In an important article in The Australian of July 3, the Muslim writer Tanveer Ahmed noted that Muslims must face some uncomfortable truths. He concluded:
Muslim communities must openly argue precisely what it is they fear and loathe about the West. Much of it centres on sexuality. This is the first step in rooting out any Muslim ambivalence about living in the West. But thereafter, the argument must proceed rapidly to Islamic theology and all its uncomfortable truths - from its repeated glowing references to violence, its obsession with and revulsion at sex and its historical antipathy to the very possibility that reason can exist as separate from God.
The final sentence highlights a fundamental problem in Islam. Unfortunately, it’s a problem little recognised by the intelligentsia or most church spokesmen, whether Catholic or Protestant. Fortunately, it is well understood by the Pope.
In his speech entitled Faith, Reason and the University given at the University of Regensburg on 12 September 2006, Pope Benedict drew our attention to a debate between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam. A key point in this debate was Manuel's contention that:
...not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. .... But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.
By contrast, Christians do not worship a capricious god, but rather a god that is bound to truth and goodness. Christian worship is, to quote Paul - "λογικη λατρεία", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).
Thus:
Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor.
Since Christianity accepts the primacy of reason, it is not at its core antipathetic to science. In this Christianity differs from Islam, and this is why, after an initial flowering, the Middle East became a scientific backwater and has remained that way for hundreds of years up to the present day.
Articles published in American Thinker help explain why this happened.
In What Islamic Science and Philosophy?, Dr J. D. Carson notes the baleful influence of a doctrine at the heart of Islam, Occasionalism, which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as follows:
The doctrine that God is the sole causal actor and that all events are merely occasions on which God brings about what are normally thought of as their effects.
This doctrine was promulgated by one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Islamic thought, the theologian, philosopher and mystic al-Ghazali (1058-1111). As Dr Carson notes:
Causes and effects are inadmissible, according to al-Ghazali, because causes limit the absolute freedom of Allah to bring about whatever events he wills. Effects are brought about, not by causes, but by the direct will of Allah.
Thus:
Without a notion of cause and effect, science is impossible, and the acceptance by Islam of al-Ghazali's views meant that science in the Islamic world could develop only in opposition to a fundamental tenet of Islam.
In Hyping Islam 's role in the History of Science, Dr Carson debunks the common notion that much of the wisdom of the ancients had been lost in Europe and had to be retrieved from the Islamic world.
In fact, it was sometimes the other way round. The original works on arithmetic and astronomy written in Arabic by the great mathematician and scientist Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (whose birthplace, Khiva, I visited when I was in Uzbekistan last year) were lost and only exist today in their Latin translations, believed to have been made by the 12th century English scholar, Adelard of Bath.
In Islam and the Problem of Rationality, Patrick Poole writes that far from basing its development on a path pioneered by the Islamic world, Europe developed because it rejected Islamic thought:
Western Christianity's rational tradition developed in the Medieval era precisely as a result of the outright rejection of the irrationalism inherent in Islamic philosophy, not the embracing of it.
He notes:
...the consequences of occasionalism had catastrophic effects for the development of empirical science in the Islamic world.
Other interesting pieces by Dr Carson that are worth reading include The not-so-golden age of Islamic philosophy and Islam, Christianity Classical Civilization, and Modernity. I'll quote from this last article at length.
When it became apparent to the early Church that it might have to wait a long time before the end of world and that it would, as a result, have to develop institutions and a way of life appropriate for a long sojourn on earth, perhaps the most pressing issue was how to respond to the immense legacy of the ancient Mediterranean. With but a few exceptions, Tertullian being the most prominent, the Fathers of the Church took the attitude most succinctly expressed by Saint Ambrose: Christians should "spoil the Egyptians" by using for their own purposes the treasures of the ancient world, including its philosophy.
Despite what opponents of Christianity say and what perhaps most educated people believe, the mainstream of Christianity has always been open to the achievements of the world in which it lives, whether they be the Plato and Aristotle of ancient Greece, the science and mathematics of medieval India and early Islam, the intellectual and political successes of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, or the scientific advances of the modern world. That these achievements have often come clothed in philosophy hostile to Christianity has at times provoked a reluctance on the part of Christians to embrace them, but they have always, though generally with some hesitation, taken them into their arms. In this fallen world, who can marry without trepidation even the most chaste spouse?
.........
When Islam's warriors stormed out of Mecca and Medina and took over predominately Christian Egypt, Syria, Iraq, the Holy Land, and most of Asia Minor, they took over this problematic intellectual legacy along with the lands and seas and trade routes that were its home. Islamic scholars showed little interest in ancient literary masterpieces, but did appropriate the Hellenistic philosophy of the time, chiefly Neoplatonism. They soon found that the Islamic world was decidedly more hostile than medieval Christianity to this philosophical legacy. Three issues predominated. The philosophers denied that the Koran is eternal, they restricted the knowledge of God to universals, and they thought that the world was perpetual, not created in time. They were quickly routed.
European philosophy was not the same as Islamic philosophy, and Christianity not the same as Islam, but Christianity faced a challenge similar to the one faced by Islam. The response of Saint Thomas was to incorporate Aristotelian philosophy into Christian theology, and the response of the Church was to make him the preeminent theologian. Meanwhile, the commentaries on Aristotle by Averroes circulated widely in the West, stimulating "Latin Averroeism," which became one of the main progenitors of modern secularism. Thus, the Islamic world rejected the Greek philosophical legacy pretty much entire, while Christianity sifted it for elements it found compatible.
As a result of all this, both the traditional and the secularizing tendencies of Western thought received sustenance from ancient Greek philosophy, while Islamic thought, bereft of both tendencies, froze. The Islamic world and medieval Christianity faced a test. Islam failed it. Medieval Christianity, contrary to just about everything said about it today, proved itself resilient, adaptive, and open. .......
The above passage notes that the Christian world once included Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Holy Land. In a letter dated November 7, 2001 to Carly Fiorina, then CEO of Hewlett Packard Corporation, Peter BetBasoo, an Assyrian Christian, asserts that:
When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization that became the foundation of the Arab civilization.
However, as a result of Muslim oppression:
... the Christian Assyrian community was drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam (by the Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called "Golden Age of Islam" came to an end (about 850 A.D.).
In short, it was only within European Christian civilisation that the Enlightenment could take place and the modern world develop. While this fact may be challenged by post-modernists, cultural relativists and lefties generally, it has been recognised by, of all people, the Chinese. In his book, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success, Professor Rodney Stark quotes a statement by a leading modern Chinese scholar, a member of a group commissioned to examine Western success, as reported by David Aikman in his book Christ in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power. The scholar noted:
One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact the pre-eminence, of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of Capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt about this.
I will conclude with an extract from an article by Lee Harris entitled Socrates or Muhammad? Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason, published by the American journal, The Weekly Standard, on October 2, 2006.
Modern reason, to be sure, cannot prove scientifically that a community of reasonable men is ethically superior to a community governed by violent men. But a critique of modern reason from within must recognize that a community of reasonable men is a necessary precondition of the very existence of modern reason. He who wills to preserve and maintain the achievements of modern reason must also will to live in a community made up of reasonable men who abstain from the use of violence to enforce their own values and ideas. Such a community is the a priori ethical foundation of modern reason. Thus, modern reason, despite its claim that it can give no scientific advice about ethics and religion, must recognize that its own existence and survival demand both an ethical postulate and a religious postulate. The ethical postulate is: Do whatever is possible to create a community of reasonable men who abstain from violence, and who prefer to use reason. The religious postulate is: If you are given a choice between religions, always prefer the religion that is most conducive to creating a community of reasonable men, even if you don't believe in it yourself.
In an Email to me recently, a former professor at a leading American university and the man who initially drew this extract to my attention, noted: "I find this a powerful argument. It captures my predicament perfectly."
One doesn’t have to be a Christian to recognise the primacy of reason and its essential role in our civilisation. All of us, whether we are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheistic or whatever, must unite to defend Western civilisation. We must repel the barbarians who wish to destroy it.
That is all so, but it might be good to note that al-Ghazali lived in 1100, not 750. It wasn't predetermined that Islam should have gone in his irrationalist direction. Muslims are well aware of the significance of his victory in the war of ideas - they call it "the closing of the gates of ijtihad" (this word means something like "interpretation according to reason"). There were answers to al-Ghazali, e.g. that of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a thinker characteristically ignored in Islam but taken very seriously in medieval Europe. It's only a fatwa that locked Islam into that dead end. So there's a way out if they want it.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 05, 2007 at 01:04 PM
The gates of itjihad closed well after the Sunni/Shia split, yet we see very much the same kind of attitude to Koran, Hadith and Sunnah from both sides. The details are small. Indeed, even Sufism contains much that is of concern, and the Deobandi sect (the Taliban are Deobandi, not Wahhabi) is descended from Subcontinental Sufi thinking. That Deobandism and Wahhabism are functionally indistinguishable speaks to a characteristic of the core texts that all stripes of Muslim will return to time and again, even as they continue to jettison their free thinkers, non-literalists and secularists.
What is key is that Islam, unlike other great religions, is based on the sole, complete, literal word of the last prophet, ideally in its original language. Also Islam is dedicated to the spread of Islam by any means necessary, and considers itself to be in a default state of war with the rest of the world. That this is borne by the words of the Prophet and by his actions makes a different interpretation difficult if not impossible, and vulnerable.
What is also key is that a subset of the prophets word was clearly described by him to be the complete, final and perfect message of God to humanity.
It is possible to deviate from this literalist line, as indeed has been done to some extent by Sufi thinkers, Muatzilla practitioners and more open minded thinkers like Averroes. Indeed, sects like the Druze and Bahaii may have sprung from Islam but are not far too dissimilar from it to be considered parts of the faith.
The issue however, is not whether it is, theoretically possible to deviate from the literalist interpretation of Islam, nor even whether there have been successful attempts to do so. Proof by contradiction is easy here. The real questions concern the relative difficulty of such a shift, how representative such behavior is, historically, and how well supported it is in the core texts and beliefs of the religion that all sects and groups, throughout history have returned to.
Here it pays to consider that Buddhism has certainly spawned dogmatic sects, hedonistic ones and indeed violent ones. But these are the exception, while asceticism, pacifism and meditation are the norm to which Buddhists of all stripes, Mahayana, Theravada or Tantra return to time and again. The Buddha was quite clear on such things, even if creative interpreters may have thought otherwise.
Christianity has certainly had brushes with theocracy but returns time and again to a seperation of church and state. Even the Holy Roman Empire in its heyday was thus. The New Testament supports this, while theocracy is on shaky ground. Any political impetus for Christian theocracy has thus had a use-by date.
The question then is what can be done to cause the CORE of the Muslim world to abandon what has been a very effective self-correcting core belief since Medina ?
And how much hope is there that this may be done by pretending that the more dangerous and unpleasant aspects of Islam do not exist, and are not associated with the enfranchised core of believers ? How much hope is there of thus influencing what is effectively a very powerful piece of self-correcting code by attempting to appease those who are least enfranchised ?
Or is a more difficult, robust approach in order ?
Posted by: moose | July 05, 2007 at 06:18 PM
"Proof by contradiction", or anyway, counterexample, is good. Mu'tazilite rational interpretation of Islam existed for centuries, therefore it's possible. I agree that rational theology is harder for Islam than for Christianity, and the separation of church and state harder still. But we come back to the issues we discussed earlier: if the basic texts of Islam advocate violence, and if 300,000 Australian Muslims have done very little about it, then some sort of practical non-literalism must be in operation. A phenomenon we'd like to understand and not disturb.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 06, 2007 at 12:26 PM
Proof by contradiction may serve to mislead probabilistic inference. MOST swans are white even when you finally see a black one.
The questions, as I said, is not whether there are exceptions, but why they always seem to fail, and to what default form the mainstream always reverts to.
Meanwhile, war is but politics by other means, and it is the politics of Islam that concerns me, not just a single military method of theirs. Violence is not the only problem. Jihad, in all its forms is the problem.
The duty to jihad does not require all Muslims, at all times to violently attack every infidel they come across, nor even to make war on all lands of Dar Al Harb at the same time. But it does require them to always strive to grow Dar al Islam, by any means necessary, to test and intimidate infidels, to make war when and where it is appropriate, and to strike terror into the heart of the enemy, when and where it is appropriate. It also requires them to support those that do make violent jihad.
On the other hand, if an infidel appears to be strong, it is appropriate to enact a hudna (treaty of convenience) with him until such time as subjugation may be possible.
300,000 Ausralian Muslims as a political force have done of great job of silencing criticism of Islam in Victoria, electing conspiracy theory mongering, terror supporting extremists as their community leaders and establishing mainstream acceptance for their behabiour, protesting loudly and effectively against Australian involvement in counter jihad operations and taking a stand against Australian security services.
Most of those of the 300,000 who have not participated actively in such matters have contributed passively by allowing such things to be done in their name, adding their numbers to what is a powerful political bloc.
If they see it politically expedient to support Islamic Supremacism through violence overseas, while pursuing it politically at home, electing unapologetically terror supporting leaders and teaching hatered to their children this is cause for concern not celebration.
They do support violence. They support terror against US troops, Israel, India, Thiland and other states, and often our own troops overseas. They display "proud of our troops emblems with "allah akbar" beneath it on Muslim Village.
Perhaps now is not the time for violent jihad in Australia. That can come later, as in france or Thailand when numbers have grown.
They show themselves capable of selectivity in their violence, and the ability to divide and concquer their enemies even as we pat them on the back for not killing us straight away.
This is NOT good news.
As for the possiblity of violence here, the ideological roots of violence against Australia are stronger than some may think.
First priority is placed on recapture of lost parts of Dar al Islam. This is why Israel, Kashmir and also Spain and southern Thailand are under threat.
This is why some of us found it quite ominous when Hilaly pronounced that Australia was Muslim before white settlement. Nonsense though it was historically, it actually meant that an Imam has declared Australia to be a former part of Dar al Islam, thus a priority for reconquest.
Finally, here is Daniel Pipes on the embrace of non-violent jihad, titled, appropriately enough "When Conservatives Argue About Islam":
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4745
Posted by: moose | July 07, 2007 at 10:53 AM
Pipes' article - very good as usual - raises an interesting question with its mass of acronyms of Muslim organisations and its comparison of Islamism with the French Communist Party. It's always good to know if your enemy is really split or if it's all a front. The French Communist Party was all hard-line Stalinist, but Western observers were wrong for years in thinking the Sino-Soviet split was a deception operation. So are there good analyses of splits in Islam that distinguish the true from the false? Obviously Sunni vs Shia is genuine, even though unfortunately their policies vis a vis the West agree. The Indonesian police vs JI also appears to be genuine? Any expertise on these matters?
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 07, 2007 at 07:40 PM
Jim
I am not quite sure what you mean by:
Are you attempting to figure out which creedal branch of Islam is most true? If so, what criteria would you suggest should be used to ascertain this? For example, is it true to acknowledged and authoritative Islamic texts (be it the Qur'an or the Hadiths), true to the earliest Islamic Imams' teachings, a mixture of both, etc? This would appear to be a fruitless exercise - sort of like trying to determine whether Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox is the more accurate, true reflection of Christianity. And we both know the answer to that one don't we? ;) In any case, being able to determine truth of the claims/statements made by our Muslim contemporaries on Islam is difficult due to the doctrines of taqqiya and abrogation. Another problem with Islam and reason: Reason seeks for Truth, taqqiya seeks to hide it and abrogation seeks to paper over inconsistencies.
Alternatively are you questioning whether the distinctions we perceive in Islam are in fact genuine? For example, are you questioning the split that we perceive exists between the Indonesian police (army?) and J.I is ipso facto congruous to reality? This may be the easier alternative to answer requiring less doctrinal and historic knowledge, but fraught with trying to pick taqqiya.
Posted by: Manny | July 07, 2007 at 11:51 PM
The Sunni/Shia split is far less complete than some may think, at least in terms of coordinated strategy against the West.
Islamist Shia (twelver sect, mostly) Iran appears to be
1. Supporting extremist Islamist Sunni (Muslim Brotherhood offshoot) HAMAS (this is not an "appears to be" but a given)
2. Providing refuge to a number of al Qaeda seniors, including Osama's son Sa'ad Bin Laden
http://analysis.threatswatch.org/2006/08/tehran-deploys-bin-ladens-son/
3. Arming Sunni Deobandi Taliban in Afghanistan
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2007/06/mil-070627-rferl01.htm
4. Working with Sunni jihadist Palestinian groups in Lebanon, such as FATAH al Islam
5. Many Sunnis worldwide idolize Hezbollah following last year's Summer War. Our own Sheikh Hilaly marched in support of them, and met with Hezbollah officials on his trip to Lebanon. Australian Sunni Lebanese have been at pains to explain that they support Hezbollah, even though their more secular cousins back home may not (Anyone else get the feeling that the Lebanese Sunni community sent us their all their nutcases?)
And lest we forget the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, pronounced by the Shiite Ayatollah Knhomeini, and taken up by the suddenly militant mass of Sunni Deobandi Pakistanis in the UK.
Posted by: moose | July 08, 2007 at 09:15 AM
It would be nice, as Jim Franklin noted above, if the Mu'tazili school of Islamic theology could be revived. The school did seek to ground Islamic thought in reason and its hermeneutics were useful in offering, where necessary, metaphorical rather than literal interpretations to resolve contradictions in the scriptures. It also had a useful system for weighing the evidence before accepting a tradition as authentic.
Unfortunately, its rivals won and the Mu'tazilis faded from the scene over a thousand years ago. Today, with a particularly pernicious fundamentalism on the rise, the chances of a similar Islamic theology gaining much traction appear remote.
Jim raised the issue of the separation of Church and state. Some Muslims may argue that the Millet system in the Ottoman Empire provides an appropriate model for their communities within Western societies; that current arrangements give them fewer rights than Christians and Jews enjoyed within the Caliphate. Why shouldn’t sharia law apply to their communities? Why shouldn’t the mosque determine marriage and inheritance matters, rather than the state?
In any case, Muslims are bound to reject secularism for a more fundamental reason – secularism in the West has been accompanied by a decline in religious belief. Once the core of Christendom, Europe is now a post-Christian society. It won’t escape their attention that the term ‘secularism’ was coined by an agnostic.
Posted by: Lounge Lizard | July 08, 2007 at 04:47 PM
Sorry to create confusion over what I meant by "true split". I meant one that might have opposing parties at each other's throats (as opposed to them merely pretending). As Moose says, the Sunni-Shia split is genuine, but they can suddenly be matey again if you give them Salman Rushdie or an Israeli war. Which just confirms what I was saying before, that you have to consider the many consequences of "strong" action when you're considering taking it. Attack always unites the enemy.
About the decay of the Mu'tazili and the alleged constant victory of extremism in Islam: could we remember t hat modern jihadism is a creation of our own lifetimes? Let's recall the 1930s: 1400 years since Mohammed' trip to Medina, almost all the Islamic world under the political control of London, Paris and The Hague; those empires on their knees from disarmament, depression and the rise of fascism, and what was the result? Peace, close enough, from Morocco to the Moluccas.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 09, 2007 at 01:15 PM
Jim, modern Jihadism (at least that inspired by Sayyid Qutb) may have been invented within the lifetimes of the older amongst us. However, is the theology of this jihad unique? Certainly, modern communications and mobility have enabled it to spread faster and further than ever before, but is, say, Osama Bin Laden’s Jihad theology significantly different from that of, say, Muhammed Ahmad, the alleged ‘Mahdi’ with whom General Gordon battled in 19th century Sudan?
Was not the peace you refer to in the 1930s a product, inter alia, of the eventual British victory in the Sudan?
Posted by: Lounge Lizard | July 09, 2007 at 03:20 PM
Jim
You have said that:
I agree that this needs to be considered. However, there are two questions that need to be answered.
I guess I am not sure where your idea of fissions in Islam is leading?
Posted by: Manny | July 09, 2007 at 07:52 PM
The reference to the Mahdi is good. He was out of the blue and his ideology was indeed like Osama's, and the right plan was to react to that in the same way as to Osama. The Brits did a good job persisting despite the initial disaster at Khartoum. After that, it was all over until Sayyid Qutb. Other Western-Islamic conflict in the period 1880-1980 was more like the farce portrayed memorably by Sid James and the team in Carry On Up the Khyber.
As an end-game model I prefer the Cold War containment strategy to "conquest". Islam has a longer record of survival than Leninism, but also a long record of variation.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 10, 2007 at 09:26 AM
Jim, do you really think the current jihad theology just came out of the blue? Isn’t it more likely that like a disease in remission, it was always there, out of sight, in the background, festering quietly in the mosques and madrasas, just waiting for the right circumstances to burst forth into the world?
As for containment, that only works if we have a credible deterrent. During the Cold War, our communist enemies didn’t want to die. But if our enemy doesn’t care about death, what is our deterrent? We could possibly deter him by visiting terrible retribution on his nearest and dearest, but a Hama Rules response is off the table. We seek to fight wars with fastidious delicacy.
We’re not prepared to do obvious things to promote our safety if they are seen to be discriminatory; in the name of human rights we tolerate the intolerant. We’re facing something primal, barbaric, a force that interprets our restraint as weakness, inviting attack. How should we respond?
Posted by: Lounge Lizard | July 10, 2007 at 09:41 PM
If Islamism’s principal methods of warfare are asymmetrical, what meaning and content could we invest in any containment policy? Moreover, in the case of the Soviet Union, containment “worked” because Communism, depending on secular validation, was perceived by the Soviet elite as a failure by the 1980’s. By contrast, Islamism, whatever its political, economic and social failures, is not judged by any secular measure. The “end game” may need our adoption of asymmetrical methods which seek to subvert the rule of Islamist regimes, e.g. that of Iran, rather than seek conventional military confrontation.
Posted by: Polar Bear | July 10, 2007 at 09:52 PM
Sure, jihadism was "in remission" and always had the potential to break out. Also the potential to stay in remission. One possible content of containment strategy relevant to present circumstances is assistance (with methods and technology) to the forces out there who are confronting jihadism, like the Pakistan army (good work there) and the Indonesian police. We could worry that as they're Muslims too it's dangerous to help them, but it would be better to go with their track record.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 11, 2007 at 10:10 AM
Jim, you said:
If the Pakistani army is confronting the jihadis, why are they abandoning whole provinces of Pakistan to them? Or is this part of the strategy of containment that you envisage? As the recent "Red Mosque" episode demonstrates "containment" - or keeping jihadis penned up - does not work. "Penned up" is not a strategy position that they are willing to accept. Empirical facts.
The Indonesians prima facie appear to be doing a better job. But then again, I know very little about what they are doing except for some high-profile arrests. That does not in and of itself demonstrate real commitment to fighting jihadism.
Happy (and hope) to be proven wrong on this one Jim. What I would like to see you demonstrate is that either of these nations have a well-defined and executed strategy for "confronting" jihadism.
Posted by: Manny | July 11, 2007 at 11:08 PM
The contrast between the situation in Indonesia and in the southern Philippines shows that the Indonesian strategy is already well-executed.
The problem in Pakistan is surely that no-one is firmly in control, so there are different factions jockeying for power - some of them pro-jihadi and some of them anti. So the army (or one faction) is storming the Red Mosque while Intelligence (or one faction) is protecting Abdul Qadeer Khan; then there's the President vs the Supreme Court, etc. All the more reason why a containment strategy should recognise the splits in the Muslim world.
Posted by: Jim Franklin | July 12, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Lounge Lizard:
I find it encouraging that this subject is receiving due attention. In particular The Australian printed several articles this week on this topic including one about a Muslin woman in Sudan taken into slavery by Arabs. Greg Sheridan is quite bold on the subject, as is Paul Sheehan in the Herald. Other papers are now daring to say the name that in recent PC times could not be said. There have been several fine articles in Quadrant recently.
As the former professor at a leading American university, I think your observation that Islam rejects the necessity of reason (and therefore science), while Christianity embraces it, is THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL POINT. It helps explain all other observations, and therefore must be the cornerstone of any effort to resolve the impass between Western civilisation and Islam if it is to have any hope of success.
I think we agree on this. There remains the minor problem of what to do about it. The scary thing is that all children in Islamic madrassas, from Yemen to Sydney, are being continously brainwashed in Koranic fundalmentalism that, by definition, incorporates the rejection of reason. (There may well be moderate Islamists but there is no moderate Islam.) I believe that Saudi Arabia is funding Islamic schools and university chairs in Australia.
We remain frustrated in trying to get Australian school teachers to reject post-modernism and relativism. How can we get teachers in Islamic schools (around the world) to teach the necessity of reason? The two institutions that eventually brought down Soviet communism were the Catholic Church and the United States of America. I am afraid that they are once again our only hope.
Posted by: Federalist | July 12, 2007 at 10:49 AM
Another reason why containment doesn't work.
Posted by: Manny | July 12, 2007 at 08:01 PM
Containing Iran, Gaza or Waziristan "over there" could make conceptual sense, provided we ignore the lack of an effective deterrent due to a cult of death, as discussed above. We would also need to ignore the lack of targets for retaliation due to covert and non-state action, and new tools of the trade such as suitcase size nukes, small dirty nukes, home made ricin and the permeability of Western borders, physical and electronic.
But this is not the Cold War, and it is not enough to contain any particular nation state. Can we contain the banlieus of France, Londonistan in England or South-West Sydney for that matter? The home front is however the most critical one in the current war.
Immigration, birth rates, activism taking advantage of political correctness, challenges to free speech, outright intimidation, murder and mass terror are home front problems, with the imposition of full Sharia law as the final objective. First informally in "no-go" enclaves, as is already the case in France and the UK. .Disdain for the official law is expressed by the youth, but also taught by their religious leaders: after all, any man-made law is an abomination, particularly one created by infidels.
This is an environment where two sets of laws apply informally. While technically still illegal, Muslim domestic violence, child brides, bigamy, and incitement to violence are overlooked. The next step gives this de facto situation some official standing. The examples are many. Police in Australia have been instructed to be mindful of cultural differences when investigating domestic violence in Muslim homes. A court in Germany ruled that domestic violence is not grounds for divorce for a Muslim couple A French government official met a no-go area representative outside of the area itself, recognising that kaffirs were not welcome there.
Meanwhile, criticism of the process is discouraged or banned through a combination of intimidation, propaganda and legislation. The VCAT laws in Victoria are a good case in point here. While the "Catch the Fire" ministries case may have been a "draw" it is actually a victory for the bad guys: anyone daring to criticise Islam in Victoria still risks costly and painful court proceedings, even if they are more confident that they may not lose outright and go to jail. Recent EU legislation has effectively made "Islamophobia" a crime across the Union. This even as individual states such as the UK narrowly avoided passing such legislation of their own.
The legitimisation of Sharia continues
through officially sanctioned Sharia family courts, which have been attempted in Canada, and demanded in Southern Thailand.
Official sharia enclaves thus
arise.
Finally, Sharia is officially applied to all nominal Muslims (identified as such in official documents) irrespective of their desire to be subject to it, such as in Malaysia and half of Nigeria (all too recently an almost entirely Christian land). In the latter case, Sharia applies to all matters of life, and presents death as a possible punishment. Finally, Sharia becomes the only law, applied to Muslim and Dhimmi alike.
How do we contain this process?
Posted by: moose | July 12, 2007 at 10:47 PM