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Review: The Suicide Of Reason
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Friday, January 4, 2008
The Suicide Of Reason Radical Islam's Threat to the Enlightenment.By Lee
Harris. 290 pages. $26. Basic Books.
Several authors have published books on radical Islam's threat to the West
since that shocking morning in September six years ago. With "The Suicide of
Reason," Lee Harris joins their ranks. But he distinguishes himself by going
further than most of his counterparts: he considers the very worst
possibility - the destruction of the West by radical Islam. There is a sense
of urgency in his writing, a desire to shake awake the leaders of the West,
to confront them with their failure to understand that they are engaged in a
war with an adversary who fights by the law of the jungle.
Harris, the author of "Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of
History," devotes most of his book to identifying and distinguishing between
two kinds of fanaticism. The first is Islamic fanaticism, a formidable enemy
in the struggle for cultural survival. In Harris's view, this fanaticism has
acted as a "defense mechanism," shielding Islam from the pressures of the
changing world around it and allowing it to expand into territories and
cultures where it had previously been unknown.
With few exceptions, Harris sees Islamic expansion as permanent. Although
this point is arguable, he bravely attempts to make the case that the entry
of Islam into another culture produces changes on every level, from
political to personal: "Wherever Islam has spread, there has occurred a
total and revolutionary transformation in the culture of those conquered or
converted."
In describing the imperialist nature of Islam, Harris suggests that it is
distinct from the Roman, British and French empires. He views Islamic
imperialism as a single-minded expansion of the religion itself; the empire
that it envisions is governed by Allah. In this sense, the idea of jihad is
less about the inner struggle for peace and justice and more about a grand
mission of conversion. It should be said, however, that Harris's argument is
incomplete, since he does not address the spread of Christianity in the
Roman, British and French empires.
The expansion of Islam is perhaps more potent than the expansion of the
Christian empires (including Rome after Constantine) because the concept of
separating the sacred from the profane has never been acceptable in Islam
the way it has been in Christianity. The Romans, the British and the French
went about annexing large parts of the world more for earthly or material
gain than for spiritual dominance. Under these empires, the clergy was
allowed to propagate its faith as long as it did not jeopardize imperial
interests. Harris goes on to argue that the Muslim world, since it is
governed by the law of the jungle, makes group survival paramount. This
explains in part the willingness of Muslims to become martyrs for the larger
community, the umma - uniting peoples separated by geographical boundaries,
with different cultures, heritages and languages. According to Harris, this
sense of solidarity is sustainable only with the weapon of fanaticism, which
obligates each member of the umma to convert infidels and to threaten those
who attempt to leave with death. That is, the aim of Muslim culture, so
different from that of the West, is both to preserve and to convert, and
this is what enables it to spread across the globe.
The second fanaticism that Harris identifies is one he views as infecting
Western societies; he calls it a "fanaticism of reason." Reason, he says,
contains within itself a potential fatality because it blinds Western
leaders to the true nature of -Islamic-influenced cultures. Westerners see
these cultures merely as different versions of the world they know, with
dominant values similar to those espoused in their own culture. But this,
Harris argues, is a fatal mistake. It implies that the West fails to
appreciate both its history and the true nature of its opposition.
Nor, he points out, is the failure linked to a particular political outlook.
Liberals and conservatives alike share this misperception. Noam Chomsky and
Paul Wolfowitz agreed, Harris writes, "that you couldn't really blame the
terrorists, since they were merely the victims of an evil system - for
Chomsky, American imperialism, for Wolfowitz, the corrupt and despotic
regimes of the Middle East." That is to say, while left and right may
disagree on the causes and the remedies, they both overlook the fanaticism
inherent in Islam itself. Driven by their blind faith in reason, they
interpret the problem in a way that is familiar to them, in order to find a
solution that fits within their doctrine of reason. The same is true for
such prominent intellectuals as Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama.
Harris does not regard Islamic fanaticism as a deviancy or a madness that
affects a few Muslims and terrifies many. Instead he argues that fanaticism
is the basic principle in Islam. "The Muslims are, from an early age,
indoctrinated into a shaming code that demands a fanatical rejection of
anything that threatens to subvert the supremacy of Islam," he writes.
During the years that this shaming code is instilled into children, the
collective is emphasized above the individual and his freedoms. A good
Muslim must forsake all: his property, family, children, even life for the
sake of Islam. Boys in particular are taught to be dominating and merciless,
which has the effect of creating a society of holy warriors.
By contrast, the West has cultivated an ethos of individualism, reason and
tolerance, and an elaborate system in which every actor, from the individual
to the nation-state, seeks to resolve conflict through words. The entire
system is built on the idea of self-interest. This ethos rejects fanaticism.
The alpha male is pacified and groomed to study hard, find a good job and
plan prudently for retirement: "While we in America are drugging our alpha
boys with Ritalin," Harris writes, "the Muslims are doing everything in
their power to encourage their alpha boys to be tough, aggressive and
ruthless." The West has variously tried to convert, to assimilate and to
seduce Muslims into modernity, but, Harris says, none of these approaches
have succeeded. Meanwhile, our worship of reason is making us easy prey for
a ruthless, unscrupulous and extremely aggressive predator and may be
contributing to a slow cultural "suicide." Harris's book is so engaging that
it is difficult to put down, and its haunting assessments make it difficult
for a reader to sleep at night. He deserves praise for raising serious
questions. But his arguments are not entirely sound. I disagree, for
instance, that the way to rescue Western civilization from a path of suicide
is to challenge its tradition of reason. Indeed, for all his understanding
of the rise of fanaticism in general and its Islamic manifestation in
particular, Harris's use of the term "reason" is faulty.
Enlightenment thinkers, preoccupied with both individual freedom and secular
and limited government, argued that human reason is fallible. They
understood that reason is more than just rational thought; it is also a
process of trial and error, the ability to learn from past mistakes. The
Enlightenment cannot be fully appreciated without a strong awareness of just
how frail human reason is. That is why concepts like doubt and reflection
are central to any form of -decision-making based on reason.
Harris is pessimistic in a way that the Enlightenment thinkers were not. He
takes a Darwinian view of the struggle between clashing cultures,
criticizing the West for an ethos of selfishness, and he follows Hegel in
asserting that where the interest of the individual collides with that of
the state, it is the state that should prevail. This is why he attributes
such strength to Islamic fanaticism. The collectivity of the umma elevates
the communal interest above that of the individual believer. Each Muslim is
a slave, first of God, then of the caliphate. Although Harris does not
condone this extreme subversion of the self, still a note of admiration
seems to creep into his descriptions of Islam's fierce solidarity, its
adherence to tradition and the willingness of individual Muslims to
sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good.
In addition, Harris extols American exceptionalism to-gether with Hegel as
if there were no contradiction between the two. But what makes America
unique, especially in contrast to Europe, is its resistance to the
philosophy of Hegel with its concept of a unifying world spirit. It is the
individual that matters most in the United States. And more generally, it is
individuals who make cultures and who break them. Social and cultural
evolution has always relied on individuals - to reform, persuade, cajole or
force. Culture is formed by the collective agreement of individuals. At the
same time, it is crucial that we not fall into the trap of assuming that the
survival tactics of individuals living in tribal societies - like lying,
hypocrisy, secrecy, violence, intimidation, and so forth - are in the
interest of the modern individual or his culture.
I was not born in the West. I was raised with the code of Islam, and from
birth I was indoctrinated into a tribal mind-set. Yet I have changed, I have
adopted the values of the Enlightenment, and as a result I have to live with
the rejection of my native clan as well as the Islamic tribe. Why have I
done so? Because in a tribal society, life is cruel and terrible. And I am
not alone. Muslims have been migrating to the West in droves for decades
now. They are in search of a better life. Yet their tribal and cultural
constraints have traveled with them. And the multiculturalism and moral
relativism that reign in the West have accommodated this.
Harris is correct, I believe, that many Western leaders are terribly
confused about the Islamic world. They are woefully uninformed and often
unwilling to confront the tribal nature of Islam. The problem, however, is
not too much reason but too little. Harris also fails to address the enemies
of reason within the West: religion and the Romantic movement. It is out of
rejection of religion that the Enlightenment emerged;
Romanticism was a revolt against reason.
Both the Romantic movement and organized religion have contributed a great
deal to the arts and to the spirituality of the Western mind, but they share
a hostility to modernity. Moral and cultural relativism (and their popular
manifestation, multiculturalism) are the hallmarks of the Romantics. To
argue that reason is the mother of the current mess the West is in is to
miss the major impact this movement has had, first in the West and perhaps
even more profoundly outside the West, particularly in Muslim lands.
Thus, it is not reason that accommodates and encourages the persistent
segregation and tribalism of immigrant Muslim populations in the West. It is
Romanticism. Multiculturalism and moral relativism promote an idealization
of tribal life and have shown themselves to be impervious to empirical
criticism. My reasons for reproaching today's Western leaders are different
from Harris's. I see them squandering a great and vital opportunity to
compete with the agents of radical Islam for the minds of Muslims,
especially those within their borders. But to do so, they must allow reason
to prevail over sentiment.
To argue, as Harris seems to do, that children born and bred in
superstitious cultures that value fanaticism and create phalanxes of alpha
males are doomed - and will doom others - to an existence governed by the
law of the jungle is to ignore the lessons of the West's own past. There
have been periods when the West was less than noble, when it engaged in
crusades, inquisitions, witch-burnings and genocides. Many of the Westerners
who were born into the law of the jungle, with its alpha males and
submissive females, have since become acquainted with the culture of reason
and have adopted it. They are even - and this should surely relieve Harris
of some of his pessimism - willing to die for it, perhaps with the same
fanaticism as the jihadists willing to die for their tribe. In short, while
this conflict is undeniably a deadly struggle between cultures, it is
individuals who will determine the outcome.
Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and the author
of "Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide."
JIHAD AND JEW-HATRED
Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11.By Matthias Küntzel.Translated by
Colin Meade.180 pp. Telos Press Publishing. $29.95.
One day in Damascus not long ago, I visited the understocked gift shop of
the Sheraton Hotel, looking for something to read. There wasn't much:
pre-owned Grishams, a hagiography of Hafez al-Assad, an early Bill O'Reilly
(go figure) and a paperback copy of "The International Jew," published in
2000 in Beirut. "The International Jew" is a collection of columns exposing
the putative role of Jews in such fields as international finance, world
governance and boot-legging. "Wherever the seat of power may be, thither
they swarm obsequiously," the book states. These columns, which are based on
the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - they are a plagiary of a forgery, in
other words - were first published in Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent more
than 80 years ago.
Next to "The International Jew" was a copy of "The Bible Came From Arabia,"
a piece of twaddle that suggests the Jews are not Jews and Israel isn't
Israel. And then there was a pamphlet called "Secrets of the Talmud." Not
knowing these secrets (I was raised Reform), I started reading. The Talmud
apparently teaches Jews how best to demolish the world economy and gives
Jews the right to take non-Jewish women as slaves and rape them.
The anti-Semitic worldview, generally speaking, is fantastically stupid. If
its propa-gandists actually understood the chosen people, they would know,
for instance, that no one, not the chief of Mos-sad, not even the president
of Hadassah, could persuade 4,000 Jews to stay home from the World Trade
Center on Sept. 11. ("And why should I listen to you?" would have been the
near-universal rebuttal to the call.)
Anti-Semitic conspiracy literature not only posits crude and senseless
ideas, but also tends to be riddled with -typos, repetitions and gross
errors of grammar, and for this and other reasons I occasionally have
trouble taking it -seriously. The German scholar Matthias Küntzel tells us
this is a mistake. He takes anti-Semitism, and in particular its most potent
current strain, Muslim anti-Semitism, very seriously indeed. His bracing,
even startling, book, "Jihad and Jew-Hatred" (translated by Colin Meade),
reminds us that it is perilous to ignore idiotic ideas if these idiotic
ideas are broadly, and fervently, believed. And across the Muslim world, the
very worst ideas about Jews - intricate, outlandish conspiracy theories
about their malevolent and absolute power over world affairs - have become
scandalously ubiquitous. Hezbollah and Hamas, to name two prominent
examples, understand the world largely through the prism of Jewish power.
Hez-bollah officials employ language that shamelessly echoes Nazi
propaganda, describing Jews as parasites and tumors and prescribing the
murder of Jews as a kind of -chemotherapy.
The question is not only why, of course, but how:
how did these ideas, especially those that portray Jews as all-powerful,
work their way into modern-day Islamist discourse? The notion of the Jew as
malevolently omnipotent is not a traditional Muslim notion. Jews do not come
off well in the Koran - they connive and scheme and reject the message of
the Prophet Muhammad - but they are shown to be, above all else, defeated.
Muhammad, we read, conquered the Jews in battle and set them wandering. In
subsequent centuries Jews lived among Muslims, and it is true that their
experience was generally healthier than that of their brethren in
Christendom, but only so long as they knew their place; they were ruled and
taxed as second-class citizens and were often debased by statute. In the Jim
Crow Middle East, no one believed the Jews were in control. Obviously, then,
these modern-day ideas about Jewish power were imported from Europe, and
Küntzel makes a bold and consequential argument:
the dissemination of European models of anti-Semitism among Muslims was not
haphazard, but an actual project of the Nazi Party, meant to turn Muslims
against Jews and Zionism. He says that in the years before World War II, two
Muslim leaders in particular willingly and knowingly carried Nazi ideol-ogy
directly to the Muslim masses. They were Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of
Jerusalem, and the Egyptian proto-Islamist Hassan al-Banna, the founder of
the Muslim Brother-hood. The story of the mufti is a familiar one: he was
the leader of the Arabs in Palestine, and Palestine's leading anti-Jewish
agitator. He eventually embraced the Nazis and spent most of the war in
Berlin, recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the SS and agitating for the harshest
possible measures against Jews. Küntzel writes that the mufti became upset
with Himm-ler in 1943, when he sought to trade 5,000 Jewish children for
20,000 German prisoners. Himmler came around to the mufti's thinking, and
the children were gassed.
Hassan al-Banna did not embrace -Nazism in the same uncomplicated manner,
but through the 1930s, his movement, aided by the Germans, led the drive
against not only political Zionism but Jews in general. "This burgeoning
Islamist movement was subsidized with German funds," Küntzel writes. "These
contributions enabled the Muslim Brother-hood to set up a printing plant
with 24 employees and use the most up-to-date propaganda methods." The
Muslim Brotherhood, Küntzel goes on, was a crucial distributor of Arabic
translations of "Mein Kampf" and the "Protocols." Across the Arab world, he
states, Nazi methods and ideology whipped up anti-Zionist fervor, and the
effects of this concerted campaign are still being felt today.
Küntzel marshals impressive evidence to back his case, but he sometimes
oversimplifies. One doesn't have to be soft on Germany to believe it was
organic Muslim ideas as well as Nazi ideas that led to the spread of
anti-Semitism in the Middle East. In his effort to blame Germany for Muslim
anti-Semitism, he over-reaches. "While Khomeini was certainly not an acolyte
of Hitler, it is not unreasonable to suppose that his anti-Jewish outlook ©
had been shaped during the 1930s," Küntzel says, citing, in a footnote, an
article he himself wrote. He also oversimplifies the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Jews today have actual power in the Middle East, and Israel is not innocent
of excess and cruelty.
Still, Küntzel is right to state that we are witnessing a terrible explosion
of anti-Jewish hatred in the Middle East, and he is right to be shocked. His
invaluable contribution, in fact, is his capacity to be shocked, by the
rhetoric of hate and by its consequences. The former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz
Rantisi once told me that "the question is not what the Germans did to the
Jews, but what the Jews did to the Germans." The Jews, he said, deserved
their punishment. Küntzel argues that we should see men like Rantisi for
what they are: heirs to the mufti, and heirs to the -Nazis.
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