Maybe physical, but not mental inaction?

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Feb 25, 2012 at 15:02

I agree with Dr Pipes' sentiment, "better the devil we don't know", not only because of the awfulness of the Assad regime and the fact it has been the key ally of Iran, but because it is unseemly for the West to just sit back and do nothing while people are slaughtered, even if gratitude is unlikely to follow any help we do give.

Because I believe that most majority Muslim countries from Morocco to Bangladesh are on a path of implosion, I also agree that we should strive for physical inaction and a "detached watchfulness" rather than getting involved in these senseless struggles. And we should certainly avoid anything like "war as social work"' in countries with populations who, because of their religion, are simply unable to form functional civil societies that benefit their people, as we have graphically seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

But rather than being mentally inactive, I believe this should be a heightened period of study as to just what's wrong with the entire Muslim world. We should be having a great bi-partisan debate on whether it's reasonable to have any relations with the Muslim world which don't raise questions about the core element of the identity of Muslim populations, namely their religion.

Although our leadership throughout most of the 20th century didn't have any taboo about questioning the core of the Communist belief system as it came into existence and practice in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere, for some reason even our neocons and Republicans, not to mention Democrats and just about all our academics seem to share a deep taboo on asking whether the religion of Mohammed is compatible with a peaceful international order in the age of globalization.

Was Churchill right in 1899 when he said, "There is no more retrograde force in the world" than the religion of Mohammed.?

When one reads the writings of Hassan Bana (1906-42) and Sayyid Qutb (!906-66), recognized as the two most influential propagandists of modern Islamic terrorism, with their calls for the "Allah's universal empire" and the "elimination of the reign of man (and) human laws" in favor of "divine law" (sharia), are we wise to ignore this intellectual force not only throughout the Muslim world, but in the huge Muslim communities already embedded in all European countries? Are we to offer no counterarguments, but merely prattle on about the 'great' religon of Islam being "hijacked by fringe elements, when the behavior of Muslim spokesmen everywhere tends to mirror the views of the so-called extremists?

Are we to abdicate the field of intellectual debate and combat when the loudest voices of Islam are making broader demands for an Islamic hegemony over human affairs than at any time since the last, imperialist decade of Muhammed's life and the great conquests of the following decades?

On a micro scale, have we become so timid that when a few Korans are accidentally burned in Afghanistan and a score of people are killed, including Americans ambushed in their offices, we apologize again and again to them, ratrher than indignantly pointng out that the believers of no religion or sect in the West - or anywhere else in the world - would have this barbaric response.

Are we to remain forever silent toward a religion whose most holy expression of piety seems to be murderous, indiscriminate violence, which is exactly what was called for by Muhammed originally, and what is called for now by the religion's most popualr contemporary "spiritual" leaders?

So, physical detachment, yes, as much as possible. But mental silence in the face of this gerat clash of belief systems? Surely not.

Ron Thompson

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