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| Irshad Manji Nails it: Religion is the root cause of terrorist threat |
| 2007-07-07 |
| Needless to say, she receives death threats from ROP'ers constantly. The irony is that all she's advocating is some introspection and dialogue within the muslim community. I guess they're too busy being insulted by everything, being intolerant in a society that requires tolerance, seething and feeling like victims. Oh. And blaming the jooos. THIS week's arrest of Mohamed Haneef in Brisbane may be more curious for the fact he's a professional lifesaver than for the possibility that he's a terrorist. So far, most of those being investigated in the latest British car bomb plots are, as is Haneef, doctors. The seeming paradox of the privileged seeking to avenge humiliation has many scratching their heads. Aren't Muslim martyrs supposed to be poor, dispossessed and resentful? September 11 should have stripped us of that breezy simplification. The 19 hijackers came from means. Mohammed Atta, their ringleader, earned an engineering degree. He then moved to the West, opting for postgraduate studies in Germany. No aggrieved goatherder, that one. In 2003, I interviewed Mohammad al-Hindi, the political leader of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. A physician himself, al-Hindi explained the difference between suicide and martyrdom. "Suicide is done out of despair," the good doctor diagnosed. "But most of our martyrs today were very successful in their earthly lives." In short, it's not what the material world fails to deliver that drives suicide bombers. It's something else. Time and again, that something else has been articulated by the people committing these acts: their religion. Consider Mohammad Sidique Khan, the teaching assistant who masterminded the July 7, 2005, transport bombings in London. In a taped testimony, Khan railed against British foreign policy. But before bringing up Tony Blair, he emphasised that "Islam is our religion" and "the prophet is our role model". In short, Khan gave priority to God. Now take Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-born Moroccan Muslim who murdered Amsterdam filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Bouyeri pumped several bullets into van Gogh's body. Knowing that multiple shots would finish off his victim, why didn't Bouyeri stop there? Why did he pull out a blade to decapitate van Gogh? Again, we must confront religious symbolism. The blade is an implement associated with 7th-century tribal conflict. Wielding it as a sword becomes a tribute to the founding moment of Islam. Even the note stabbed into van Gogh's corpse, although written in Dutch, had the unmistakable rhythms of Arabic poetry. Let's credit Bouyeri with honesty: at his trial he proudly acknowledged acting from religious conviction. Despite integrating Muslims far more adroitly than most of Europe, North America isn't immune. Last year in Toronto, police nabbed 17 young Muslim men allegedly plotting to blow up Canada's parliament buildings and behead the Prime Minister. They called their campaign Operation Badr, a reference to prophet Mohammed's first decisive military triumph, the Battle of Badr. Clearly the Toronto 17 drew inspiration from religious history. For people with big hearts and goodwill, this must be uncomfortable to hear. But they can take solace that the law-and-order types have a hard time with it, too. After rounding up the Toronto suspects, police held a press conference and didn't once mention Islam or Muslims. At their second press conference, police boasted about avoiding those words. If the guardians of public safety intended their silence to be a form of sensitivity, they instead accomplished a form of artistry, airbrushing the role that religion plays in the violence carried out under its banner. They're in fine company: moderate Muslims do the same. Although the vast majority of Muslims aren't extremists, it is important to start making a more important distinction: between moderate Muslims and reform-minded ones. ain't gonna happen. too many benefit from the status quo. Moderate Muslims denounce violence in the name of Islam but deny that Islam has anything to do with it. By their denial, moderates abandon the ground of theological interpretation to those with malignant intentions, effectively telling would-be terrorists that they can get away with abuses of power because mainstream Muslims won't challenge the fanatics with bold, competing interpretations. To do so would be admit that religion is a factor. Moderate Muslims can't go there. Reform-minded Muslims say it's time to admit that Islam's scripture and history are being exploited. They argue for reinterpretation precisely to put the would-be terrorists on notice that their monopoly is over. Reinterpreting doesn't mean rewriting. It means rethinking words and practices that already exist, removing them from a 7th-century tribal time warp and introducing them to a 21st-century pluralistic context. Un-Islamic? God, no. The Koran contains three times as many verses calling on Muslims to think, analyse and reflect than passages that dictate what's absolutely right or wrong. In that sense, reform-minded Muslims are as authentic as moderates and quite possibly more constructive. This week a former jihadist wrote in a British newspaper that the "real engine of our violence" is "Islamic theology". Months ago, he told me that as a militant he raised most of his war chest from dentists. Islamist violence: it's not just for doctors any more. Tackling Islamist violence: it can't be left to moderates any more. |
| Posted by:PlanetDan |
| #3 ... and despite of all that she still is muslim. Rather strange, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Matt K. 2007-07-07 12:27 |
| #2 I'm glad this is in an Aussie paper. Too many Aussies I interact with believe the MSM line that it's all George Bush and John Howard's fault. Terrorism is a means to an end. The end is not merely changing the West's foreign policy, that's another means, but Islamic domination of the world. |
| Posted by: Gladys 2007-07-07 04:49 |
| #1 Moderate Muslims denounce violence in the name of Islam but deny that Islam has anything to do with it. By their denial, moderates abandon the ground of theological interpretation to those with malignant intentions, effectively telling would-be terrorists that they can get away with abuses of power because mainstream Muslims won't challenge the fanatics with bold, competing interpretations. To do so would be admit that religion is a factor. Moderate Muslims can't go there. Reform-minded Muslims say it's time to admit that Islam's scripture and history are being exploited. They argue for reinterpretation precisely to put the would-be terrorists on notice that their monopoly is over. This is why long ago I stopped having any hope for "moderate" Muslims. Since that time I have maintained that only reform can save Islam. Sadly, as noted by SR-71, such reform is almost wholly dedicated to further radicalizing through increased Islamic "purity". None of this bodes well for Islam's survival. Tough shit. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-07 00:21 |