The Uncomfortable Truth
Tony Blair thinks we are in a battle of ideas according to this news report:
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Saturday the "evil ideology" of al Qaeda must be pulled up by the roots as the death toll from last week's London subway and bus bombings rose to 55.
Within Britain, we must join up with our Muslim community to take on the extremists," Blair said in a speech in London. "Worldwide, we should confront it everywhere it exists."
That sounds good doesn't it? Not exactly Churchillian but a nice sentiment.
What he doesn't say, or at least it isn't reported, is exactly what new and different ideas must be articulated to dissuade the terrorists from pursuing their murderous aims.
The 7/7 terrorists were educated in Great Britain. They experienced fully all aspects of life within a democratic, civilized, modern, secular and pluralistic society. And they rejected it.
There was no failure to communicate. They simply didn't want what we have to offer. I don't know what more could be said or done to have changed their minds.
What it seems to me that no one wants to talk about --what everyone is uncomfortable admitting because we're supposed to think it's so otherworldly and vaguely nonsensical-- is that the terrorists believe they are on a mission ordained by God.
We cringe at confronting this reality because we are so well trained to be tolerant and understanding of other people's religious beliefs. This is easy enough to do when the religious practice seems ordinary and predictable and not involving a threat to our personal safety. We might snicker or shake our heads at some more esoteric practices such as handling snakes in a church service in W. Virginia or worshipping Haile Selassie, but we accept our obligation to be non-judgmental and respectful.
I don't know of any idea we can offer an Al Qaeda terrorist except to say you are wrong about your God and what he expects you to do. And what radical Muslim terrorist is going to listen to that when he's been taught he is a Holy Warrior and that God wants him to kill himself in the cause of killing many others, most especially those who tell him he is wrong?
posted by Presley Bennett @ 7/17/2005
4 comments
4 Comments:
You are soooo right. A teacher of mine used to say "open mindedness is all well and good, but never be so open minded that your brains fall out."
Have we taken tolerance to the point where we are now asked to tolerate the intolerant?
We comfort ourselves with the statistic (I don't know where it comes from) that only 1% of Muslims are "radicalized", yet that still leaves us with 12,000,000 out of an estimated 1.2 billion. Kathleen Parker wrote of this recently. Personally, I am not comforted - quite the contrary. A very small percentage of a very large number is still an alarming number of people who embrace this madness.
Other than mass conversion to Islam and turning our western governments over to Islamic law there is simply no way to appease them. Both Bush and Blair have been careful to claim that we are not engaged in a war on Islam, but most certainly Islam is engaged in a war on us.
I will use the "Nazi" analogy, but only in terms of mathmatics. How many Germans were actually Nazi "true believers" and actively subscribed to the mad ideology? I would suspect very few, and Germany was a country of some 90 million people. In fact, a good portion of Hitler's generals who were professional military men (Rommel in particular) saw Hitler for exactly what he was and had little taste for genocide. Nonetheless, history is what it is and that "very small percentage" were ultimately responsible for 50-60 million deaths in Europe alone. Germany wasn't the problem and the German people weren't the problem, the ideology was the problem. To eliminate the problem, it was necessary to go after the host and in the end, it was necessary for the German people to see their folly and reject the ideology.
It is arguable that Islam itself provides a fertile breeding ground for these radicals. What is apparant though, is that only Muslims can purge this cancer from the Muslim body politic. If, indeed, Islam is a "religion of peace" Muslims must excise this cult of death from their midst, we cannot do it for them. Their reticence toward introspection and reluctance to criticize a fellow Muslim simply hands power to the very worst among them.
Neither I, or any other rational person embraces a wholesale war on Islam. On the other hand, our country and our culture are threatened and we are presented with a very stark choice. Radical Islam is simply not compatable with western culture and Muslims must either realize this or be prepared to face the consequences.
I'm not convinced even Muslims who don't agree with the terrorists can really do anything to stop them. As I understand the ideology, a terrorist is free to kill a Muslim who is considered an apostate, i.e., someone who isn't following the true path. But it would certainly help if Muslims stopped romanticising and justifying suicide bombers when they otherwise approve the cause, such as the Israel/Palestinian conflict. It's so depraved when you think of it, to encourage someone to sacrifice himself while you stand on the sidelines and cheer.
As an infidel, I am ill-suited to speak as to how this connundrum can be resolved, but speak I must.
Yes, I agree that "Islam" is a very loose knit group that is hard to get a handle on, but I do think that are some positive steps "mainstream" Muslims can take. As you said, refraining from romanticizing these monsters would help greatly, but understanding that the radicals are a far greater threat to their faith than "infidels" would be be a giant step. Currently in Iraq, Iraqis are being slaughtered indescriminately by radical bombers and it appears that many Iraqis are beginning to see the light. Many are even turning these people over to Iraqi and American troops.
Then again, you correctly point out that Muslims killing Mulims for the crime of apostasy is certainly nothing new. Therein lies much of the problem.
Yes, much of what I expect comes easily to my western mind and not so easily to an eastern mind that has been steeped in Islamic thought for centuries. I am the first to admit that.
I think that it was Golda Meir who said that peace would only come to the Arab-Israeli conflct when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews-and, might I add, the infidels.
Oh, and by the way, here is an interesting post on this very subject (if you haven't seen it already.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004976.php
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