It's The Religion

Even more than the Geek the Geekness is bothered by the reluctance of senior American officials among many others to acknowledge the role played by Islam in the wars currently underway throughout the world. The Geekness has a much closer acquaintance with the power of religion to influence deeply the worldview and behavior of young people than does the Geek for whom the dynamic has always been a matter of intellectual curiosity only.

The other day the Geek posted on the continuum which takes political movements from Islamic to Islamist to Islamist jihadist with limited goals and ends to Islamist jihadist with global goals. It is similar but not identical to the process described long ago by Crane Britton to describe the leftward movement of the French and other revolutions. The processes in both cases are facilitated by the existence of external pressure whether military or non-violent but still coercive in intent. This leads to the maxim: Pressure consolidates long, long before it fractures.

In the post the Geek commented that Islam is a religion by and for warriors without superior in the faiths of humankind. The Koran celebrates both war and the virtues presumed to characterize the warrior. Mohammad, the Perfect Man, was a successful military leader--and a profligate spiller of blood. The Faith which the Prophet and his Companions brought to Mecca spread by the sword across an enormous swath of the Western and, ultimately, the Eastern world.

The warriors of the scimitar and Koran proved superior in both political will and pure military capacity to the Crusaders of the two handed sword and Bible. The warrior power of Islam propelled its believers to the walls of Constantinople and finally to the walls of Vienna where the crest of the flood broke and receded.

Islam promises eschatological rewards to those of the Faith who die in battle against either the infidel or the apostate. The promises are in the sacred literature. They were not later additions tacked on by ambitious religious leaders as they were in Christianity.

It is the eschatological dimension which assures not only that there will be an inherent appeal by Islamist jihadism to young men but that the appeal will be far stronger, far more pervasive, and far less easy to defeat in battle than the secular promises of ideologies whether Fascist, Nazi, or Communist. To enjoy the benefits promised by the secular ideologies, one must stay alive for all such ideologies are present life based. The eschatological rewards are to be provided in the life after life.

That is one very powerful difference between what the US and other countries are facing today and the foes fought and defeated in the past. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, both hostilities termination and conflict resolution are easier to achieve with an opponent who is present life oriented than one who looks to the life beyond the present one.

It is a commonplace that youth is attracted to causes larger than the self. The search for personal identity, worth, and meaning which typifies the years of adolescence and early adulthood is both bolstered and challenged by the need to belong to something larger, much larger than one's self. It is this universal experience which makes youth notoriously idealistic, ever ready and eager to embrace a large enough cause, a cause which demands much of the self and promises much in return.

The Geekness reminded the Geek of the tales of martyrdom for the faith which characterized so much of the American landscape during the Fifties. She related the tales heard day after day in the parochial school she attended about the way in which Christians were tortured, imprisoned, and killed by the "godless commies" of yore. She noted that many of her age both in and out of parochial environments embraced the idea of being "martyred" for belief with great enthusiasm.

On reflection the Geek recalled the mood of the day as well. He remembered and then researched the literature of the early Cold War including the stories which decorated that ancient universal publication, My Weekly Reader. The notion--and the appeal--of standing up, dying if necessary for belief were both omnipresent and powerful as a source of both worldview and behavior. The view and the behavior need not be Christian to be sure, but they were demanded of youth, by youth, and gave rise to much of what we look back on as the raging wonder decade, the Sixties.

If that dynamic was so prevalent and powerful within the semi-secular suburban middle class youth coming of age during the Cold War, then how much more compelling must be the beliefs of Islam and the far more demanding Islamist jihadism to the youth not only of the Mideast or Central Asia but the West and the US as well. Islam in and of itself is a very potent creator of a sense of community, an anodyne for anonymity, an answer to perceived impotency. Islamist jihadism due to its emphasis on war and martyrdom is far more so.

The notion of putting one's life on the line for a belief--for the meaning that belief brings to one's life--has an appeal in and of itself. When the demand is accompanied by the promise of a very great eschatological reward, it is irresistible--at least to some.

Not all Muslims need nor desire the attractions, the promises, the assumed rewards emphasized by the purveyors of Islamism and jihadism. The assorted surveys conducted by many different organizations over the past few years make that clear. It is a fact which is both real and irrelevant.

Islamist jihadists are drawn from a small percentage of all Muslims to be sure. The youth for whom the challenge and message of Islamist jihadism has both meaning and attraction may represent only a small fraction of all Muslims, but as events of recent months in countries as disparate as Somalia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and the US have proven, it is a sufficiently large fraction as to be a very real problem.

True Belief as Eric Hoffer pointed out over a half century ago is potent because it provides an adherent with a personal identity, and, with that, a sense of belonging, of worth, of purpose, of cosmic meaning. Secular ideologies have capitalized upon this psychological reality.

So have religions. Christianity and Judaism have and do make use of the idealistic and searching nature of youth. Of these two, one does not promise eternal reward (or punishment) as a portion of its doctrine and the other makes no specific mention of the special rewards accruing to those who die in combat against the infidel and apostate.

Islam does so provide. And, Islamist jihadism emphasizes, perhaps to an exaggerated extent, the rewards to self and family of martyrdom in war. It gives both substance and reality to the oft repeated claim of Islamists that, "We love death more than the others love life."

That is why the crux of the war between the Islamist jihadists and the rest of the world's people is one of religion, not economics, nor political disenfranchisement, nor lack of social status, nor absence of "opportunity" (whatever that means), nor any of the other sociological and psychological explanations so glibly offered by regiments of academic, journalistic, and political "experts."

It's not the economy. It's not politics. It's not the Israeli "occupation." It's not the presence of American troops in the Mideast or Northwest Asia.

It's the religion, stupid.

As Allah wills.