Visit this blog "SI_Blog" to find some interesting statements from the St. Petersburg Declaration. The declaration was made in a summit among "believers and non-believers" to start what they call "the next Islamic enlightenment".
I don't know why I feel inconvenient about this blog. I don't know many of them. Some are Muslims some are not. As far as I know, they are not well known Muslim intellectuals or activists. I know Irshad Manji only because I once read her interesting and critical article in the International Herald Tribune. I like the article anyway.
The problem with this ambitious project, "the next Islamic enlightenment starts now" is who their audience is, whom their speak to.
To begin with, most of them are very critical to the establishment, this is fine to me but not to many Muslim. Some of them, unfortunately, are non-Muslims. If their audience are Muslims, I can tell, they failed from the very beginning.
A moderate and very open minded milist of American Muslims that I am joined calls this summit as anti-Muslim Summmit. I don't share this designation, but my point is that if a moderate can use this word, needless to say that the radical and conservative Muslim can't agree more.
To be honest I share some ideas they promote; but I totally do not agree with the way they start the enlightment.
I juts wonder how they can proudly post Ayaan Hirsi Ali's endorsement on their blog. She is no more than a fundamentalist secularist who embrace secularism as fanatic as new convert to Islam who eagerly join al-Qaeda. She does not believe in Islam and how can one expect an enlightened Muslim from her? She is only good if their audience are non-Muslim America.
So, I think, the fittest audience for their enlightment is only themselves, not a wider Muslim world.
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