I want to inject a little seriousness into the forum. Islam's Silent Moderates This is a brilliant topical op-ed in the NY Times by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, asking the question why if Islam is supposedly made up of a majority of moderate Muslims, there is a deafening silence every time there is reported some sort of grave injustice from the Muslim world. I certainly agree with her. Where are all the hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims speaking out when a gang-rape victim is sentenced to 200 lashes? I also seems that Muslims are not so moderate as the PC Brigade would like us to believe, considering that research in 2004 showed that almost 70% of Muslims in major Islamic countries support suicide bombing in some form. If you want to know more of Ms. Hirsi Ali, here is the Wikipedia Article about her Ayaan Hirsi Ali She was born into a fundamentalist Muslim family in Somalia and after fleeing to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage, she became an outspoken Ahteist and critic of Islam having written books and made films critical of Islam. She had to go into hiding in 2004 after her collaborator on the film Submission, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist and she started to receive credible threats to her life. Currently she is living almost as a hermit because her location has to be kept secret at all times and she has to have 24 hour a day bodyguards and she has to regularly switch addresses. This off course costs an astronomical amount of money, which until recently was paid for by the Dutch government but this was stopped recently (except in the Netherlands itself). This doesn't help her much as she currently works in the U.S. In reaction to this, Sam Harris started a trust to help fund her security expenses. If you wish to donate to this most noble of causes, click on this link. You will be helping to protect a peerless crusader for the rights of women and to a lesser extent gays and non-believers in the Islamic world.
