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Islam and radical secularism: Which is the enemy?
The underlying fear is that, if the Muslim world continues growing in
numbers and religious fervor, it will eventually be poised to annihilate our
Judeo-Christian Western civilization.
Ever since the dreadful terrorist attacks of 9/11, conservatives and
neoconservatives have made dire predictions about the looming threat of
Islam. At all levels of American public life from government officials to
university professors to respected magazine editors to radio talk show
hosts, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, we hear the same ominous
warnings. The underlying fear is that, if the Muslim world continues growing
in numbers and religious fervor, it will eventually be poised to annihilate
our Judeo-Christian Western civilization. Those who subscribe to this
analysis point triumphantly to repeated violent reactions by fanatics to
real and perceived insults against the Islamic faith, as well as to the
long-running terrorist conflagrations in Israel and Iraq, as proof of what
they have warned us about for five years�that Islam is the greatest enemy
of the US and the West.
But this view contains two serious flaws. First, it muddies the water with
fallacious generalizations that cover up and distort reality. Second, it
leaves too many important facts crying out for explanation, the most
remarkable of which is the near-universal, deeply rooted Muslim hatred for
the evil of Western radical secularism.
Muslims: Image v. Reality
Why do Muslims hate the West? According to conservatives and neocons, they
hate the fundamental ideas of Christianity, democracy, and freedom that
America represents. Their impression seems to be that Muslims in general are
becoming utterly depraved, evil, almost subhuman creatures, bent on
annihilating the Christian West because it's so good. Upon forthright
examination of the evidence, however, this opinion is shown to be a fallacy.
First of all, contrary to what the US news media leads Americans to think,
the Muslim people have not committed en masse to terrorism. It is fairly
well-known that ninety percent of all Muslims worldwide belong to the Sunni
branch of Islam, which emphasizes individual interpretation of the Koran and
from which the majority of terrorists have emerged. Al-Qaeda may have 50,000
devoted members, and all Muslim terrorist orgs combined perhaps one hundred
thousand, but this is still no more than a few percent of all Muslims
worldwide. So while most Muslims are Sunnis, only a mere handful can be
called terrorists. The vast masses of Mohammed's followers, together with
most imams and other religious leaders, are upright, peaceful people who
condemn atrocities against innocent civilians. Yet they have been demonized
"evildoers" as though the majority were terrorists! As Muslims grow in
numbers and gradually anchor their presence in all the Western countries,
neocon commentators are quick to sound the alarm that "Islam" is a greater
threat than Adolf Hitler. However, given that terrorists remain a small,
deviant, heretical "Islamic" movement, "Islam" itself should not be
considered the main problem.
But perhaps a growing, resurgent, radical branch of Islam teaches hatred of
Christianity and the West? In the context of the current wave of Muslim
terrorism, neoconservatives remind us of the Muslim threat to Europe which
the Crusaders had to drive back in the first part of the second millennium.
I have no problem with digging through history to shed light on our current
situation, which is an essential thing for political observers to do. But
neocons fail to point out the sharp differences between the Crusader Era and
today's situation. To begin with, the earlier centuries of Islam, when the
great dynastic empires stretched across the Middle East, were the time of
conquering the world for Islam. Catholics from Palestine to Europe refused
to commit apostasy, making it necessary for them to take up arms to defend
their religious freedom and civilization. Generally, the Turks were
undeniably aggressive and could not be negotiated with. But today we don't
see any followers of Mohammed going around forcing Christians to become
Muslim. And the few terrorists, by their very nature, are eager to negotiate
because terrorism is a weapon of negotiation: "We'll spread destruction
until you (the government) listen to our demands". It is the systematic
failure to achieve their right to a redress of grievances that drives Muslim
terrorism, especially in Iraq.
A second difference between that time and today is that the Turks were
military warriors in the vast armies of the Seljuk Empire, whereas a tiny
fraction of today's Muslims are bands of civilian terrorists. The difference
in terms of both numerical representation and status is totally ignored by
neocons. First, the Muslim armies officially represented the colonialist
ambitions of an empire--which is by definition a colonizer--in contrast to
terrorists, whose acts of murder are condemned by 90 percent of Muslims.
Secondly, these were real wars between nations. The European Catholic
nations declared wars of liberation to protect the Holy Land. A Muslim
empire declared war on Europe . But Muslim terrorists are engaged in a broad
international campaign to force America, Israel, and their allies to change
their unjust, decades-long Middle Eastern policy.
Terrorism and Extremism
Let me emphasize that terrorists are civilians under international law; they
do not belong to the army of any nation, which means they lack the power to
declare war. Terrorists are criminals, pure and simple. In that respect,
terrorism is simply a crime like any other--and the US must deal with it in
accordance with international law, as Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict
XVI have repeatedly insisted. The attacks of 9/11 were a crime against
humanity, not an act of war. When Osama bin Laden rallies millions of
Muslims to a "jihad" ("struggle") against Israel and America, he's using the
term literally--as well as spiritually, to indicate a rejection of the evils
of immorality, murder, unrestricted capitalism, and imperialist domination
into which America, Israel, and Iraq have sunk so deeply.
Thus, it's a common historical and factual error to compare the formidable
Islamic aggression of one thousand years ago with the modern rise in
terrorist incidents. Such comparisons only confuse the issue in the minds of
many Americans. However, there's one tenuous argument left for neocons who
hang on to branding "Islam" the enemy: they claim that, unbeknownst to most
Muslims, traditional Islamic doctrine actually teaches violence against Jews
and Christians, and that we are witnessing a frightening "resurgence" of
this doctrine. But no religion teaches violence. In all the three great
monotheistic religions, a comprehensive body of teaching is set forth like a
stained-glass window, and each individual doctrine or passage of scripture
must be interpreted within the context of the whole picture. Extremists take
a single passage or teaching out of context and give it undue importance to
suit their own purposes; they do not submit to the whole body of teaching
and thus cannot properly be called members of that religion. That being
said, there also exists a great deal of disunity, disagreement, and conflict
within Islam. Moreover, "Islamic" extremists themselves are torn by
dissention, of which a major example would be how Osama bin Laden's deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri thinks bin Laden has too much concern for the lives of
noncombatants. As Pope Benedict XVI reasoned in his famous address at
Regensburg last September, irrational acts such as the murder of innocent
civilians are incompatible with the nature of God and thus with religion.
Remember the time when Saint Francis of Assisi met the Muslim sultan? After
the saint spoke kindly with him, the sultan is reported to have said, "If
all Christians were like you, I would become a Christian." This is the
attitude of Muslims toward Christianity. They do not hate our
religion�they only hate the bad actions and unjust policies of those who
call themselves Christian. In the same way, they do not hate the West, only
the grave injustice and evils it has committed against them.
A Clash of Values and Rights
Additional facts contradicting the "evil Muslim" fallacy and begging for
explanation come (quite ironically) from the very people responsible for
acts of terrorism. Far from dedicating their whole lives to evil, "Islamic"
terrorists demonstrate certain upright qualities, despite the neocons' best
efforts to hide and deny it. They adhere passionately to a set of moral
guidelines based on the Ten Commandments. While we all know that Muslim
terrorists appear deeply committed to worship of God, this is not a
pretense; their religious sincerity is evident. This truthfulness carries
over into their explanations for their attacks--as is well known, they
always state that such and such an attack is in retaliation for a crime
committed against their people, or in legitimate defense against an
aggressor. And the rest of the world quickly gets a clue as to who the
culprit might be because terrorist organizations boldly claim responsibility
for their attacks. For example, each one of the dozens of terrorist groups
currently operating in Iraq is not slow to stress that its frequent strikes
against police, Shiite Muslims, Kurds, and Western soldiers are in
retaliation against America's evil Iraq war, and against Shiites and Kurds
acting as accomplices in US evil against Sunni Muslims--accusations which I
have personally investigated and found to be entirely true. Contrary to the
"transition of power" myth, US forces are running Iraq, bossing Shiite
Muslims around, pitting Shiites against Sunni Muslims, all in all, imposing
a US-friendly Shiite dictatorship on Sunnis, so that the US can freely
plunder Iraq's vast underground sea of oil.
Furthermore, a wealth of psychological profiles compiled on numerous
terrorists reveals that they all share a deep, strong love for their
families, making the average American family look like a loose collection of
chance acquaintances in comparison. Honor and respect for one�s parents
ranks high on every Muslim terrorist's priority list. And a final virtue
manifested by Muslim terrorists is their moral cleanliness--they are
scrupulous in avoiding occasions of sin, and they rightly reproach America
as immoral and hypocritical because of our bad magazines, books and music
which have saturated the Middle Eastern culture. Not only is the radical
secularism of our Western culture alien to the Middle East , it is despised
precisely because of the religious and moral values held dear by Muslims and
terrorists alike.
Instead of merely using religion as a cover for malicious evil, "Islamic"
terrorism springs from deep religious conviction and is not ill-intentioned.
So notwithstanding their undeniable crimes against civilian lives,
terrorists do have consciences and moral values--they are definitely not the
veritable demons out of hell that neocons imagine.
But now we discover yet another problem crying out for explanation. If the
vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and disapprove of terrorist attacks,
then why did millions of people wearing burkas and turbans across
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria fill the city streets "peacefully" waving
signs, pictures and banners of Osama bin Laden? Because there's a major
distinction, roundly blurred by neocons, between sympathizing with
terrorists and praising or approving the murder of innocent people. When
discussing sin, Father John Corapi has repeatedly brought out this crucial
distinction of sympathizing with the sinner while condemning the sinful act.
It's the great Catholic concept: love the sinner, hate the sin. I am filled
with revulsion and hatred of terrorist murder, which can never be justified;
I categorically condemn the objective sin of murder. But at the same time,
it's my Christian duty in charity to sympathize with the injustice,
frustration, and despair of so many terrorists that drives them to commit
such drastic crimes. In addition, I refrain from condemning those
perpetrators to hell ahead of God's official judgment because I am incapable
of discerning whether their souls are subjectively in mortal sin or not. In
order to combat the neocons' pernicious "denial of the very humanity of 'the
other'" referred to by Pope John Paul II, American Catholics should be
emphasizing this crucial principle. We must avoid the easy tendency to hate
terrorism and its perpetrators alike.
So the reason large numbers of Muslims peacefully demonstrated for Osama bin
Laden was indeed sympathy for his anti-Americanism, as well as support for
the portion of his message to attack US troops on duty in the Middle East,
conduct which is morally justified. According to Muslim natives of the
Middle East, bin Laden enjoys the status of a father figure among them. His
tremendous base of sympathy and support can only be explained by the
negative effects of American foreign policy in the region. Overwhelming
popular allegiance to anti-American leaders, such as Ayatollah Khomeini in
1979, is where the neocon logic really breaks down. Neocons know they could
never get away with calling fifty million ordinary Iranians terrorist
conspirators�or the hundreds of millions who quietly profess bin Laden's
anti-Americanism.
American Foreign Policy
Why is anti-Americanism so popular, especially among Muslims in the Middle
East? For one thing, America , Israel and our allies have treated the people
of Southwest Asia badly. Millions of rabidly secular Zionists crowded into
Palestine , murdered and forced a million Palestinians into exile, and
imposed on the Holy Land a Western-style state which has stripped
Palestinians of their inalienable rights. A second reason for our
unpopularity is that we have drawn inside our own elitist network,
effectively closing out the rest of the world. Israel, America, Great
Britain, France, Norway, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, and other
Western and Westernized nations are locked into a selfish circle of
economic, military, and political support for each other and themselves. The
countries in this list alone, which altogether contain less than one sixth
of earth's people, possess and control some two-thirds of the entire
world�s wealth. You simply can't get around it: this is blatantly unjust.
Oil greed has enriched the American-Israeli circle of nations at the expense
of the Arab Muslim masses. Even a giant gross national product figure, such
as Saudi Arabia enjoys, often hides the fact that almost all the wealth is
ending up in the regime's and the oil company's pockets.
Anti-Americanism--and the terrorism springing from it--is a response to real
grievances against opulent Western nations, which have unjustly exploited
the Middle East�s wealth and political systems.
A classic example of this evil policy was Iran under Shah Mohammed Reza
Pahlavi some decades ago. He was a cruel, intensely unpopular,
multi-millionaire dictator whose radical secularist program legalized
divorce, tortured opponents of his regime, forced Muslim children to attend
nonreligious state-run schools, and whose giant Western oil corporations
forced millions of peasants off their farms. Since the shah was America's
pawn, we did not overthrow him as he deserved; but the Iranian people rose
up together and defeated him without our help�indeed, despite our best
efforts to secure him in power.
While that's a good example of our method of running affairs in the Middle
East to suit certain interests, it's not the whole story. There is something
about our modern American culture so obvious it has virtually escaped neocon
attention: namely, radical secularism has replaced Christianity as the
defining Western cultural trait. Along with Big Macs and Coca-Cola
dispensers, the oil companies and other big businesses infiltrated abortion,
contraception, divorce, euthanasia, consumerism, overeating, laziness,
drunkenness, nightclubs, dirty magazines, offensive clothing fashions, bad
movies, and satanic music into Iran . Does anybody ever stop to think about,
or even realize, this part of the story? Devout Muslims and terrorists alike
hate this flood of evil. America's own immorality lights the extremely
flammable fires of Islamic righteous indignation which now slowly threatens
the West. Have no illusions: America's cultural dark side--and its bad
effect on our country--does not remain confined to our borders. Its poison
has spread thruout the world, apparently with little opposition--except from
one billion devout, peaceful, mosque-going Muslims in the Middle East, and
one hundred thousand terrorists.
America needs to learn a lesson, and learn it fast. The evil of radical
secularism shoved by our country into the Middle East, especially indirectly
thru the state of Israel and its allies, has produced untold misery and
injustice, provoking a tremendous surge of anti-American sentiment and
hatred. This suffering has caused most of the Arab people to turn to God and
their familiar religion for comfort and strength, just as we did after 9/11,
bringing about a tremendous Muslim religious revival. Most significant of
all, this misery has incited, fueled and sustained the recurrent waves of
"Muslim" terrorism overwhelming the Middle East since the early twentieth
century.
Examination of Conscience
Catholics, conservatives and neocons should refrain from denouncing "Islam"
and especially Muslims collectively as evil, demonic, and the greatest enemy
of America simply because a few percent of Muslims engage in acts of
terrorism. The horrifying wave of civilian violence engulfing Iraq and
threatening the Christian West naturally drives us to fear that Muslims hate
the West, but this analysis is a standard fallacy in many respects. Its
great weakness is that it is derived from anxiety and fear, not rational
thinking. If we would only take to heart the great Pope John Paul II's cry,
"Be not afraid," we could size up our situation so much better. The fallacy
merely skims the surface of a deeper, more complex and more global reality.
To the extent neocons deny reality, their policy is doomed to fail.
Judeo-Christian Western civilization is already collapsing under its own
evil; Muslim terrorists would merely finish it off. As Arthur Goldschmidt, a
prominent Jewish Middle East historian, wisely reflected: "Someday, perhaps,
practicing Muslims, Christians, and Jews will settle their differences--even
the Arab-Israeli conflict--in order to wage war on their common enemies:
secularism, hedonism, positivism and the various ideologies that have arisen
in modern times." There we have America's real, internal enemy unmasked. The
radical "Muslim" with a turban and a bomb is merely the signpost pointing to
the real enemy: the pure, unadulterated evil of radical secularism swamping
our own culture and foreign policy. "United we stand, divided we fall" is
true, now more than ever before. United and standing together, the Western
and Muslim worlds must wage war on this enemy--or both will fall.
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