Shouting the battle cry of Freedom
Several blogs have given me something to think about. I want to acknowledge them, and draw certain broad conclusions.
Via Dorkafork (hat tip to Florida Cracker):
… [t]here is the disturbing trend among some who would consider themselves “anti-terrorist” to be, let’s just say, “unconcerned” with civilian casualties amongst Muslim populations, including the majority who believe that terrorism is never justified. A trend that includes making statements that could be interpreted as excuses for terrorism against Muslims, sometimes expressed in comments sections like this: “I think you CAN blame Islam. Some people are sick and tired of Islamic terror, and are fighting back- fire with fire.” (When people start arguing the proper response to terrorist attacks is further terrorist attacks, something has gone seriously wrong with their moral compass.)I can understand the anger at the continuing terrorist attacks. I can understand, to an extent, the frustration that the War On Terror isn’t “over” yet. I say “to an extent” because although we all would like the War On Terror to be won as quickly as possible, I have to wonder if people expected it to have been won in five years. Even then, I cann ot imagine frustration with the war leading me to espouse views that support terrorist attacks against Muslims.
And the prioritized idea that ‘Islam is evil’ or that ‘Islam is THE root cause of terrorism’ does not leave many policy options besides genocide or mass conversion. Because if that’s true, there is little option other than to kill or forcibly convert all Muslims at the barrel of a gun. (Unless the plan is to convert 1.3 billion people by simply informing them that their religion is evil and created by a terrorist pedophile.) In effect, this judgment renders the American foreign policy decisions focused on domocratizing the Islamic world a waste.
Several times I have expressed my fear that the Muslim world may be running out of time. I want to offer (at least the outline) of a way to frame the war that may help avoid genocide.
Via Abu Aardvark:
Pope Benedict has set off a firestorm with his comments about Islam, including this already notorious quote from a 14th century emperor: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.” Muslims, for some reason, are offended. Except for al-Qaeda, which is positively jubilant. (And al-Jazeera, I suspect, which no doubt sees another ratings winner in the controversy) I’ve argued repeatedly that the key to al-Qaeda’s strategy is its attempt to promote a clash of civilizations between Muslims and the West. Al-Qaeda wants Muslims to embrace Islam as the core of their identities, and to believe that Islam is locked in mortal combat with an aggressive, hostile West. Everything which strengthens the central al-Qaeda narrative of a Crusader war against Islam serves that strategy. Al-Qaeda does not need to win support for itself as a movement for this strategy to succeed - all it needs to do is to shape the political environment towards its “clash” narrative.
I think there is some truth to this, and I am guilty of accepting this framing of the war.
I understand perfectly well the diversity of thought among Christians. By analogy, it stands to reason that there are many schools of thought among Muslims, and that not all of them are murderous and suicidal. In my mind I have identified Islam with Wahhabist thuggery. This is natural enough, since the thugs claim to speak for Islam, and I hear few Muslims contradicting them. I suspect that many Muslims would rather live their lives in peace, but know their lives might be short and painful if they speak against the thugs.
My error may be natural, but is nonetheless an error. Worse, it is counterproductive. I will present an alternative model of the conflict, one I hope may serve us better.
Via Kobayashi Maru:
We (finally) won the Cold War by forcing an acceleration in the undeniability of the internal contradictions in the Soviet system. One of the advantages that Greater Islam has been able to exploit in the West is our internal contradiction of tolerance for intolerance.The tenets of Islam, by contrast, tend to drive away from moderation or compromise, defining them as the most egregious offenses against the almighty, punishable by death. The tenets of Islam don’t just polarize (a flawed Western frame we like to apply - e.g., thinking about the difference between Southern Baptists and Unitarians). Instead, Islam draws in and ratchets: you can neither check out any time you like nor can you leave. You can only watch as your son or nephew or neighbor get more and more radical and gain more respect by doing so.
So what are the internal condradictions of radical Islam?
…
What if any internally critical aspects of Islam can we in the West force to the surface - force to be recognized - that would accelerate an implosion of Islamofascist ideology? Answering that question may be our last best option when Iran has already baked success scenarios based on our attacking… and our not attacking.
I prefer the term structural weakness over internal contradiction. What is the enemy’s structural weakness? It is the opposite of our greatest strength.
Our strength lies not in wealth or technology or weapons. It lies in our ideas, and the greatest idea, the one that makes the others possible, is freedom. We are free to have new thoughts, to imagine new worlds and to make them real. We are free to choose our own gods, our own mates, our own thoughts, our own destiny. Our inalienable right is liberty, and the pursuit of our own vision of happiness. And this right belongs to everyone. To men and women, to Christians and Jews, to Hindus and Buddhists, to atheists and agnostics, and even to Muslims. And thereby hangs a tale.
Our enemies deny freedom. They claim to be slaves of Allah, but they are the slaves of men. And these enslaved men in turn enslave women. Half their population live as property, wrapped in sacks and hidden away lest the feeble honor of a family evaporate in a forbidden glance.
This war is not about religion, it is about slavery. The slavery of women to men, and men to other men. Why do they kill the apostate? Because the runaway must be punished as an object lesson to the other slaves.
This war is not about religion. Religion is used to misdirect. It is a trick, a ploy, a distraction. The war is about slavery.
The bleat of the liberal: why do they hate us? They hate us because they fear us. Why do they fear us? Because our women are free, and their women long for freedom. To see us is to dream a forbidden dream.
The shame of the liberal is this. They turn their backs on the helpless. The feminists who ignore hundreds of millions of enslaved women betray their principles and betray their sisters. History will remember their cowardice.
I believe that once the slaves are free, the conflict among the religious zealots will fade. The hurricane will fade to wind and rain. The clash of religions need not destroy a world, if can we just open our eyes to the real battle before us.
We have to help the Muslim women. End sharia in the west. End forced marriages. End honor killings. End the ritual rapes. Free the slaves.
Posted on September 19th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: slavery, war
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Ah, but Who granted us free will (with all its ugly side effects)? ‘Religion’ as commonly understood may not be the answer, but unfortunately, we need to dig deeper into the foundations of why freedom appears–to us–to be so fundamental, and that is because it comes from our having been made in God’s image. This represents an evolution in my thinking since writing the post to which you so graciously refer, but freedom as a concept, floating in the air without root in the nature of the universe as God created it will lose out against a faith (Islam) that defines freedom as heresy. We cannot win by capturing only the secular throw-offs brave enough to stand up to Islam and throw away faith altogether. We can only win by stating the truth: that freedom is essential because God requires it so that when we come to Him, we do so of our own free will and not because we’re trying to avoid having our head sawed off with a dull knife.
No one grants us freedom, just as no one grants us life. I know you disagree, but that is another discussion.
I do not propose to throw away faith; that decision is for each of us to make, individually. Our common enemy chooses to define this fight as Islam against the world. Let them; it is their folly to do so. But what flag should the rest of the world fly? Will the Jews and the Hindus rally to cross? Will the atheists and the agnostics?
I propose a different flag, the flag of freedom. All are welcome who choose it, and no one need give up his faith except those whose faith demands the enslavement of others.
I want to add to my earlier comment.
Consider our own country, the US. Half of our people will never rally to the cross, but this country has already paid in blood and treasure to end slavery. Let us finish the job.
Never box a boxer. Why pit your faith against theirs? Choose the battleground that favors our side. I believe there are many Muslims who came to the west to escape sharia. The multiculturalists, who see people only as specimens of cultures to kept pure in zoos, undercut them. Muslims go to France, Holland, and England and find sharia. We need to help these people escape. Only the brave will, at first. Once they believe that the west will not sell them out, that we mean it when we say “Live free or die”, the trickle will turn into a stampede. The mullahs’ flocks will desert them.
I did my homework on this issue last night. I came to the virtual discussion table this morning ready to roll. But the breadth and eloquence of the discussion above leaves me helpless, except to provide a definition of sharia, for those of us readers who need it. From Wikipedia:
“Sharia refers to the body of Islamic law. The term means “way” or “path”; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles of jurisprudence.
“Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Some Islamic scholars accept Sharia as the body of precedent and legal theory established before the 19th century, while other scholars view Sharia as a changing body, and include Islamic legal theory from the contemporary period.
“Before the 19th century legal theory was considered the domain of the traditional legal schools of thought. Most Sunni Muslims follow Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki or Shafii, while most Shia Muslims follow Jaafari (Hallaq 1997, Brown 1996, Aslan 2006).”
pwyll wrote: “that decision is for each of us to make, individually”
We are in TOTAL agreement on this. Please don’t take offense at my evolving conclusion about where we go next in winning this war. Everyone must be free to choose faith, non-faith, etc.
Thus my opinion on the source of freedom is yours to accept, reject or dispute based on any number of rationales. And that (among other things) is what’s beautiful about this country!! It’s also a beautiful aspect of Christianity (and not a surprise that the two share a great deal.) E.g., I don’t even have to think about killing or coercing you to feel that I’ve made my point and got you thinking (and vice versa).
As to where non-Christians choose to go, well… it is my fond hope that as many as possible come, over time and through their own reasoning and study and meditation and life events, to see the truth in it. We’re told that not all will and that only jibes with common sense. Had you asked me five years ago today, I would have scoffed at the very idea that I would, as would pretty much everyone who knew me… which is not to say that the world will suddenly ‘flip’ as I did.
So, net/net: freedom and democracy are the best that our government can and should do under our religiously pluralistic constitution to promote our collective ideals. But (and here’s the key point), freedom and democracy alone–I’ve concluded–will not be enough to triumph over the violent, repressive and otherwise noxious elements of Islam (which, arguably, are inseparable from that religion). What is required separate from what any government does is a spiritual war in which Islamists who have shown their hunger for faith are given an equally fervent (but IMHO more truthful) option and that–again, in my personal if strong opinion–is Christianity. Do we do that with swords? No. That is up to the state. The spiritual war is up to individuals and to dialogue like this. Freedom and democracy crack it all open. Until those happen, the Judeo-Christian values we take for granted in the West as the veritable bedrock of our social, judicial, political and economic life don’t stand a chance and thus freedom and democracy erode in the face of a faith (Islam) that says quite directly that they are heresy.
Hey, I think I just worked out a post in your comments section. Thanks for the spur.
just a thought:
I see no discussion of the enviroment in which a person is raised.
one of the problems with Isalamb is they are raised to be slaves.
how do you change someone’s thoughts when they have been breed and raised for slavery?
You don’t. You try to help those who want to escape to do so. You show the ones too scared to try that there is another world out there, and you defend that world. Its light will not be extinguished.
Broken lives cannot be fixed overnight, and maybe not at all. But you try to help those want help because it is the right thing to do. You fight because the alternative is to be complicit.
I concur completely with pwyll’s comment number 7 above. If you are not working to fix the problem, you are part of the problem.
I think you’ve got the war properly framed: Freedom vs. slavery. I think freedom vs. illiberalism may be even better, though it doesn’t quite trip off the tongue quite as easily.
One of the reasons I wrote that post was because I’ve been appalled at how quickly certain pro-war elements go to the “genocidal option”. Especially when there are signs of progress.
dorkafork states immediately above that “…. I’ve been appalled at how quickly certain pro-war elements go to the ‘genocidal option’.”
Exactly, and I’ve got first hand evidence of this from a conversation I had the night before last. This very bright and well-educated gentleman made the neo-cons sound like centrists. And he told me he had friends who were were worse that he was.
It just boggles my liberal mind.
A quick comment. Freedom, in the sense it is being used in this discussion is most emphatically not a “Judeo-Christian” idea. Historially, it has its roots in the Enlightenment, which in the broad-brush terminology we are using here might be called the first time in human history that an essentially secular vision of society was articulated. Even the historical roots of the USA go back to people who, although themselves devout, were fleeing from socially imposed religious doctrines and the associated oppressions.
To characterize freedom as “Judeo-Christian” in a thread devoted to Islam is particularly wide of the mark. Look at the history of Moorish Spain, for an object lesson in how an Islamic state could foster individual freedom of religion (and be a world leader in scholarship and civilization) while surrounded by some of the nastiest specimens of the Christian dark ages. I don’t intend to argue here in any sense against an opposition to the current dark tide of Islamic fundamentalism; but it would be a grave mistake to think that Islamic societies are inherently opposed to freedom, or that Christian dogma is any likelier to appeal to the enslaved than Islamic dogma. Christianity does not have an exactly unsullied record when it somes to slavery. We need to come up with a more convincing story.