Not quite on the mark

Submitted by Alexander Kizuk (Canada), Mar 20, 2003 at 12:16

I am a Canadian professor and a Moslem and I have been leaning left all my life--until 9/11. On the day my whole world changed. I felt the impacts of those crashes in my soul. I spent many long and grievous hours of soul-searching as a result.

Still, I don't agree with everything Mr. Pipes says, though I respect the fact that he is at least thinking about the problem, and not mouthing mindless mantras like Limbaugh or the ex-hippie protesters in the streets.

But this article on 'Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam]' misses the mark I think.

As a type, Saddam and Osama belong in the anti-hero category: the meme or icon so well beloved by ALL Americans (and all movie lovers) in the guise of gangster bad guys like the Dons of The Godfather, The Sopranos, etc.

It is no accident that the media portray President Bush and Prime Minister Blair as cowboys in a High Noon scenario.

Not only this, but I think Osama and Saddam have both been seduced by this mythology--and, ironically enough, by so doing, they have become fundamentally unIslamic!

There is something appealing in the Dark Hero of the Romantic (revolutionary) heritage of the West, which goes deeper than liberalism or conservatism.

But it seems that that ideology is today beginning to ossify, become doctrinal, and be taken up by people who either cannot or will not think. Mindless allegiance to out-moded notions of revolutionary Utopias, this is where people like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Eric Foner are coming from.

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