Monday, January 09, 2017

Better Cop, Ignorant, or Psychologically Compromised?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4Lb-6rxZxx0/maxresdefault.jpg

These are the only three choices that would reasonably explain the behavior and words of Zineb El Rhazoui, a 34-year-old female Moroccan Muslim, sociologist and journalist, who worked for Charlie Hebdo, and recently quit in protest of their capitulation to "Islamist extremists".

To the Counter-Jihad Softy, of course, she would be praised as a "reformer" who is "finding her way out of Islam" or who, as an example, offers us hope about an uncertain number of Muslims out there (the number is never pinned down, but it is implied to be large enough to make a difference to the problem of Islam that threatens our collective existence).  Indeed, Jihad Watch has featured her twice in two reports -- here and here; entirely uncritical reports, of course (and, naturally, while some of the Counter-Jihad civilians in the comments sections notice the cognitive dissonance in Zineb, none of them follow the logic of the dissonance to confront the problem head-on).

The only problem is statements Zineb makes which, like squaring a circle, or 2 + 2 = 5, don't add up.  One example that comes to our attention is what she told an interviewer back in October of 2016 (the same article the Jihad Watchers read in the first report linked above, so they have no excuse).  In the context of speaking about her situation, of having to be under 24-hour protection because "Islamists" want to kill her, she elaborates:

And if you call them by their names you are Islamophobic and racist. I am racist? I can teach them a few things about Arab culture. I can show them how to discover its richness and the diversity of their culture. I believe this culture deserves universality because you can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker.”

Did you catch that?  Zineb believes that "you can be... Muslim and a free thinker".  (And she says many more dubious things that, were the Counter-Jihad to have more rigorous standards, would not pass muster anymore.)

Either she is ignorant of her own Islam; she is psychologically compromised; or she is a stealth jihadist in the cleverer form of the Better Cop, hoping her audience of Westerners will be egregiously naive (and, alas, most of them are).

Door #1 seems unlikely.  There doesn't seem to be any evidence or reason (other than our anxious need to avoid assuming Door #3) to assume Door #2.  That leaves us Door #3.

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