- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
This article is a clear demonstration of the problem facing the West in dealing with Islam - how to reconcile the tolerance accorded to faith and its practices with the intolerance required to deal firmly with the militant side of this religion. If the demonizing of the whole of Islam on one side is wrong, as suggested here, then equally minimizing the problems caused by the Salafist ideology and practice (Wahabi, al-Qaeda and the like) is equally unacceptable. Until the West can develop and clearly implement a two pronged approach to Islam - strength against the militant activists and an ideological response to the excesses of the faith, then this problem will persist. When I read this article, all I see is an attack on the critics of the faith - and not a word about the real crisis of the Islamic faith being hijacked from within by their own extremists.
The Islamic faith can be practiced in a moderate manner - the United States clearly has the most integrated Muslim population in the West who have found a balance between their personal beliefs and their civic lives. This is far removed from the situation developing in Europe where ghettos of culturally and religiously isolated minorities are being radicalized by Salafist ideology. You may hate Bush, but at least he has publicly made sure that he reaches out to the Muslim community and has never demonized them after 9-11. And while there will be others who have said harsh things, all of them pale in comparison with the verbiage regularly spewed from the channels in the middle east.
The great failure of the intellectual community after 9-11 was not challenging Salafist doctrine head-on, and developing a response to the same alienated masses that are so easily manipulated by its siren call. It is not Islamaphobic to state that some aspects of the faith have been twisted and perverted. And it is not Islamaphobic to shut off the funds that are spreading this minority interpretation of the faith throughout the world. But this is not happening and so the ideological side of this struggle is being ceded to the Salafist side.
What we have now is a shotgun assault from both sides over the motives and believes of the other - blacking all of Muslims for the crimes of a few and blackening all of the West for its actions. We need to tighten the focus and insure that criticism from both sides is directed at the problems - and not
at the majority who just want to get along with their lives.
Military action will not win this struggle, but it is necessary in some cases. With the power of modern technology, the destructive potential from some of these groups will have to be countered. But this needs to be matched with an assault on the beliefs that motivate these people to extremes - and a willingness not to confuse action against this deviancy with an attack on the whole of Islam.
Until both sides of this issue are addressed, we will remain in shackles.
