By Tom Kando
Just a few days after the anniversary of 9/11, I join Madeleine in her American patriotism (see her recent The American Way).
So I’m thinking: The enormity of this event inevitably enters it into world history, not just US history. Today, the average Dutchman or Senegalese may not be glued to the TV watching documentaries of what happened on 9/11/01.
BUT:
9/11/01 was such a monumental event, it has been so well documented, it has had such enormous impact, that it will forever remain a world event.
However you interpret it. I, of course, take the standard view that it was a monstrous act perpetrated by evil people. Others add all sorts of dimensions - it was a stab at the heart of the world empire, Wall Street, etc. It would be the same if rebels had burned down the Roman Colosseum two thousand years ago, or something like that. I suppose from the vantage point of those who want to overthrow the existing world order, you can see the US, New York and Wall Street as the “head of the snake.” But let’s cut down on the bs.
When I see the 9/11 footage, innocent office workers and clerks jumping hand-in-hand out of windows 1000 feet up, I’m thinking: Thank God that Americans are not going quietly. Thank goodness that they can still get mad. I want to tell Phil Donahue and Norwegian intellectuals that the time for pacifism has not yet arrived.
Marshall Montgomery once said, “We British fight our wars overseas. We prefer it that way.” Well, I’m sorry folks, but I also prefer it that way. When they came to kill 3000 innocents in New York City, they managed to bring the war home to America. But that was an exception.
Since then, America has done enormous mischief in the other guy’s backyard (not just the two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere). It’s been ugly. To some extent, America has been flailing, sometimes attacking the wrong targets (Iraq), causing incredible mayhem, exhausting itself for no clear benefit. But hey, the other guy hit first. If 9/11 was not a casus belli, I don’t know what is. The time for pacifism has not yet arrived.
Now, just about on the anniversary of 9/11, a rampaging mob has murdered another four innocent Americans, including an ambassador, and massive anti-American rioting is spreading across the Muslim world. All this allegedly over a tiny, idiotic anti-Muslim video (By the way, have you noticed that 100% of the rioters are men?).
It’s surreal. Most of the rioters haven’t seen the video. Its existence is protected by the 1st Amendment. The US Government and the American people (except for the 5 individuals who produced the allegedly blasphemous film) have nothing to do with it. So there is nothing to apologize for. The video is irrelevant to the real agenda behind the attacks. Must I continue to list the obvious?
The real disease and abomination in the world today is religious fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalism in the West is ugly and it is poisoning politics. But Muslim fundamentalists overseas are something else! The politics of the “Arab Spring” are now largely driven by “Islamicists.” We have come to accept “Islamicism,” as long as it is not too “extreme.”
But isn’t even “moderate Islamicism” wrong? Doesn’t it violate the fundamental separation of church and state? The Western World is suffering from battle fatigue. It has resigned itself to something which should be unacceptable: the merging of religion and politics in the Muslim world. leave comment here
