From THE JERUSALEM POST May. 9, 2007, by Daniel Pipes....
....moderate Muslims are no myth.
In Pakistan, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated on April 15 in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, protesting plans of a powerful mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, to establish a parallel court system based on Islamic law, the Shari'a.
....In Turkey, more than a million moderate Muslims in four marches protested the bid of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take over the presidency of the republic, giving it control over the two top government offices (the other being the prime ministry, currently filled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan).
....a young woman carrying a huge Turkish flag, explained that the crowd was Muslim and believed in Islam, but didn't want Islam "to become our whole way of life." ....
....Nor are the masses alone in resisting AKP's Islamists. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer warned that, for the first time since 1923, when the secular republic came into being, its pillars "are being openly questioned" and inveighed against the imposition of a soft Islamist state, predicting that it would turn extremist. Onur ymen, deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party, cautioned that the AKP's taking the presidency would "upset all balances" and create a very dangerous situation. The military - Turkey's ultimate powerbroker - issued two statements reinforcing this assessment. On April 12, the chief of staff, Gen. Mehmet Ya-ar B y kanıt, expressed his hope that "someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic - not just in words but in essence - is elected president." ....
....Is it not telling that great numbers of moderate Muslims see danger where so many non-Muslims are blind? Do developments in Pakistan and Turkey not confirm my oft-repeated point that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution? And do they not suggest that ignorant non-Muslim busybodies should get out of the way of those moderate Muslims determined to relegate Islamism to its rightful place in the dustbin of history?
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