The tale of two Islams

Submitted by trans-parere (Canada), Apr 3, 2007 at 19:08

I think Dr. Pipes is wise to differentiate between Islam as a faith and Islam as a political arm of a violent minority. The leadership of such organs of violence as al-Qeada had at one time a justifiable need for empowerment coming from such societies as Saudi Arabia.

However, not being safely able to effect any social change there choose to blame that ineffectualness on something only read about in their state run papers. America. Or something even more amorphous. Western society.

Had OBL gone into the hills of Saudi Arabia with his ak47 and band of merry brothers to fight the noble jihad against his true oppressors, the world may have taken him on as a folk hero in the same light as a Che Guevara.Given enough time. Instead he chose to go into the hills of Afghanistan and support a religious authoritarian theocracy in the midst of socio-economic oppression of a people already overcome with war and warlords. Proof that while the likes of al-Qaeda and all other terrorist cadres cry oppression through the "hegemony" of the West, they really want only to be raised up by some twisted logic to become the oppressors.

This is their standard. Their image of real power. what I was really surprised with is the Australian Left media holding their terrorist "celebrity" David Hicks up as a hero. As some one who has slain the Yankee dragon. What does one do with a prisoner of terrorism? Can a terrorist be fairly tried in the west in the absents of a peer group. As in claiming the right of privilegium fori, or trial by ones peers, in the absents of that social segment? What is it that would encourage a white Australian from a decent family to throw away his wife and children to go off and train to fight for a group antithetical to his entire upbringing and to support an oppressive theocracy the likes of which was unrivaled in global politics? Violent religious justification?

What is it that motivates healthy, educated, middle class youths in Britain to throw their lives, their futures away for some self-styled Imam, to attempt to bomb the infrastructure of the society from which they live and depend on to prosper? Violent religious justification? Is it the water? Wheaties? Has the Left politics and cultural Marxism so ingrained in our national psyches through the victim mentality that we are encouraging a societal meltdown perpetrated by a religious malignancy, and have we really given this sickness the name justified?

I hear a lot of talk and read much wordsmithing about depending and exercising the rule of law but, get a determined group together and rules and laws can be changed. I think something even more fundamental is being challenged today. it isn't our various religious beliefs. That is knee jerk emotional responses driven by an unquestioned fear. What I believe is being tested on a very primal level is mans ability to think and reason what is right and what is wrong, common black and white understandings that transcend race or culture, without deviating into the safety of a benign grey.

The last 60 years have been spent in half hearted warfare fought with out conviction, and half hearted trade offs for the sake of appeasement. The world wars didn't do anything for the baby boomer's but have them all running in the opposite direction. Fathers doing everything to make sure sons didn't have to face such a trial. The good intentions of making the world a little more grey, a little less volatile, forgetting the nature behind the colour of the uniform coming out of the fog of grey. The grey uniform of Fascism.

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