Not a simple fight

Submitted by Daniella (Denmark), Jan 10, 2007 at 12:38

The fight against Islamism in a way can not be compared to the fight against communism and fascism for several reasons.
First of all, Islamism has roots in a religion, and not in a political ideology created by a dictator or some ill politicians. Even though Islamism is in fact a political ideology and very much a political factor, still, it can not be separated from the faith and belief of many.

This makes the borderline between zealous believers and fanatic Islamists very difficult to draw, and thus the fight is much more complicated.

Another point is that in the globalised world there are no clear frontlines such as the ones in WW2. Islamism can be found not only in one particular territory or country, and it also cannot be connected to one nation, which makes its identification much harder. Islamism is unevenly spread in different countries, and even its followers cannot be identified by nationality, social status, gender etc. The best and most modern weapons are almost useless against an unexpected terrorist attack committed by a suicide bomber which is likely to happen basically any time anywhere.

Fighting Islamism is also impossible without violating human rights, especially the freedoms of the individual. The rights which were laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were designed in a different historical era, which had its challenges different from what we have today, and hese rights seem to be easy to misinterpret and are easily abused under the current circumstances.
In my view this fight is very much a mind-game rather than a tanglible and classical warfare.

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