Wednesday, November 27, 2002

The Anti-Democrats The New York Times op-ed today is full of condemnations of Muslims for fundamentalism.  All the writers, Salmon Rushdie, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd, write as if only liberal democratic Muslims would stand up and take power in their societies, everything would be fine.  They should take aim at the fundamentalists in our society as well.   They recite a litany of fundamentalist outrages, from the killings in Bali to the riots over the Miss World Pageant in Nigeria to the Sharia law stoning sentences passed on hapless victims, mostly poor women.  Then Maureen Dowd piles on with the connections between the Saudi royal family and the Bushes.     Why does this Muslim fundamentalist behavior hit such a nerve, while Western fundamentalist behavior is overlooked?    Osama Bin Laden claims that the fight between Muslims and Christians is a new crusade—designed to cement Western Christian power over the Muslim lands.   The actions of the West, in opposing Arab democracies whenever they tried to take root, and in openly challenging the right of various Muslim states to exist in their present form, play right into his hands.  Is not Christian fundamentalism that awards the Jews Palestine because of their democratic and biblical heritage, a mirror image of his world-view?   The Western intellectuals are very close to saying that Muslim society, as it now exists, is beyond the pale and must be changed.    We have to confront fundamentalism wherever it arises, because it is in essence anti-democratic.  A fundamentalist view does not admit that ‘others’ have right to life or liberty, and does not recognize limits when on power.   I have long argued that one of George Bush’s basic flaws is his fundamentalist thinking.  He doesn’t just use the rhetoric of a world divided into white and black, good and evil, us and them.   He actually believes this.    Unless our anti-Muslim intellectuals are willing to take on all aspects of fundamentalism, including the fundamentalism that has arisen in the Republican party, they are going to be no more than apologists for those in power.   The struggle in the Middle East today is a power struggle.  Because the Muslim radicals could not win against their own police states backed by the West, they turned to religion and radical Islam, choosing an area where the West could not control them.  Like a river that can be temporarily dammed, but will eventually break through on another course, the Arab drive for national independence will fight on religious terms if nothing else is available.    The problem with the attack on Saddam Hussein is that Iraq is the most secular regime in the region.  By overthrowing a secular regime, Bush is opening the gates to the fundamentalists, who will fight on religious terrain if they cannot oppose the West through political or economic or military means.  The tragedy of Bush’s fundamentalism is that it is a recipe for a “clash of civilizations” .  Such a global war is a necessary psychological characterization for Americans to accept casualties and huge losses that today they are not yet prepared to accept.   The more Muslims are demonized, the easier it will be for Bush and his backers to bring the U.S. into a war that most people do not want.   11:10:46 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:31:32 PM.