A debate over matters of faith is drawing attention away from a very necessary debate over matters of international politics
Even as the world grapples with the threat from radical Islamist terrorists and watches with concern---both silent and noisy---of a 'return to the roots' movement among the world's Muslims, a good part of the debate has focused on whether or not Islam is as peaceful as many of its moderate adherents claim it to be (via Desipundit). As Retributions points out in a recent post, the debate over the tenets of Islam is misdirected. It is also misleading and ultimately counter-productive for it plays into the very hands of those who benefit from both Islamist terrorism and from the war against it.
....while all politics is necessarily pursuit of power, ideologies render involvement in that contest for power pyschologically and morally acceptable to the actors and their audience.Morgenthau, the father of the modern Realist school of international relations wrote this several decades ago. Nazi Germany's quest for lebensraum that set off World War II, the Communist bloc's anti-imperialist cry and the West's banner of feedom during the Cold War are in this sense similar to the contemporary Islamist agenda. Hitler's grouch was that the German people were denied the "living space" that they were entitled to, the Islamists' bone is that the West is denying them their rightful place in the global power structure.(Ideologies) are either ultimate goals of political action...or they are pretexts and false fronts behind which the element of power, inherent in all politics, is concealed. They may fulfill one or the other function, or they may fulfill both at the same time.
The nation that dispensed with ideologies and frankly stated that it wanted power would...at once find itself at a great and perhaps decisive disadvantage in the struggle for power. [Hans J Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations pp98-99]
Islam then, serves to cloak what would otherwise a naked and therefore untenable quest for power. But who is it that is seeking power? Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and its various manifestations? Well, yes. Behind all the religious rhetoric lies an ambition to grab control of Islamic states. But even if Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were somehow put out of commission tomorrow, it is extremely unlikely that the global threat from radical Islam will disappear overnight. That's because of those religious tenets, correct? Not quite. That's because of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and others---the major states of the Islamic world. More exactly, their usurpation of religion in the struggle for power.
It is no accident that some of the most dangerous terrorist outfits today are or used to be surrogates and proxies of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. Before September 11, 2001, these states sponsored terrorist organisations to directly pursue their power games. After 9/11, many of them have, to varying degrees of commitment and success, turned against their own creations (while claiming it is the other way around). But this is not so much a rejection of the use of Islam to pursue their quest for power but rather, a change in tactics. The majority---including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt---have calculated that being co-opted into the war on terror as enlightened moderates serves their ambitions better than simply backing terrorists. A small minority---Iran is the principal one in this category---have calculated the confrontation offers better rewards. The decision to co-operate or confront depends on both their unique circumstances and on the expected payoffs.
The presence of Muslim minorities in countries around the world provides the major Islamic states with unprecedented leverage in the pursuit of their own national interests. The greater part of these minorities is unlikely to respond to a call to terror. But it is quite likely to be riled by accounts of oppression of Muslims around the world and outraged by insulting cartoons or demeaning remarks by the Pope. So it serves the interests of the major Islamic states to keep this 'Islam under seige' narrative on the boil. Not only does this serve to rally domestic support for their own, uniformly autocratic regimes, but it also makes it incumbent upon the West to engage these regimes delicately. The latter gives the them far more international clout than countries of equivalent size.
The first tragedy of all this is that while the major Islamic states are likely to benefit under most circumstances, for their role as unwitting pawns in the international power game, Muslim minorities around the world end up as the losers. Any deepening of the religious divide in their countries is likely to leave them relatively more worse off compared to the majority. Their best interests lie in seeing through this game and refusing to become a part of it. The second tragedy is that this is next to impossible---for their discontent makes for fertile political ground in the secular, democratic countries they are a part of. Politicians---both Muslim and non-Muslim---are ever ready to pander to the Muslim minority's insecurity and have strong incentives to maintain the "Islam under seige" story. And naturally, there would be politicians attempting to pick up votes on the other side of the divide.
Countries such as India, United States, Britain and continental Europe face two problems: first, the use of Islam as an ideology to mask the quest for power on the part of the major Islamic states; and second, the polarisation of Muslim minorities in secular democracies as a consequence. Such is the framing of issues necessary to even begin tackling the problem of globalisation of jihad. Doing otherwise, and making it a debate over what Islam says (and its more juvenile counterpart---why Religion X is better than Islam) is at best irrelevant and at worst self-defeating.
Interesting post, but I believe it was the Bush administration that decided who our Muslim pals would be after 9/11 and they didn't have much say in the decision.
The Taliban, Iran and even Saddam offered to play for our team, but we turned them down.
Kinda hard to stage a "war" if everyone is standing on the same side of the field...
The modern style Middle Eastern state comes late in logical order and date. (I'll return good for evil and not add "stupid".)
(5,000 years in 90 seconds (Flash). :)
See how late the Western state is, and that it's not indigenous. It doesn't have anything like the same roots as in the Western world, and it doesn't confer the same legitimacy. It's a less fundamental thing that gives its peak functionaries much less validation, and not only because Jesus said "give unto Caesar" and Muhammed (pbuh) didn't.
For the Muslim world, I think a different model is appropriate, as I said before (link).
On the Israeli-Palestinian dispute (which is basically that the Palestinians wish to wipe out the Jewish state and the Jews don't wish to be wiped out), which is accepted as a common problem for the Musim world including states that have nothing (except Islam) to do with it, I think Islam stands both before and behind this.
It works roughly like this:
ISLAM - generates violently aggressive culture.
GRIEVANCES - "humiliations" sought and sustained (like the refugee status of the Palestinians), in ways that suit cultures that religiously define jihad as the pinnacle of legitimacy - so the preferred solution is always going to be some variety of conquest, domination and Arabic supremacism.
GRAND SOLUTIONS - for example, Arab Nazism, Socialism, pan-Arabism, political Islam. Grand solutions can be evaluated and replaced according to their success in advancing the Ummah, winning allies (like the Third Reich or the Soviet Union), mobilizing combatants of various sorts and laying hurt on whoever is the target of the modishly decorated jihad this time.
GRAND STRATEGY - for individual states and non-state actors, and so on down as in the West. But in this picture, grand strategy is not at the top as in the West, rather the particular state or non-state actor like Hezbollah is a component of the Muslim nation.
(And this is more true than it's ever been in the modern, internationally networked world, where the umma can react as one - and where sometimes it shows its united sentiment as on the repulsiveness and unacceptability of the Muhammed (pbuh) cartoons. This networking is not going to go away.)
Grand solutions can be replaced, and have been. If political Islam does the job where previous grand solutions failed (that is, if it leads to the destruction of Israel), it will be historically legitimated to an extraordinary level, something like how the Great Patriotic War legitimate Socialism in the Soviet Union for a long time. But if it fails it can be replaced by something that seems to give more promise of wiping out the problem and the grievance.
(Example: a student election between Fatah and Hamas. Hamas won. Why, because the students were choosing the more pious party above all? No, because the parties competed by boasting about who killed more Jews in terror attacks, and Hamas had more to boast of. Success in solving problems (that are defined in ways shaped by fundamental Islam) leads to superficial piety (or not), not vice versa. (What kind of person is it most effective to be, and what ideolgy does the job best?)
The key thing is to distinguish between fundamental Islam (equivalent to hardware and operating system) and political Islam as a "Grand Solution" (more like a front end or even a skin or a theme).
With Saddam Hussein it was a cheap theme - barely more than some wallpaper. This trivial and unconvincing coloration of political Islam should not be confused with the reason this bloody and inept tyrant was acclaimed a hero of the Arab and Muslim world for a while. The criteria that supported that acclaim are part of fundamental, underlying Islam. He wasn't doing the job according to the West, but he was doing it according to Muslims even though he himself was not a great Muslim.
... political Islam in the exact forms we see now, another grand solution being attempted, is relatively superficial. It can pass.
In any case, the white-hot forms of political Islam we have now are not going to keep going at the same intensity and in the same way forever. Arab history doesn't work like that. Nobody's history does. There have been other grand solutions before, like the Turkish solution (a very, very successful and long-lived one), and there'll be others after. (Or old ones will continue to be recycled, as the Salafists are recycling the old old flavor of Muslim terror practiced by Muhammed (pbuh) as well as they can in a modern age where plunder doesn't have the same practical significance to raiders.)
If a superficial color of Communism would win Chinese backing for continued jihad, I'm sure some of the turbaned gentleman we see now would quickly remember that they or their fathers were "socialists" before. As long as the game remains unchanged in essence, the clothes and slogans can alter, within limits.
But can Islam (top level) really cease to be at war with everything that is not itself? Can grand solutions cease to be selected other than by old and grim criteria? I doubt it. You will get the Christians to boot Jesus out of their religion before Islam abandons jihad.
The state, important as it is, is very much underneath that.
Something like the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a state and nothing else in the same way that the Commonwealth of Australia is a state and nothing else. Rather, it is a means to an end, and the ultimate meaning of the Islamic Republic is given in the first adjective.
I think you are underestimating the ideologues. If you want to compare the contemporay madment to historical ones, do it the right way.
One of the most eyeopening elements of nazi policy during WW2 was that they found killing jews even more important than winning the war, as, among others Raul Hilberg in his groundbreaking study "The Destruction of the European Jews" and Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism " argue.
While the supply lines to the front in the east broke down in they still used the train net to deportate jews to extermination camps, against the protests of the military leaders, who wanted to use these trains to send clothes, weapons and food to the front.
During the holocaust there were struggles within the German leadership as to what is more important: having slave workers that would produce munition and with whom you could make a lot of money because you didn't have to pay them, or to kill jews. There exists an interesting document by Himmler, chief of the SS, where he declares whenever there is a conflict between the interest of making money or the interest of killing jews, killing jews had to be the more important thing.
My point is that it is necessary to take seriously what people who support totalitarian ideologies actually say. They mean every word of it, it is not always a cloaker for their real interests like power or making money. And this makes them more dangerous, not less dangerous. You can negotiate with people who want things like "more power" or "more money". You cannot negotiate with people who want to model the world after their paranoid ideologies.
By the sway, Nitin Pal's links are OK, and the debate in the thread Nitin Pa linked to - this one (link) - is good.
I would add only this: we know whether Islam tends to produce Islamic states (though not invariably, as other historic forces also get a say), or whether instead it is essentially that Islamic states produce and re-produce Islam. We can tell if only because of the protected place of Islam in the constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Had Muslims in these states, building from scratch and with a totally free choice under American protection, opted for genuinely secular states with guaranteed religious freedom and equality for all, the happiness of the Americans would have been as big as the missing twin towers of the World Trade Center. It was not to be. (And among other things the 2006 Abdul Rahman case was a consequence.) So we know that the real problem is Islam and the constitution of the state comes later.
Re: #3 from vito: yes.
It has also been typical of religion from it's most ancient beginnings that people do things that are committal, serious, costly and hard to fake. It's not a plausible interpretation of he staggering amount of labor that went into building the pyramids (in ancient Egypt) that this was a cover for some royal scheme to rake in a bit more in trade goods (money having not been invented yet) or something like that. A staggering effort was made because supernatural results were expected. There is no way around the importance of religious, non-secular motivations. Never has been, never will be.
In the same way, today, when people want to think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to be kidding in his focus on the 12th Imam, they're just kidding themselves. And if people refuse to credit the motives of the Saudis in erasing their past (link) (thanks to mary (link)), no other plausible and comprehensible motive can be proposed.
And religions are not interchangeable. They are incredibly, richly, deeply different, and the more I study, the more I internalise this. Muslims don't build pyramids and colossal idols, and Pharaoh never declared jihad. (War, yes, that is inevitable, but with nothing like Muslim ideas on war and divine regulations concerning booty and so on.) The deep differences in mindset and conduct that flow from that persist for millennia (at least) and are as fundamental as anything this side of mankind's DNA.
Excellent post!
I just miss one thing: oil.
Maybe it is because Anglosaxon countries have enoguh of it, at least to supply strategic industries. The rest of the developed world, especially Japan and Continental European countries but Norway, are hopelessly subjugated in energy by Muslim ones, even though the production from Russia keeps rising.
Therefore, a technological breakthrough has to be achieved in order to diminish the dependence of those economies from the Arab world. Full substitution is not possible at this stage, but at least some developments should reduce the weight of oil in strategic areas.
vito (#3)
Gotz Aly has proven what Von Mises already said in 1944: the Nazis ended mass-murdering Jews because it was, simply, profitable. They had enough slave workers, among others millions of Russians; they had other European workers, whose pays were charged as an occupation cost to conquered nations... Jews presented two problems: they need to be fed at the concentration camps, consuming scarce resources; and someday they could claim back their properties and assets. It began as an ideology, but it ended being simply economy.
Nitin Pai: In the post, you write
This threw me. But I see that it should be interpreted as
J. Aguilar #6: You say
This also threw me. But you must mean
I think that it is important for us to note both: The Islam as a religion, and the Islamists as power-players. Remember that we do not, and never will have a homogenous enemy. That is, we'll have two guys marching under our enemy's banner, but for different reasons.
This is the case of Islam. Some truly believe in their sect's teachings and honestly desire a Caliphate. Others see Islam as a means to an end-- power, money, etc.
If you really want to fight dirty, find the guys who like money and power and use them to undermine the state. It can, and has, naturally, backfired. Once the guy gets his payoff, he might decide its just icing on the cake, and double-cross you. A traitor is still a traitor, inbetween betrayals he's just looking for another advantage.
Anyhow, the non-homogeneity of our enemy is (and will continue to be) a struggle. The reason why Bush doesn't call Islam our enemy (even though the religion itself at its core may be) is because he knows that not all Muslims are our enemies. We have:
1. Fundamental Aspects of Islam (what you get if you really hit the books.)
2. Secondary Aspects of Islam (the other documents that may have differing levels of importance to different Muslims)
3. Sectional practices (differing interpretations and traditions.)
4. Political expressions (goal-oriented preaching and usage of Islam.)
Christianity is similar; while the actual words are different, there is that 4-level divide. 1 is the most general and 4 the most specific. But, again, every person may view all 4 differently. So its just a rule of thumb.
Some Muslims won't speak out against their brothers out of societal pressures, and others, because they (while they disagree) know that some of the more violent people are operating within the writings of the Koran. So there is a problem- the people who don't speak up, we don't know off the bat if they are our friends. Just like the moderates- we don't know which of the 4 is in play-- a moderate who is deep into number 4-- which is usage of Islam to gain personal power for instance, and a person very much into number 3 or 2 may seem to be of the same cloth. But they are very different.
If 1. the core values are inescapably violent and problematic, then it is unlikely that a peaceful world can exist with Islam as a major component; at least Islam based on the Koran. Even if everyone belongs to a sect that discourages the violent parts of the Koran, they are still there.
I heard someone arguing that all religions are the same on another blog-- it was mostly a cover for self-rejection regarding religios practice, but for others it might be an excuse to not critically look at the teachings of religions and make decisions about them.
The four-tier approach might be useful, in that it allows us to see what our options are.
In Christianity, the dynamic might be
1. The Bible
2. Apocrypha/Wisdom Literature
3. Catechism/Church Doctrines (denominational)
4. Books, messages and homilies, or overarching themes of individual preachers, priests, etc.
The arguments against Christianity are levelled most usually against 4-- obviously, like those against Islam regarding 4-- are hollow. The twisting of the human mind can make evil good and good evil.
Also common is to argue against 3-- among self-identified Christians, there are sects that do arguably strange things, but this is mostly among Christians. Its hard to shout down a Catholic about the Methodists' love of prayer.
The least common argument is against the content of 2. -- these are things which are mostly only known to Christians.
The other (probably) second most common argument is to attack the Bible. The trouble with this, just like attacking Islam on 1. only, is that it only gets part of the picture. It is important what the Bible says, but it is also very important how it is actually interpretted and implemented.
I use this as a parallel- both are religions, so as to juxtapose the familiar in an attempt to familiarize the alien.
Think about it this way: we want to answer a question... we see in a passage of the Koran something that to us, equates to 'Subdue thy neighbor.' So what we want to know is, how persistent is this idea? 1. Is that really what it says? 2. What do secondary writings say about the matter? 3. What do different sects say? 4. Is this become a convenient tool for the violent and power-hungry? and 5. Is this phrase an indictment against the whole of Islam, or merely a minor problem?
I would suggest putting other religions to the test about things written, or things spoken (1 or 4) and try to convert this process to be used on Islam to try to force it to reveal its true nature.
Sound like an interesting idea?
Nitin Pai's thesis--that questions of political power lie beneath many of the ideological postures assumed by Islamic elites and majority-Muslim nations--echoes the position being advanced in a book I'm reading. That is a short survey of Islam, Islamic Imperialism, by Efriam Karsh of King's College, Oxford University.
Karsh interprets many of the signal events of Muslim history as will-to-power struggles between two (sometimes more) sets of elites. Some of these fit nicely with the conventional view, e.g. between the Prophet's successors and the Byzantine Empire. Notably, Karsh is insightful when he looks at the intricacies of intra-ummah strife through the same lens. Examples include the initial Sunni-Shi'ia schism, and the struggles between and within the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates.
Intriguingly, he offers a revisionist interpretation of the Crusader States along the same lines, pointing out that Saladin placed the highest priority on improving his strategic position vis-a-vis his superior and rival Nur ad-Din. Jihads against the Latin Kingdoms were less pressing; Karsh sees them in the context of alliances and wars of convenience between and among the Muslim and Christian sovereigns.
It's hard to say whether this Pai/Karsh thesis is cause for "optimism" or "pessimism." More than that, I think it offers a useful way to think about intra-Islam affairs as well as the "Clash of Civilizations" (if any).
@ #6
Götz Aly's work is very valuable in many aspects. But I think he overestimates the influence of certain people within the national socialist elite and therefore comes to the wrong conclusions. That is especially the guys that ran the "Generalgouvernement" - occupied Poland. These guys indeed were primarily interested in economy, and less in ideology.
But the mere fact that there were some people who thought this way does not mean that they really made the decisions, even though they were no doubt able to have influence on these. But the main mistake of Aly here is to interpret these economic goals as rational and not as ideological. These economic goals (namely Lebensraum) were in itself only possible because these people were obsessed with an ideology that was both antisemitic and racist. This is one of the main point Yehuda Bauer makes when discussing Aly in his excellent book "Rethinking the Holocaust".
first, the use of Islam as an ideology to mask the quest for power on the part of the major Islamic states; and second, the polarisation of Muslim minorities in secular democracies as a consequence. Such is the framing of issues necessary to even begin tackling the problem of globalisation of jihad. Doing otherwise, and making it a debate over what Islam says (and its more juvenile counterpart---why Religion X is better than Islam) is at best irrelevant and at worst self-defeating.
This is an excellent essay. If we ignore the religious dogma, if we ignore what our enemies say and pay attention to what they do, their motives are very clear; they want to dominate us. They want more money, land and power, just like everyone else who has waged war.
Some want to dominate us through diplomatic wrangling, salesmanship and smoke and mirrrors (the "moderates"); others want to dominate us using violence and threats (the terrorists).
The Nazis inspired followers with talk of Aryan supremacy - the Islamists inspire followers with talk of Muslim supremacy. If we had fought the Nazis by seeking the support of moderate Aryans, democratizing the Third Reich and endlessly debating which culture was better (Aryan vs. American) we'd all be sieg heiling our Fuhrer right now. No one has ever won war through outreach programs. You win a war by dominating your enemy, economically or militarily. The jihadis and their supporters are smart enough to have figured that out.
As the link indictes, lebensraum was a 19th century priciple with broad support before Hitler entered the picture. It was fostered by a sense of grievance at being late to form a nation state, concern over mass migration of Germans to the United States, and crude application of science (Darwinism) to the study of cultures. It can be seen in pre-WWI strategic designs on the Ottomon Empire, encouraged by the Pan-German League (1891) which admitted Jews until 1912. Most WWI histories discuss the role of lebensraum in explaining German policies.
So the idealogical principle existed independent of its most voracious applicant. In the same way jihad stands, waiting for application by the Left or the Right. The Kaiser found jihad useful in WWI; Carter found it useful in the Cold War. To defeat the messenger or the message?
I've got no quarrel with a technological breakthrough, if and when it occurs, but I would like to point out that a geopolitical breakthrough would also suffice. The oil-producing areas of both Saudi Arabia and Iran are fairly separate from the main population centers, so how hard would it be militarily to simply expropriate them? At least an order of magnitude easier than trying to take over either country in toto.
Now, I'm not actually advocating this, just sayin'. There's plenty of reasons (and not just pragmatic ones) this is currently a non-starter. Non-military aspects really supercede here, including whether we would have the will and strength to withstand the resulting s***storm in the Islamic world that would certainly result. But if the West gets desparate enough for oil, that calculus could change.
AMac #9: I'm always happy when someone name-drops a good book they're reading. I liked Efriam Karsh's Empires of the Sand a lot. Unlike traditional histories that focus on the actions of great Europeans and liberal histories that focus on the actions of bad Europeans, he places Arabs in the story as significant participants.
That said, I don't think his take on the Crusades is that revisionist. Amin Maalouf reviewed the Arab first-hand accounts in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and found the Arabs not terribly interested in the Franks, who they treated as another passing tribe, albeit a more primitive one. So what we have here is a post-enlightenment history of the Crusades, which functioned as a critique of religion, having taken the place of a more factual and reliable Arab history.
And back to the larger issue. The West formed a critique of religion by examining its conduct in the Crusades, which might have fallen within the bounds of norms at the time and place, was still outrageous in the context of religion. Could the Enlightenment have occurred without a critique of religion? Can Muslim countries embrace modernity while rejecting any criticism of religion?
(And I'm not talking about blanket criticism of Islam or whose religion is better. Obviously Scientology wins that one. I'm talking about a critique of violent jihad and dhimmitude)
Oh sorry AMac (#7), I forgot the up. Thank you.
vito (#10)
I don't think so, it wasn't limited to Poland. The Gold of the Jews of Thessalonika (12 tons) very probably was used to underpin the dracma and cut overinflation. Their silver might have fed the Nazi cinema propaganda industry, as raw material. After the allied bombings in Western Germany, the authorities encouraged further persecution of Jews in Belgium and France in order to give their confiscated furniture and clothes to the Germans that had lost their homes. It was a process triggered by economical necessity, and after those Jews were deprived of everything, they were useless to the National Socialist state: another prisoner to fed when food is scarce. That is a death sentence.
These economic goals (namely Lebensraum) were in itself only possible because these people were obsessed with an ideology that was both antisemitic and racist.
I disagree. That is a smoke curtain well stablished by the Left to not step on the point that the Nazi regime was Socialist. The reasons were economic and there were approved by the Reich's Finance Minister Graf von Schwerin-Krosig, who had studied at Oxford and wasn't a Nazi, but a German conservative.
He simply trimmed the Reich's budget.
Kirk Parker (#13)
Maybe your idea may suffice for a while, but I think technology will provide some kind of partial solution. Then, the Muslim extremism danger would be tackled easier.
PD Shaw (#14)
Could the Enlightenment have occurred without a critique of religion?
Good point. Why did the Renaissance occur? Some Italians remembered those old days when men were free. Christianism was not born as a State religion, and had a Jew mother and a Greek father. That is my opinion, rational and moral grounds of free critique have always been there. When civilization advanced again in Europe, people simply recalled them and revolved against the Church.
Can Muslim countries embrace modernity while rejecting any criticism of religion?
No, they cannot. But it is worse: for them Religion is the only thing that makes them superior to us. Prophet Mohammed came after Jews and Christians ones and, evidently, provides a more advanced religion. No matter they are poorer or less developed, but they have the true religion. Why criticize the best they have?
#14 from PD Shaw: "Can Muslim countries embrace modernity while rejecting any criticism of religion?"
This is a tendency of Pancasila, the national ideology of Indonesia. (link) Indonesia is an interesting case study for this issue.
In my opinion, one problem is that Islam is highly dynamic. Making it immune from criticism - which of course it demands - does not put it behind glass as a treasured heirloom (a lit like the British monarchy), thereafter to suffer no insult and cause no trouble. Rather it provides militant Muslims with a shield wall behind which to advance into an social discussion, confident that the flow of criticism has to be pretty much one way as long as they link their demands to Islam.
With a different and more politically passive religion, such as Russian Orthodoxy, you can shield it from criticism with fewer consequences. (Not that the Russians don't have their own troubles connected with a history of ready resort to state suppression of criticism.)
#14 from PD Shaw: "(And I'm not talking about blanket criticism of Islam or whose religion is better. Obviously Scientology wins that one. I'm talking about a critique of violent jihad and dhimmitude)"
That proviso on what kind of answer you want may rule out my answer - but it seems hard to rule out of court as irrelevant whether the religion is historically supine in the face of the Tsar (and his successors) and consciously other-worldly (emphasising its own supernatural realm of potency, where it isn't just a decorative doormat for the chief officials of the state), or whether the religion is active, militant and champing at the bit to replace a principle of protection for religion (or just some religions) with protection for only one, on its terms, and that as part of a struggle for total domination (jihad).
By the way, Indonesia is a good place to make the case for the existence of moderate Islam, for those who doubt it. Moderate Islam has historically mean first not getting into any too-severe fight with a ruthless military junta. Jihad has been channeled in other directions, such as colonising and crushing the Dayaks. But militant Islam has just said: Islam must prevail, period. This is the line of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group and its less moderate predecessor Darul Islam. In essence, moderate Islam is for taking fewer personal risks and a more pragmatic, accomodationist line in relation to secularism when the army upholds that. It is not someone with an inbuilt tendency to take on radical Islam, unless the radicals are so pushy they in effect start a civil war with themselves on the numerically losing side.
Indonesia as "moderate" ???
The place where Catholic Schoolgirls are beheaded by jihadis? Bali bombings? Hambali? Where politically it is simply impossible to imprison jihadis even when they blow up tourists? Where Ahmadnutjob and bin Laden are rock-star heroes?
There are no moderate Muslims and the problem is not states. It's Islam. The message of Islam is quite clear: Convert or Die. It's the same message in Jakarta as it is in London, or Amsterdam (stuck in a dead filmmaker's chest) or the WTC.
Yes, it will be unpleasant for liberal Moslems. However, it's much more pleasant than what we in the west would have done a hundred and fifty years ago in the same situation.
#17 from Jim Rockford: "Indonesia as "moderate" ???"
Yes. Like a Muslim Indonesian guy I used to share a room with. I have an idea who and what I am speaking about.
Of course, like mary or any sensible person, I don't want to give in to moderate Muslims either. But they do exist.
#17 from Jim Rockford: "The place where Catholic Schoolgirls are beheaded by jihadis? Bali bombings? Hambali? Where politically it is simply impossible to imprison jihadis even when they blow up tourists? Where Ahmadnutjob and bin Laden are rock-star heroes?"
You left out the conquest and scourging of Catholic East Timor.
On the other hand, you slightly overstated the situation on the jihadis. It was possible to put Abu Bakar Bashir in jail, just not for very long (a bit over two years despite many terror operations), and not in a way that stigmatized him. (He continued to hold court in prison, while the family of a jihad terrorist that expressed contrition for his acts suffered strong disapproval for it from neighbours.) Still, this is quite different from the situation of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in his heyday, where the courts and the army were his or belonged to the Taliban, which was much the same thing.
#17 from Jim Rockford: "There are no moderate Muslims and the problem is not states. It's Islam. The message of Islam is quite clear: Convert or Die. It's the same message in Jakarta as it is in London, or Amsterdam (stuck in a dead filmmaker's chest) or the WTC."
Though I do not believe that Islam itself is moderate, there are Muslims who are moderate people. That is my experience, and the experience of many, many others.
Please don't take this in a bad way, because it's meant in a friendly way. Jim, don't let Islam turn you into an angry guy. Even if anger is based on facts, it's still anger.
To take in totally the facts and the situation that has confronted us since - at latest - 11 September, 2001 is necessary and proper. And there are emotions that properly go with that, and one of them is indeed anger. But there is a balance to be struck and maintained.
I think some people I regard as "good guys" and great voices of reason have made slips recently, because they have been wearied and provoked by constant Muslim aggression, verbal and physical. It's bad to see the mighty slip, even if there's an excuse. I'd rather see the good guys always at their best.
Of course, like mary or any sensible person, I don't want to give in to moderate Muslims either. But they do exist.
Well, I don't want to give in to the phony moderates. There are some genuinely liberal (in the pro-freedom sense of the word) Muslims out there, like the AIFD
Here's their explanation of the phony 'moderate' phenomenon:
There are plenty of news and human-interest stories about Muslims and Islam that discuss the so-called "moderate" Muslim American identity. But what is the exact measure of this moderation? The concept of moderation can be superimposed upon any ideological construct. How long is it going to take for conventional wisdom to come to terms with the fact that moderation within Islamism is in no way moderation with regards to Americanism? Until this understanding is commonplace, anti-Islamist American Muslims are going to be unable to force the hand of their fellow Muslims in the ideological conflict within Islam against the Islamist ends.
Why? Anti-Islamists are a minority among activist American Muslims. Internally, we are usually ignored or dismissed by the majority of our activist co-religionists when trying to engage them in debate regarding the dangers and toxicity of Islamism upon Islam. No matter how pious, anti-Islamists are often demonized as irreligious. All the while we try to argue that, to the contrary, there is no closer relationship a Muslim can have with God than one entirely free from government and clerical coercion.
On June 18, the New York Times ran a story by Laura Goodstein, "U.S. Clerics seek a Middle Ground," which highlighted the "moderate" work of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and his colleague, Imam Zaid Shakir. The bulk of this typical story discussed platitudes regarding the personal struggles of these American Muslim leaders and positively anticipated their development of a moderate Muslim seminary. However, nowhere did the New York Times delve into a genuine critical analysis of whether there was a central conflict in the ideology of the Zaytuna Institute, the school mentioned in the New York Times piece, and that of America. Yet, the piece ended with this alarming quotation from Mr. Shakir: "He still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law, not by violent means, but by persuasion." The imam further stated, "Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," he said. "I think it would help people, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a Muslim. Because Islam helped me as a person, and it's helped a lot of people in my community."
Not only is this a blatant endorsement of Islamism (theocracy) over Americanism (anti-theocracy), but this imam labels anti-Islamist Muslims dishonest. The radical Islamists are rabidly anti-American from their fear of pluralistic liberty. They are too insecure to give Muslims or any citizens the opportunity to be free and to choose to sin or not. Can mainstream American thought afford to be naive and uncritical about this central theme of Islamist movements? Radical or moderate, regardless of the packaging, the goal of Islamists is to create a Muslim theocracy. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League responded with clarity in his June 23 letter to the New York Times: "Religion flourishes in America because we have no imposed religion, as the founding fathers designed. Imam Zaid Shakir's hope for an America ruled by Islamic law is fundamentally un-American. Our hope is that he is an aberration and that moderate Muslim voices will prevail."
Many of the people who are labelled "moderate" by the press are actually non-violent supporters of Islamism, or theocracy. We call our Saudi "allies" moderate. It's serious mis-labeling.
It is not Islam - it is tribalism
http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/09/tribalism.html
Tribalism is encoded in Islam.
#5,
Religion may have been the motivation of the people. For the king it was to eliminate tribal warfare which was endimic in the winter when there were no crops to tend. So get the tribes building pyramids in the winter. How do you do that? Provide food for the builders and a religious motivation.
As such, for the king, the effort was profitable. Even in the economic sense. After the tribes got used to being Egyptians the effort was ended. All in the span of about 100 years.
The Nazi ideology was tribalist - tribalism is at its core racist.
M. Simon (#21)
Interesting point.
Tribalism is encoded in Islam.
Well, wasn't Islam born among Arab tribes? Wasn't it a way of uniting them through religion but not through politics or the equivalent those days?
Please, compare it with Christianism, born between (or in the clash) of the the scientific and politically advanced Greek civilization and the religious advanced Jews. Born inside one of the most developed Empires ever, one that has never repeated again in Europe...
I think it is a big difference that today matters more than ever.
(#22) That is a State religion, such as the Roman Caesars had, in which Caius Iulius or Octavius were treated as gods. It is a way for reinforcing political dominance.
Again, Christianism was not born in that way. Only after the fourth century began to achieve some of its characteristics, but never has been a State religion such as those, not even in countries like Spain. Compare it with today's Islamic Republics.
I was told as a child that all religions were equivalent (multicultural education?), but indeed they aren't.
(#23)
The Nazi ideology was tribalist - tribalism is at its core racist.
Well, the ideology may be racist, but the problem is that the Nazis could not define what a German racially was. That is, they simply used a Teutonic myth in order to justify their actions, which were invading and ruling over their neighbour countries for economic profit. The cash was the objective, the Welfare State going on in Germany, the protection against hyperinflation... the "Teutonic myth": was simply an excuse, and a bad one, for not telling the truth about what they really wanted: plunder.
Nazis were not tribal, they were Socialists with a very good propaganda machinery, as usual in these cases.
People are making all kinds of very big, free, sweeping statements about religion that I think just aren't supported by archaeology or history. I'll pick on one of many.
#22 from M. Simon: "Religion may have been the motivation of the people. For the king it was to eliminate tribal warfare which was endimic in the winter when there were no crops to tend."
I'm not even going to be polite about this. You made that up.
It's easy to spin stories about how religion was born and evolved, and to assume in them that it was all fakery which nobody but ignorant commoners could have been deceived by.
It's easy on the basis of such invented pseudo-history with pre-set conclusions to decide that as religion (or National Socialist ideology, or any other ideology) was always a mere pretext for state actions taken for other reasons in the past it is so now.
But such views are not real history.
Believing that, for example, Egyptians didn't really believe in the effectiveness of their way of death rests on the same basis as would a belief that Muslim suicide bombers don't believe in the effectiveness of their way of death right now. It's merely a fixed refusal to take seriously the documents, that is people's statements of their motives, despite their having done all they humanly could to prove that they weren't kidding.
That's not history.
According to the evidence, according to archaeology, according to history, religion counts for a lot, and not all religions are the same or even similar.
I'm not prepared to debate that. If anybody reads archaeology, reads Egyptology, reads history and so on, and they still prefer stuff they just plain made up about, to take one example, what the kings of Egypt really had in mind, I'm not going to change their opinion and I'm not going to try.
It's easy on the basis of such invented pseudo-history with pre-set conclusions to decide that as religion (or National Socialist ideology, or any other ideology) was always a mere pretext for state actions taken for other reasons in the past it is so now.
I agree, David Blue, neither Religion nor ideology weren't always a mere pretext for State actions, but in the case of the German National Socialism, racism (neither Nationalism nor Socialism) indeed was a mere pretext, as Mises clearly explained in his 1944 book.
[...] rests on the same basis as would a belief that Muslim suicide bombers don't believe in the effectiveness of their way of death right now.
But do their leaders believe in it? I mean, I don't see them running into infidels in order to die killing as many as possible. They simply hide and record videos, or shout before the mass media that they are entitled to build atomic bombs.
What do the Kings of Islam really have in mind?