I’ve been saying for years that normal, non-crazy Christians need to start publicly speaking out against the fringe crazies. By failing to do so, they’re allowing the vocal minority to command the dialogue and claim unchallenged representation. If you don’t reject James Dobson, then he really can claim to be the voice of Christian America.
I was reminded of this by a new story regarding efforts by Britan’s Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism to fight extremist Islam with SEO, which ought to raise the eyebrows of anyone involved with web development. SEO is Search Engine Optimization, the practice of sculpting a website’s content to rank higher in search engines (really Google, the only one anyone cares about, but I digress).
This is amazing to me on several levels. First, that it comes from Britain — not a nation that I would associate with progressive (or even intelligent) law enforcement practices of late. Also… holy nerdgasm. For all the yammering about “cyber crime” and futurism and crap, this is an amazing application of web technology for real positive cultural change.
But mostly I’m impressed that rather than using these SEO techniques to push government propaganda, they’re attempting to assist moderate Islamics. Unbeknownst to most Westerners, Wahabbism is far from the only school of Muslim philosophy; just as the crazy Christian conservatives have held a steel grip on the soap box for the past thirty years, moderate Muslims have mostly been quiet and minded their own business while the Wahabbists have tried to prove to the world that Islam is a religion of violence and medievalism. (Fast Food Wahabbism — excellent editorial on the topic.) If this pans out, moderate Islam might have a chance at recommanding the dialogue.
