by Madeleine KandoFor a long time now I have been struggling to understand why my culture, i.e. Western culture has been forced to focus so much on the Islamic/Arab ‘problem’. Where did that suddenly come from?
My first reaction was: ‘what’s that got to do with us?’ Why do we have to be dragged into the affairs of a culture that is in such a state of chaos? The majority of people who die as a consequence of Muslim aggression are other Muslims, not Westerners. So, let them sort it out, I thought, and leave me in peace already.But when more and more of our attention was taken up by this conflict and more and more suicide bombings took place, my ‘resistance’ turned into ‘resentment’. And after the attack of 9/11 this resentment turned into pure anger.
The Western world has basically been hijacked by a conflict that should have happened some time in the Middle Ages. I don’t see any difference between the days of the Inquisition when witches were burnt at the stake because they were supposedly possessed by the devil and Islamic Fundamentalist organizations that declare Jihad in the name of Allah.
I long for the good old days of the cold war. At least I understood what that was about. It was either US, the free world, or THEM, the commies. I was born in a Communist Country and know what I speak of. But this new thing: this Islam thing.. The majority of our political discussions are focused on terrorism, Islam, fear for Israel’s survival, fear of Islamofascism.. is there any room left for more constructive problems?
You see, I am still under the naïve illusion that history should progress in an upward moving direction, towards more enlightenment, more rational thought, more happiness. Aren’t we supposed to learn from the past? From our history? But for a long time now things have been moving backwards. Rational thought has taken a backseat to dangerous religiosity and attempts at explaining the world through insane theories like ‘intelligent design’. Ethnic cleansing is rampant everywhere. Aren’t we supposed to have left religion and tribalism behind in our more enlightened modern time?
Another source of great confusion is how people use the terms ‘Arab’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam'. Let’s make an ‘equivalency’ list: the word ‘Arab’ denotes ethnicity, so we can compare it to the word ‘Caucasian’. The word ‘Muslim’ denotes a person of a certain faith, so we can compare it to the word ‘Christian’. And the word ‘Islam’ is a religion, so we can compare it to the word ‘Christianity’. Saying that ‘Arabs should denounce terrorism’ is like saying ‘Caucasians should denounce the Ku Klux Klan’.
I have to accept that simple people like myself are not equipped to fully understand, let alone influence the course of history. On the other hand it is people, after all, that make up societies. There must be at least one other person out there that is as disillusioned with the post cold war direction that the world has taken as I am. We are all going down like a ship in a maelstrom and no one is able to stop it.
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8 comments:
Tom’s comment:
Real good!
You believe in good old-fashioned modernity, rationalism, science and progress - what Western Civilization has stood for during the last few centuries - at its best. Here are some of the rebuttals you can expect, from self-flagellating Western liberals:
1) Modernity is not all it’s cracked up to be: modern technology has produced nuclear bombs, it’s destroying the planet, our wars are a thousand times more destructive than earlier ones were, etc.
2) Maybe we do need to get back to some sort of spirituality, a belief in the transcendent, etc. Perhaps not the sort of religion that believes in stoning a woman to death when she has a cup of tea with a strange man, but some movement away from pure scientific materialism.
3) America has its own wacko fundamentalists - we just told gays in California again that they can’t get married, etc.
4) Most Arabs and most Muslims are reasonable people, not terrorists.
5) The rage felt by millions of Middle Easterners towards the West and toward Israel makes sense, when you consider (A) the unbelievable conditions under which millions of Palestinians live and (B) the Western World’s continued oppressive presence in the Middle East only because we need their oil.
Having played the devil’s advocate, I agree with you:
The Arab world is still in a place that’s comparable to where Europe was a few centuries ago - still more motivated by religious zeal, still willing to engage in religious war, as we used to do during the Reformation. They haven’t reached the church-state separation phase, which is essential for civil society.
The extremists there still want to destroy Israel, and they seem to be calling the tune, and they are more popular (for example, the people of Gaza elected the extremist Hamas and rejected the moderate Fatah, and the results are currently under way: another war that has already killed over 1000 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis).
What else can I say? Your first paragraph is your best: We should get out of there A.S.A.P., cut off our dependence on oil (which, incidentally, will be their financial ruin), stop sending our boys and girls to die there by the thousands, let those folks stew in their rot. We’ll never succeed militarily, and we’ll never be able to make them “democratic,” - neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. The Russians failed, the British failed, we will fail. It’s a quagmire.
But that would still leave the Israel problem unsolved. We have a moral responsibility to assure Israel’s survival. So the shit will continue.
I was told by christians that we have an obligation to side with Israel because these are God's chosen people. I admit to being coopted by Western thought. I will revisit this blog soon with a more substantive comment.
Nice job!
Gail
Tom's response to Gail:
Well, I dont believe that we must side with Israel because we are Christians, and that they are the chosen people. I am an agnostic. I only side with Israel to the extent that I support its survival. I also support the Palestinians, in the sense that I favor the creation of a Palestinian state.
I fear that without US support, Israel would be in danger of being wiped out. We have no economic interest in supporting Israel, which has no oil. Yet we continue to support it. This is to our credit. Many Europeans are more opportunistic. They would find it convenient to abandon Israel (Former French President Chirac once referred to it as "that shitty little state").
Also, Israel is an outpost of the Western world in the Middle East.It is the only democracy there. So that is another reason for the special realationship we have with that country.
The world's fourth largest belief system, the belief that there is no God, is not considered important enough to be included in any discussions on the struggle with the Arab world. Even though religious faith is causing havoc in the world, rational thought and secular solutions are banned from sitting at the table. It would benefit both sides to not ignore this very large portion of the world population.
What I see:
- some comments have been deleted by some administrator, without giving a reason
- all the other have chosen to be identified as 'Anonymous',why?
don't tell me this is the American way ...
Congratulations (from Europe)with your new president!
Tom Kando's non-anonymous response:
Hi Paul,
thanks for your comment. Let me explain:
1. The 2 comments on this post that were deleted were racist anti-Arab obscenities (from Europe, by the way).
2. All comments (except one) that are titled 'Anonymous' are nevertheless signed. Notice that the first "Anonymous" is by me, as it clearly states, the second one by my good friend Gail, the third one again indicates that I am answering Gail, etc.
I suppose Gail and I made a minor error in choosing the "Anonymous" identity out of the 4 options provided by Google. That appeared to be the simplest one. Some of the alternatives are slightly more cumbersome - one requires you to
open a whole account, with user ID and password, etc. - which might discourage people from commenting.
But like I said, our intent was not to hide. We signed all our comments. True, we only used first names, but we knew that our identitied were obvious - at least to each other.
Anyway, thanks for pointing this out. Henceforth I will choose the name/URL option instead. That's more elegant.
3. I am not sure what the American Way is - or the Dutch way, for that matter...
Ciao
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