The Geek has an admission. Norman Podhoeritz scares the pippin, doublet, and hose off of him. The seventy-seven year old granddad of the neocon ninnies of the current administration as well as the hyper-hawks surrounding Rudy Giuliani is in full chest-beating, testosterone fury over Iran.
According to the UK's Telegraph on-line, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wbomb127.xml, Podhoeritz "thinks the unthinkable and speaks the unspeakable." That's sure nice. And, to some extent useful.
Of course the neocon clan elder is far from the only person to do just that. Years ago, Herman Khan, the founder of the Hudson Institute, wrote and spoke at length about nuclear war. He even titled a book, Thinking the Unthinkable. It gave the few folks who read it the shivers--and reasons to think harder and better about the taboo-in-polite-circles topic of nuclear war and the potential reality of mutually assured destruction.
In a very small way, the Geek has done the same in past years, challenging policy makers and executors alike to realise just how easy it is not to win in counterinsurgencies and akin stability operations. Like the (un)jolly fatman of the Hudson Institute, the Geek's goal was to get people to think deeper and better about the unique nature of a particular type of war.
That goal, it appears to the Geek, is not uppermost in Podhoeritz' mind--if it exists at any level there.
At some point decades ago, Mr Podhoeritz had an epiphany concerning his opposition to the Vietnam War which resulted in a lucidly argued mea culpa that still resides on the Geek's bookshelves. From that moment on, the gentleman under consideration became a neo-conservative. One of the most warlike coloration.
Therein lies the tragedy.
Mr Podhoeritz became one of those whom Eric Hoffer described more than fifty years ago with startling and fear-provoking clarity. The True Believer.
True Believers are very dangerous people. History shows that. So do recent events. Osama bin Laden is a True Believer. So were those who flew the passenger filled cruise missiles into the Pentagon and Twin Towers.
True Believers search for any facts, the slightest hint of a factoid even, which seem to support their belief and its expressions. All else is disregarded as heresy at best, counterfactual at worst.
As a result Mr Podhoeritz places an emphasis, an emphasis beyond all rational calculation, upon the necessity to execute massive air attacks using both manned and unmanned platforms upon Iranian targets. While Mr Podhoeritz might be willing to settle for striking the nuclear facilities, the Geek is convinced that his real desire is the complete obliteration of Iran as a functioning polity, economy, and society.
Mr Podhoeritz blithely assumes that the strikes could be delivered quickly, without any warning, and would be effective. He is probably correct in the first two portions of his assumption.
The further consequences of the action apparently are of no interest to him. Yet it is precisely in these that the dangers for us and the rest of the world exist.
As Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of previous wars show clearly, Clausewitz was right: No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
In his carefree attitude to the "day after" Mr Podhoeritz is one with the neocon ninnies who gave no realistic thought to what would happen after we deposed Saddam in Iraq or Sheik Omar in Afghanistan. In this fantasyland approach to war planning and fighting, Mr Podhoeritz, Vice-President Cheney, former SecDef Rumsfeld, and the deep thinking crew in the Pentagon almost equal the brain dead Adolph Hitler with his totally unnecessary and utterly counterproductive declaration of war on the US in December 1941.
The True Believer world view of Mr Podhoeritz and his ilk as well as their demonstrated influence in the current administration is what has increasingly alienated, not to say scared the hell out of, the European governments who initially took our part in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They are what has given rise to the increasingly oppositional posture of Vladimir Putin and the mandarinate in China.
By now even the Israeli government and public ought to be getting nervous over the impact of the Podhoeritz type True Believers. In the (hopefully remote) eventuality that the US gives reality to Mr Podhoeritz's unthinkable thoughts and unspeakable words, Israel will be in the impact zone. There is no way that any conceivable US air campaign will so defang or so demoralize the Iranian regime and those of similar mind that there will be no response.
The response is (quite) likely to make 9/11 and its aftermaths look like a flower power gathering out of the Sixties. The full menu of options available to the survivors in Tehran is extensive.
Mr Podhoeritz has written of Islamofacism and the World War IV between the Islamists and the West. The Geek found some merit in some of the man's arguments.
Call it World War IV or the Second Cold War, it doesn't matter. But, a firm grip must be kept on the fundamental reality that Cold Wars are not won by air strikes. They are won by a firm line, backed by the willingness to use minimal appropriate force for narrowly conceived goals over time. They are won not by bluster and bombs but by political will maintained over generations if need be.
Mr Podhoeritz, try thinking about this unthinkable. Cold Wars are won by outlasting the enemy, by outlasting his political will, by showing over time that the world view he espouses is inferior to yours. We won the last cold war this way. We won by allowing him to lose faith in his god.
That may not be emotionally satisfying to a True Believer. It is however intellectually warming to a realpolitiker.
Showing posts with label Islamofascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamofascism. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
(Islamo)fascism--We've Seen It All Before
Norman Podhoretz has written a new book. Comments concerning it have been bouncing around the blogosphere. (The title is World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamophobia.)
Even though Mr Podhoretz is the Godfather of the Neocons, the Geek is inclined to align himself with much in this effort. Much of the thrust of Poehoretz's effort can be accurately characterized as seeing the current struggle between the West and the ideology of Islamisim as being a Second Cold War. That has long been the Geek's view.
So, what's bothering the Geek?
The use of the term "fascism." You have to remember that the Geek is a product of the Sixties. During that decade the words "fascism" and "fascist" were used by many to disparage anyone whose social and political views were to the right of far, far left.
Fascist and fascism are still used so loosely that their meanings are blurred to the point of disappearance. That's what is rankling the Geekmo.
Let's go to the videotape.
Fascism and its derivatives is an English translation of an Italian term which came into currency during the 1920s in this country. The initiating event was the March on Rome by Mussolini and his Blackshirts.
The March ended with Mussolini in power as prime minister and the Fascist Party seen by many in Europe and the United States as having saved Italy from socialism and chaos. The Fascists with slogans extolling "obedience," "nation," "work," "sacrifice," and "progress" were widely hailed on both sides of the Atlantic.
When the Great Depression hit hard in the early Thirties, Americans saw Fascism as a possible salvation for the economic crises and the resulting socio-political turbulence. Certainly most Americans saw Mussolini's fascists as a lesser evil than the Bolsheviks of Lenin and Stalin.
The anti-materialistic rhetoric of the Italian fascists along with their tub-thumping on behalf of family values, religion, and self-sacrifice resonated with many Americans. Not even the hyper-nationalistic militarism of so many of Mussolini's speeches chilled the affection for Fascism felt by so many Americans of the discontented middle class or the fearful upper class.
A close scrutiny of both the practices of Italian fascism and the American perception of these shows several high profile features. Italian fascism was authoritarian, anti-democratic, and subordinated the individual to the needs of the state. It was anti-libertarian. Fascism was intensely nationalistic with a broad interpretation of the nature and extent of the Italian nation It was expansionistic, militaristic.
Critical observers of Italy and the American fascination with Mussolini's movement noted that fascism had much in common with Soviet communism. They correctly emphasized that both were dictatorial internal security states which relied on a mix of internally directed semi-messianic propaganda and brute force to keep the population marching in the appointed direction.
That was true. As far as it went. There were overlooked differences though. Fascism was inherently backward looking. It asked and answered a question which had high emotional appeal and factual irrelevance.
The question?
Once we were so great. Now we are so small. Why?
Fascism Italian style categorically held that by returning to the abandoned ways of stern Roman ancestors, by forswearing soft, indolent practices like democracy, individualism, and the entire sweep of Nineteenth Century European Liberalism, Italy could recapture its former greatness. By sacrifice, obedience, family values, morality, and solidarity, Italians would stand tall and proud again.
The messages both explicit and implicit had powerful appeal to people who felt themselves betrayed by "history." People robbed of their greatness by "others." The words of fascism had an almost hypnotic effect on those who needed something to believe in, to join that was larger than the individual, inherently heroic. For the person who believed himself to be meaningless, marginalised, without a substantial future, fascism had the appearance of answers.
The messages, both explicit and implied, of Islamist ideology is very close to that of Italian fascism (and its clone National Socialism.) Islamists ask the same question as did the original Fascists. Islamists answer the question in a manner virtually identical to the Blackshirts.
Islamism and its militant expression, Jihadism, appeals emotionally to those who believe themselves to have been victimized by history, robbed of their past greatness by "others," and made impotent by imported decadence. For the guy who feels himself meaningless, pushed to the far fringe of life despite education or affluence of background, for the guy in need of a cause in which to submerge himself, Islamism has the appeal today that Fascism had seventy-five years ago.
The Islamist has powerful tools in his propaganda arsenal. He has the sense of injustice felt by many young men both in the Mideast and in either Europe or the United States. The Islamist can appeal to nationalism and to victimization whether actual or simply self-perceived. The Islamist can invoke family, the warrior tradition of the Mideast, and a sense of honor impugned.
And, the Islamist can use a mechanism denied the Fascists in recruiting, motivating, organizing and using the bodies and minds of men. Religion.
Islam, in common with other creedal religions, is filled with inconsistencies and ambiguities. The Holy Writ of Islam, as with other religions, allows even demands interpretation by humans. As a result, the Islamist has an advantage denied the Fascist. He's got the old time religion to use, whether he believes what he says or not.
In a very real and basic sense, the contest between Islamism and the West is a battle of ideology, of world view, of understandings of the relations between individuals as well as individual and state. The Islamist-West contest is the same as earlier struggles--the Cold War and World War II.
A quick, cursory consideration of the original Fascism shows that it is not unfair to apply the term to the Islamists. There are sufficient points of identity between fascism and Islamism to justify the linkage of the words.
Having conceded this, the Geek still is uncomfortable with the term. Not only is it intrinsically redundant, it allows an unnecessary and counterproductive conflation of Islam with fascism.
Islam isn't the enemy in the new Cold War. That distinction belongs to Islamism. It's practitioners, both Islamist and Jihadist, are the opponent. Not Muslims.
We have to keep a firm grip on that difference. If we don't, we will make more Islamists out of the Muslim population.
If we do remember the difference, we have the chance of isolating the Islamist and Jihadist sharks from the Muslim sea.
Even though Mr Podhoretz is the Godfather of the Neocons, the Geek is inclined to align himself with much in this effort. Much of the thrust of Poehoretz's effort can be accurately characterized as seeing the current struggle between the West and the ideology of Islamisim as being a Second Cold War. That has long been the Geek's view.
So, what's bothering the Geek?
The use of the term "fascism." You have to remember that the Geek is a product of the Sixties. During that decade the words "fascism" and "fascist" were used by many to disparage anyone whose social and political views were to the right of far, far left.
Fascist and fascism are still used so loosely that their meanings are blurred to the point of disappearance. That's what is rankling the Geekmo.
Let's go to the videotape.
Fascism and its derivatives is an English translation of an Italian term which came into currency during the 1920s in this country. The initiating event was the March on Rome by Mussolini and his Blackshirts.
The March ended with Mussolini in power as prime minister and the Fascist Party seen by many in Europe and the United States as having saved Italy from socialism and chaos. The Fascists with slogans extolling "obedience," "nation," "work," "sacrifice," and "progress" were widely hailed on both sides of the Atlantic.
When the Great Depression hit hard in the early Thirties, Americans saw Fascism as a possible salvation for the economic crises and the resulting socio-political turbulence. Certainly most Americans saw Mussolini's fascists as a lesser evil than the Bolsheviks of Lenin and Stalin.
The anti-materialistic rhetoric of the Italian fascists along with their tub-thumping on behalf of family values, religion, and self-sacrifice resonated with many Americans. Not even the hyper-nationalistic militarism of so many of Mussolini's speeches chilled the affection for Fascism felt by so many Americans of the discontented middle class or the fearful upper class.
A close scrutiny of both the practices of Italian fascism and the American perception of these shows several high profile features. Italian fascism was authoritarian, anti-democratic, and subordinated the individual to the needs of the state. It was anti-libertarian. Fascism was intensely nationalistic with a broad interpretation of the nature and extent of the Italian nation It was expansionistic, militaristic.
Critical observers of Italy and the American fascination with Mussolini's movement noted that fascism had much in common with Soviet communism. They correctly emphasized that both were dictatorial internal security states which relied on a mix of internally directed semi-messianic propaganda and brute force to keep the population marching in the appointed direction.
That was true. As far as it went. There were overlooked differences though. Fascism was inherently backward looking. It asked and answered a question which had high emotional appeal and factual irrelevance.
The question?
Once we were so great. Now we are so small. Why?
Fascism Italian style categorically held that by returning to the abandoned ways of stern Roman ancestors, by forswearing soft, indolent practices like democracy, individualism, and the entire sweep of Nineteenth Century European Liberalism, Italy could recapture its former greatness. By sacrifice, obedience, family values, morality, and solidarity, Italians would stand tall and proud again.
The messages both explicit and implicit had powerful appeal to people who felt themselves betrayed by "history." People robbed of their greatness by "others." The words of fascism had an almost hypnotic effect on those who needed something to believe in, to join that was larger than the individual, inherently heroic. For the person who believed himself to be meaningless, marginalised, without a substantial future, fascism had the appearance of answers.
The messages, both explicit and implied, of Islamist ideology is very close to that of Italian fascism (and its clone National Socialism.) Islamists ask the same question as did the original Fascists. Islamists answer the question in a manner virtually identical to the Blackshirts.
Islamism and its militant expression, Jihadism, appeals emotionally to those who believe themselves to have been victimized by history, robbed of their past greatness by "others," and made impotent by imported decadence. For the guy who feels himself meaningless, pushed to the far fringe of life despite education or affluence of background, for the guy in need of a cause in which to submerge himself, Islamism has the appeal today that Fascism had seventy-five years ago.
The Islamist has powerful tools in his propaganda arsenal. He has the sense of injustice felt by many young men both in the Mideast and in either Europe or the United States. The Islamist can appeal to nationalism and to victimization whether actual or simply self-perceived. The Islamist can invoke family, the warrior tradition of the Mideast, and a sense of honor impugned.
And, the Islamist can use a mechanism denied the Fascists in recruiting, motivating, organizing and using the bodies and minds of men. Religion.
Islam, in common with other creedal religions, is filled with inconsistencies and ambiguities. The Holy Writ of Islam, as with other religions, allows even demands interpretation by humans. As a result, the Islamist has an advantage denied the Fascist. He's got the old time religion to use, whether he believes what he says or not.
In a very real and basic sense, the contest between Islamism and the West is a battle of ideology, of world view, of understandings of the relations between individuals as well as individual and state. The Islamist-West contest is the same as earlier struggles--the Cold War and World War II.
A quick, cursory consideration of the original Fascism shows that it is not unfair to apply the term to the Islamists. There are sufficient points of identity between fascism and Islamism to justify the linkage of the words.
Having conceded this, the Geek still is uncomfortable with the term. Not only is it intrinsically redundant, it allows an unnecessary and counterproductive conflation of Islam with fascism.
Islam isn't the enemy in the new Cold War. That distinction belongs to Islamism. It's practitioners, both Islamist and Jihadist, are the opponent. Not Muslims.
We have to keep a firm grip on that difference. If we don't, we will make more Islamists out of the Muslim population.
If we do remember the difference, we have the chance of isolating the Islamist and Jihadist sharks from the Muslim sea.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Islam--Prejudice or Honesty?
Getting a grip on Islam and Muslims is worse than trying to take a firm hold on a flopping fish. Every time you think you've got a hold on the critter, it slips, slides and flips out of your hands.
The problem has two sources: The nature of Islam; the nature of tolerance and understanding in the US and throughout the Western world.
Islam is a deeply divided system of beliefs due to its origin as a political ideology with religious coloration as discussed in earlier posts. A major inconsistency exists between the earlier revelations when Mohammad was developing his movement and the later verses written after the violent conquest of the major cities of the Arabian Peninsula such as Mecca.
The early verses give rise to the oft-repeated portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and human unity. In this Islam is no different from more recent ideologies, most notably communism.
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro all spilled much ink and expended much wind on the proposition that desirable human virtues such as equality, individual development, the abolishment of poverty, disease and famine would accompany the success of the ideology. Ideologues, whether they cloak their wares in the will of God, or Historical Inevitability, all have the goal of attracting, retaining and mobilizing followers in order to achieve one goal.
The goal?
Power. Political power. The capacity to directly and significantly affect in a desired way the perceptions, beliefs and actions of a target population. The target population might be that of Russia. It might be the people of Cuba, or China. A long time ago it was the inhabitants of the desert wastes and the cities of Arabia.
Or the target population might be that of the world. The goal might be the enrolling of the entire human race under a single banner.
Of course history shows beyond even the most unreasonable doubt that sweetness and light, warm, fuzzy words might not do the job. The pen might not be as mighty as the cliche holds.
But, a pen backed by a sword is far more convincing. Unpleasant, but true. Take a grip on it.
The sword. It was the sword that won the Arabian peninsula for Mohammad and his Companions, his hard-core cadre. It was the sword which won so much more for Islam over the next century or so. It was the swinging of the red-edged sword which lurks behind the later verses of the Quran.
The later portions are the mother lode for fatwas, jihads, suicide bombings as well as the bodyguard of lies which can and does surround these overt hostile actions. It is the later verses which are the red meat for the fearful, the vengeful, and the authoritarians in the souk and the mosque.
Get a grip on this. Islam is a religion (or a politco-religious system, if you prefer) that is inherently authoritarian. It demands complete submission to the will of the deity as well as those qualified to instruct the mass as to the what the deity's will might be.
It is in the act of submission, the process of turning the course of a person's life over to the deity and the interpreters, that gives Islam (and, the Geek must point out if he's honest about it, other religious beliefs) it's appeal and power.
History and psychology agree on a few points. One of the most important is that most humans, most of the time, do not want to take responsibility for their own lives. Particularly they don't want to take responsibility for failure, bad decision making, or other negatives.
An authoritarian religion, any authoritarian social-political system or ideology for that matter, can relieve the individual of the unwanted burden of personal responsibility. It also can and does provide a suitable candidate, an Other, as the evil doer perpetrating all of life's miscarriages upon an individual. (For Nazis it was the Jews, for Communists it was the capitalists, and for Islamists it is the West and the apostates within.)
An authoritarian ideology whether religious or secular can, must, provide targets for frustration, failure, humiliation, for all the icky-poo components of life. To be really successful an authoritarian ideology must provide a vision of both paradise lost and paradise regained. It must blame the present situation on past failures of ideological purity and cohesiveness. It must promise that paradise will be regained if ideological purity and cohesiveness are practiced fully and completely.
An authoritarian ideology must play to fear, must harness fear, must insist that only through complete and absolute submission to the requirements of the ideology in belief, in speech and in action will the individual's fears be lessened.
Get a firm grip on this: Islam is an authoritarian religion, an authoritarian ideology, even a total institution as Goffman defined such nearly fifty years ago for many of its adherents. It plays to fear, encourages fear, stokes fear. At the same time it provides a message of hope, redemption and ultimate victory in both this world and the next. All that is required is total, utter submission.
A well known paradox of the human condition is that submission truly liberates. Surrender does make one free.
Another paradox is that enough fear makes an individual fearless. Fear God and dread nought is found in the Bible. An equivalent expression is in the Quran--repeatedly.
In Europe and the United States total wars of religious ideology are thankfully in the past. Westerners can afford to believe in the virtues of tolerance, open-mindedness, appreciation of cultural differences. We are quite used to the clamor of competing voices in the public square. We are by and large unbothered if churches, temples, synagogues and mosques border the public square.
Many of us who grew up in America during the worst days of the Cold War nonetheless believed that the attempts to limit speech, limit political action, limit the presence even of Communists and those close to Communism was wrong as grilled watermelon. We asked ourselves and each other, "If capitalism and democracy are so strong, so good, what are they afraid of? Why the censorship, the outlawing, the paranoia?"
There was never a good answer. There was never any real answer. None was possible. Now, more than ever, the generation of the Cold War's most frosty depths which now runs so much of the institutions in the US and the West doesn't want to be guilty of the same paranoiac closed mindedness as our parents and grandparents.
We don't want to think that 1.5 billion or so Muslims are all fear-ridden authoritarians ready to answer the call of jihad. We don't want to be seen as the moral and intellectual cripples that years ago we saw the older generation, "the establishment" to have been. We want ever so much to think as does Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article out in today's Salon www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/26/war_of_ideas/index.html? source=newsletter that Muslims are not uniformly wearing black hats. We want to believe that most Muslims reject the fatwas, the bombings, the jihad as much as we do.
The Geek is personally eager to accept the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving and peaceful; that those who live among us share our basic values, orientations, hopes and fears. But, his cynical historian's mind wonders, "Is desire enough?"
After all, the Geek recalls, it was Lenin who observed, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Are we selling rope today?
The problem has two sources: The nature of Islam; the nature of tolerance and understanding in the US and throughout the Western world.
Islam is a deeply divided system of beliefs due to its origin as a political ideology with religious coloration as discussed in earlier posts. A major inconsistency exists between the earlier revelations when Mohammad was developing his movement and the later verses written after the violent conquest of the major cities of the Arabian Peninsula such as Mecca.
The early verses give rise to the oft-repeated portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and human unity. In this Islam is no different from more recent ideologies, most notably communism.
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro all spilled much ink and expended much wind on the proposition that desirable human virtues such as equality, individual development, the abolishment of poverty, disease and famine would accompany the success of the ideology. Ideologues, whether they cloak their wares in the will of God, or Historical Inevitability, all have the goal of attracting, retaining and mobilizing followers in order to achieve one goal.
The goal?
Power. Political power. The capacity to directly and significantly affect in a desired way the perceptions, beliefs and actions of a target population. The target population might be that of Russia. It might be the people of Cuba, or China. A long time ago it was the inhabitants of the desert wastes and the cities of Arabia.
Or the target population might be that of the world. The goal might be the enrolling of the entire human race under a single banner.
Of course history shows beyond even the most unreasonable doubt that sweetness and light, warm, fuzzy words might not do the job. The pen might not be as mighty as the cliche holds.
But, a pen backed by a sword is far more convincing. Unpleasant, but true. Take a grip on it.
The sword. It was the sword that won the Arabian peninsula for Mohammad and his Companions, his hard-core cadre. It was the sword which won so much more for Islam over the next century or so. It was the swinging of the red-edged sword which lurks behind the later verses of the Quran.
The later portions are the mother lode for fatwas, jihads, suicide bombings as well as the bodyguard of lies which can and does surround these overt hostile actions. It is the later verses which are the red meat for the fearful, the vengeful, and the authoritarians in the souk and the mosque.
Get a grip on this. Islam is a religion (or a politco-religious system, if you prefer) that is inherently authoritarian. It demands complete submission to the will of the deity as well as those qualified to instruct the mass as to the what the deity's will might be.
It is in the act of submission, the process of turning the course of a person's life over to the deity and the interpreters, that gives Islam (and, the Geek must point out if he's honest about it, other religious beliefs) it's appeal and power.
History and psychology agree on a few points. One of the most important is that most humans, most of the time, do not want to take responsibility for their own lives. Particularly they don't want to take responsibility for failure, bad decision making, or other negatives.
An authoritarian religion, any authoritarian social-political system or ideology for that matter, can relieve the individual of the unwanted burden of personal responsibility. It also can and does provide a suitable candidate, an Other, as the evil doer perpetrating all of life's miscarriages upon an individual. (For Nazis it was the Jews, for Communists it was the capitalists, and for Islamists it is the West and the apostates within.)
An authoritarian ideology whether religious or secular can, must, provide targets for frustration, failure, humiliation, for all the icky-poo components of life. To be really successful an authoritarian ideology must provide a vision of both paradise lost and paradise regained. It must blame the present situation on past failures of ideological purity and cohesiveness. It must promise that paradise will be regained if ideological purity and cohesiveness are practiced fully and completely.
An authoritarian ideology must play to fear, must harness fear, must insist that only through complete and absolute submission to the requirements of the ideology in belief, in speech and in action will the individual's fears be lessened.
Get a firm grip on this: Islam is an authoritarian religion, an authoritarian ideology, even a total institution as Goffman defined such nearly fifty years ago for many of its adherents. It plays to fear, encourages fear, stokes fear. At the same time it provides a message of hope, redemption and ultimate victory in both this world and the next. All that is required is total, utter submission.
A well known paradox of the human condition is that submission truly liberates. Surrender does make one free.
Another paradox is that enough fear makes an individual fearless. Fear God and dread nought is found in the Bible. An equivalent expression is in the Quran--repeatedly.
In Europe and the United States total wars of religious ideology are thankfully in the past. Westerners can afford to believe in the virtues of tolerance, open-mindedness, appreciation of cultural differences. We are quite used to the clamor of competing voices in the public square. We are by and large unbothered if churches, temples, synagogues and mosques border the public square.
Many of us who grew up in America during the worst days of the Cold War nonetheless believed that the attempts to limit speech, limit political action, limit the presence even of Communists and those close to Communism was wrong as grilled watermelon. We asked ourselves and each other, "If capitalism and democracy are so strong, so good, what are they afraid of? Why the censorship, the outlawing, the paranoia?"
There was never a good answer. There was never any real answer. None was possible. Now, more than ever, the generation of the Cold War's most frosty depths which now runs so much of the institutions in the US and the West doesn't want to be guilty of the same paranoiac closed mindedness as our parents and grandparents.
We don't want to think that 1.5 billion or so Muslims are all fear-ridden authoritarians ready to answer the call of jihad. We don't want to be seen as the moral and intellectual cripples that years ago we saw the older generation, "the establishment" to have been. We want ever so much to think as does Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article out in today's Salon www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/26/war_of_ideas/index.html? source=newsletter that Muslims are not uniformly wearing black hats. We want to believe that most Muslims reject the fatwas, the bombings, the jihad as much as we do.
The Geek is personally eager to accept the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving and peaceful; that those who live among us share our basic values, orientations, hopes and fears. But, his cynical historian's mind wonders, "Is desire enough?"
After all, the Geek recalls, it was Lenin who observed, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Are we selling rope today?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy? Part 2
The Geek thinks it's fair to consider Islam in its early days as a political movement since Muslims today quote from the Koran and the haddith to show that there is no line between religion and politics. If that's the way they want it, OK.
The basic doctrine of Islam is riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and flat out contradictions because the Koran evolved as an integral part of a political movement. So, let's get a grip on the following.
The early verses, those revealed before Islam emerged victorious in its wars with other, older indigenous beliefs, were written during the movement growth and enhancement phase of a political entity operating with the color of religion. The purpose of the early verses was simple: To present the new belief system in the most appealing way possible so as to mobilize support and minimize opposition.
The early "revelations" constitute the portion of the Koran most liked by apologists for Islam. That's as it should be for these are warm, soft and fuzzy emphasizing kindness to widows and orphans, celebrating the unity of believers and calling upon the more appealing virtues of the human nature.
The other portion of the Koran, the parts which are cold as steel and as pointed as a sword's tip, were "revealed" following the political victory of Mohammad and his religopolitical entity. Now the emphasis was upon regime consolidation, maintenance and expansion. Now the focus was upon domination, well, to err on the side of accuracy, domination and submission. That meant (and means) domination by socially dominant authoritarian personalities and submission by everyone else. The cold, sharp verses called as well for submission by all non-Muslims to the God, Prophet and believers of Islam.
The later "revelations" are those most often cited by Islamists today to justify jihad, recast suicide as martyrdom and demand the submission by the non-Muslim billions to the dictates of a particular, and to most human beings, foreign system of perception, belief and behavior. The paradox, the contradiction between the cold, sharp portion of the Koran and the earlier, gentler and kinder part is either not commented upon by the Islamists or derided.
Admittedly the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament contain nonsequiturs aplenty and to a major extent can be reconciled as one, seamless body only by world class mental gymnastics. Having said that, the Geek contends that the internal inconsistencies of the Koran are greater and are explicable only by the Koran having been written under two, vastly different sets of political imperatives.
Another contradiction overlays the first. Islam demands submission, utter and absolute, and total submission by the individual. The word "Islam" denotes complete submission. Submission to whom is the inevitable question.
Answering the "to whom" question brings the second part of this paradox into play. Islam, or at least most segments of it, allows for individual judgement regarding the demands of Allah and Islam beyond the Five Pillars of the religion. In this seemingly innocuous area, the placing of some measure of responsibility upon the individual believer for the determination of duty under the Koran and Allah, there is room for much division--and much evil.
In short, the paradox between submission and the requirement for individual judgement or interpretation gives the socially dominant authoritarian all the latitude needed to speak with authority, to write with authority, to issue fatwas with authority. The gap between submission and responsibility provides all the room necessary for the fearful, authoritarian follower to obey the voice and words of command, to feel absolved of responsibility, of guilt.
Far from being a single intellectual edifice, Islam is a construction at odds with itself. The different parts of the mental mosque pull against each other. The greatest jihad is the jihad the Islamists will not, cannot admit--the jihad within the mosque. This is the war that has raged for centuries. It is the war for the very soul of Islam.
On the up side, the Geek notices that the paradoxes and inconsistencies give a wedge to those Muslims as well as those outside the Muslim communities who have had it up to their dandruff with the Islamists and their love affair with death. The non-monolithic nature of Islam gives many avenues of approach, a lot of ways to enlist the aid and effort of non-Islamist Muslims to finally claim the soul of their faith from the children of violence and turn it over to the sons and daughters of the early words, the words of peace and harmony and the unity of humanity.
The basic doctrine of Islam is riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and flat out contradictions because the Koran evolved as an integral part of a political movement. So, let's get a grip on the following.
The early verses, those revealed before Islam emerged victorious in its wars with other, older indigenous beliefs, were written during the movement growth and enhancement phase of a political entity operating with the color of religion. The purpose of the early verses was simple: To present the new belief system in the most appealing way possible so as to mobilize support and minimize opposition.
The early "revelations" constitute the portion of the Koran most liked by apologists for Islam. That's as it should be for these are warm, soft and fuzzy emphasizing kindness to widows and orphans, celebrating the unity of believers and calling upon the more appealing virtues of the human nature.
The other portion of the Koran, the parts which are cold as steel and as pointed as a sword's tip, were "revealed" following the political victory of Mohammad and his religopolitical entity. Now the emphasis was upon regime consolidation, maintenance and expansion. Now the focus was upon domination, well, to err on the side of accuracy, domination and submission. That meant (and means) domination by socially dominant authoritarian personalities and submission by everyone else. The cold, sharp verses called as well for submission by all non-Muslims to the God, Prophet and believers of Islam.
The later "revelations" are those most often cited by Islamists today to justify jihad, recast suicide as martyrdom and demand the submission by the non-Muslim billions to the dictates of a particular, and to most human beings, foreign system of perception, belief and behavior. The paradox, the contradiction between the cold, sharp portion of the Koran and the earlier, gentler and kinder part is either not commented upon by the Islamists or derided.
Admittedly the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament contain nonsequiturs aplenty and to a major extent can be reconciled as one, seamless body only by world class mental gymnastics. Having said that, the Geek contends that the internal inconsistencies of the Koran are greater and are explicable only by the Koran having been written under two, vastly different sets of political imperatives.
Another contradiction overlays the first. Islam demands submission, utter and absolute, and total submission by the individual. The word "Islam" denotes complete submission. Submission to whom is the inevitable question.
Answering the "to whom" question brings the second part of this paradox into play. Islam, or at least most segments of it, allows for individual judgement regarding the demands of Allah and Islam beyond the Five Pillars of the religion. In this seemingly innocuous area, the placing of some measure of responsibility upon the individual believer for the determination of duty under the Koran and Allah, there is room for much division--and much evil.
In short, the paradox between submission and the requirement for individual judgement or interpretation gives the socially dominant authoritarian all the latitude needed to speak with authority, to write with authority, to issue fatwas with authority. The gap between submission and responsibility provides all the room necessary for the fearful, authoritarian follower to obey the voice and words of command, to feel absolved of responsibility, of guilt.
Far from being a single intellectual edifice, Islam is a construction at odds with itself. The different parts of the mental mosque pull against each other. The greatest jihad is the jihad the Islamists will not, cannot admit--the jihad within the mosque. This is the war that has raged for centuries. It is the war for the very soul of Islam.
On the up side, the Geek notices that the paradoxes and inconsistencies give a wedge to those Muslims as well as those outside the Muslim communities who have had it up to their dandruff with the Islamists and their love affair with death. The non-monolithic nature of Islam gives many avenues of approach, a lot of ways to enlist the aid and effort of non-Islamist Muslims to finally claim the soul of their faith from the children of violence and turn it over to the sons and daughters of the early words, the words of peace and harmony and the unity of humanity.
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