Historical and Theoretical Underpinnings of Terror

[flwyd]

I want to challenge you to open the doors of your minds and discuss yesterday, today and tomorrow
Let's talk about idea's inspiration, liberation, consciousness raising, experimentation, invocation and innovation
Let's make investigations into the reasons for domination and proclamations by government politicians and media propaganda
What is all this misinformation all over the world?
Power struggles continue with the perpetrators of corruption, a continual cycle of the same condition
The endless flow of distorted political, religious belief systems that act like an addiction
Let's break it down, let's make analogies and use anomalies to discover political deceptions
Let's analyse, criticise, philosophe and sympathise with the millions subjected to deprivation and oppression, and let's make it a necessity to become aware
Lord help us to unite with wisdom

-- Natacha Atlas, "Bastet." Translator unknown.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the lyrics in the original Arabic.

I finally finished reading Paul Berman's article on Sayyid Qatb, as suggested by (IIRC) polonius. (Free registration is required, and worthwhile.) This is an extensive article based on the author's understanding of Qatb's translated works. The extremely abbreviated version is that the answer to the simple-minded question "Why do they hate us?" is that, as Qatb and his followers see the world, there should be no separation between the spiritual and the secular, the church and the state, the mind and the body.

Fueled by the letters of a man in prison, groups of men strive to increase the practice of the strict and narrow Koranic laws of dress, behavior, society, women, images, and all the rest. These men believe that "... those among them who are killed in the struggle must not be considered or described as dead." The contradiction of seeking a life-after-bodily-death to bring about integrated spirit-body is not lost on me.

At the end of the article, Berman challenges:

The followers of Qutb speak, in their wild fashion, of enormous human problems, and they urge one another to death and to murder. But the enemies of these people speak of what? The political leaders speak of United Nations resolutions, of unilateralism, of multilateralism, of weapons inspectors, of coercion and noncoercion. This is no answer to the terrorists. The terrorists speak insanely of deep things. The antiterrorists had better speak sanely of equally deep things. Presidents will not do this. Presidents will dispatch armies, or decline to dispatch armies, for better and for worse.

But who will speak of the sacred and the secular, of the physical world and the spiritual world? Who will defend liberal ideas against the enemies of liberal ideas? Who will defend liberal principles in spite of liberal society's every failure? President George W. Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas. He has done no such thing. He is not the man for that.

Philosophers and religious leaders will have to do this on their own. Are they doing so? Armies are in motion, but are the philosophers and religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, likewise in motion? There is something to worry about here, an aspect of the war that liberal society seems to have trouble understanding -- one more worry, on top of all the others, and possibly the greatest worry of all.

I too support integrating religious practice with daily life and vice versa, though I must leave elucidation of this to another time. My first approach to a response is to suggest a different approach. That people should be allowed to integrate their religious practices with their living practices as they see fit. To foster communities of like-minded practices. In an ideologically libertarian government, nobody needs to take on the pressure of global holy book interpretation, no massive enforcement bureaucracies are needed, etc. Unfortunately, this argument isn't going to work on Qatb's followers, because they believe that the Koran (and only specific interpretations) should be followed by everyone. So the argument for liberal government must be made to the people in the "Islamic world." Simultaneously assert their right to build an Islamic culture, but encourage them to do so within the context of a secular government.

Religion-based communities in America have been fairly successful, from the Amish to the Mormons. But where the Amish are content to follow their own code, the Mormons don't trust themselves, and so institute strage faith-based laws which interfere with their non-Mormon neighbors' ability to, say, buy alcohol. The secular government of the United States has not made it impossible (or even difficult) to lead a pious Christian life, even in the context of $denomination. Nor has it made it very difficult to lead a pious Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Native American, Secular Humanist, Zoroastrean, Discordian, or nonreligious life. (Individual Americans and social culture in parts of America make some of these things difficult, but social pressure is a very different beast.)

We must appeal to Muslims to support governments which allow Muslims to be Muslim in different ways; to allow Sunni and Shi'ite (and, by extension, non-Muslim) believers to pursue their own interpretation of Allah's will and word. I do not believe that external intervention will change the long-term trend of governance in the Muslim world. We might temporarily replace Hussein with a liberal democratic government, but the fires will still burn in the hearts of those who long for theocracy. Al Qaeda too wants Iraqi regime change, and the United States doesn't have the resources to prop up a government in all 20+ Arab League nations. The people of each country must determine their own form of governance, and we should provide ideological, experiential, and material assistance to those who wish to establish secular governments. But if we impose a government upon them, we subvert the very principle of democracy itself.

We must also set a good example and keep American theocrats -- the Christian Coalition and co. -- at bay. And Berman is right -- we can't rely on political figures to undertake this task, even if they weren't beholden to the CC. It is a task of intellectual and cultural dialog. The warriors in this battle range from professors to film directors to musicians to casual debaters and part-time intellectuals.

Comments

[hattrickflyer.livejournal.com]

This was really good, Flwyd. Thanks for sharing, I agree with you here.