More On Political Islam

As a way of following up and extending the discussion of political Islam let me respond to some questions Cathy raised in an email:

What I think would be helpful as a follow-up would be some explanation of: since these groups and countries are incredibly diverse, how does an outside observer know when “political Islam” IS potentially dangerous to Western democracies? Are there buzzwords to worry about, or others that should be reassuring?

    I don’t think it is political Islam that is a threat to the West, but individuals and groups who advocate violence against either us or democratic movements in Muslim countries.  The causal dynamics of political violence are complex (hey, they’d try to take back my Political Science degree if I didn’t say that), like all human behavior.  And there are major differences between leaders who advocate and organize political violence and followers who carry it out.  But neither fits the one dimensional caricature of a simple and simple minded) direct link from a religious commitment to terrorist attacks. Religion, ideology, nationalism, a code of personal honor, among many other value systems, can provide a rationalization for behavior.  I don’t mean “rationalization” in the everyday language pejorative sense of a bogus veil of platitudes hiding one’s “true” motives.  We have multiple motives, at varying levels of awareness, behind any behavior and underlying every emotion.  We use the various ways we think about the world to explain our actions and feelings to ourselves and to others.     The buzzwords to watch out for are the exhortations to violence.  And you don’t have to be carefully attuned to the nuances of Arabic to pick those up.

Is “jihad” always to be interpreted as calling for physical violence against non-Islamic societies (my guess is not, but I don’t know!).

    “Jihad” is typically taken to mean “struggle”.  The pious person wages jihad against her or his vices and imperfections.  The community is called to jihad against injustice.  “Jihad” can also be used in the same ways we use “war” ... as in war on drugs or poverty, as well as war as military conflict.  Lots of good Christians still sing “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before” without thinking they are advocating invasion and conquest.

Do Americans just need to educate themselves better about strains of Islam and the cultural background of individual societies? I don’t see THAT happening, unfortunately.

No, I do not think it is necessary for people to become conversant with Islam, let alone hundreds of more or less distinctive cultures.  I’m not real fond of the much abused notion of “common sense” but it may be applicable here.  Simplistic, sweeping generalizations about other people ought to be always suspect.  If you assume that at some deep level all people are alike, that there is only one standard model of “human being,” then you will less likely to buy a superficial account or accept an alien devil image of others.

 And what are the alternatives to the “war” paradigm and how can they be couched in a way that people with very little knowledge about Islam or the Middle East can grasp them and be comfortable with them? And if not “war,” how should we respond to groups like Al Quaeda?

    If it isn’t “war”, what is it?  Crime.  Terrorist attacks and threats in Europe are treated as police problems.  The attacks on the Madrid and London subways were horrible crimes, not acts of war.  And it was the police, not the army, who found the perpetrators.  There was no question of making up some special tribunals for trying the accused.  (And no hysteria that if we bring a terrorist to the U.S. to try them in court all their friends will come and wreak unspeakable revenge on us!!) The regular courts worked quite well.  It’s not that the English and Spanish are more tolerant or more knowledgeable or less frightened by potential terrorism.  But it is that their politicians have defined and framed the situation as dealing with crime, not fighting a war.

I don’t mean to gloss over real differences in world views and values.  Many people outside North America and Western Europe have profound disagreements with our values and are determined to resist becoming just like us.  It is important to know that the aspects of the West that non-Westerners most often reject: materialism, hyper-individualism, moral laxity, hypocritical foreign policies, are the same aspects we ourselves criticize.