True, liberalism
everywhere gestures towards the supposed horrors of an alternative political
order in order to justify itself, but in the west these days it usually does so
with power on its
side. Muslim liberals, on the other hand, not only possess little power in
their own right, they have also been unable thus far to stage the spectacular
acts of sacrifice that mobilise people for a cause - acts of the kind that
militants are so adept at performing. These sacrificial acts need not even be
violent to be effective, as Gandhi and after him Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela demonstrated so
well through the entire course of the 20th century. Perhaps liberals are
incapable of staging such spectacles, given their devotion to protecting interests
rather than sacrificing them, which is why liberalism has always come to power
on the back of far more radical movements dedicated to religion, revolution or
revenge.