’s say 10% of the Christians are violent, there will be huge outcry. Churches and governments would be condemning the violence. That doesn’t happen in Islam, where the extremists are supposedly 10%.
Daniel Pipes responded by pointing at the moderate Muslims in the room (Raheel Raza, Tahir Gora, Salim Mansur). There is a strong faction of them in Ontario. We need to find and help them all over the world. (Frankly, that was far from convincing and the person who asked didn’t buy it.)
He said that was wonderful but that’s not the point. We are told there are many moderate Muslims and that appears not to be true.
Finally, Pipes, visibly irritated, made his final estimate – Islamists are 10-15%, the moderates are 1-2% and the vast majority are in between.
