Thanks for quoting a bit of the Old Jewish blood, Yadda, and putting this into some perspective. As we know, Islam sees itself as directly descending from the Old Testament and stemming from that tradition.

Yadda wrote on Aug 7^th, 2009 at 4:55pm:


But I doubt this. I don't know about "supremacism" but the 6 Day War was only in 1967, not 3400 years ago. The United Nations still has resolutions in place demanding that Israel return the land. And does it? Not with the US on the Security Council.

For different political reasons, the US will never cast Israel adrift. Through the Reagan and Bush Junior years, one reason is the part Israel plays in the Bible Belt's Christian mythology. The political Christians have their own supremacy kick, and this involves spreading the Word so that Jesus can return to earth.

It would be interesting to see the militant Imans' words posted next to fundamentalist Christian cases like, for example, Kenneth Copeland. These vocal evangelicals see a very polarised world - good and evil, Christian versus Islam, etc, and they're quite prepared to fight for it. They say they're prepared to die for it.

Stupid as many of them are, many saw the invasion of Iraq as a crusade against Islam despite the fact that Iraq was a secular state. Us against them.

If it was really us against them we would have invaded Saudi Arabia, but that didn't matter at the time.

Smug, self-indulgent and ultimately ignorant decisions like Iraq are the reason we get so much grief from the Islamic world.

The other reason, I think, is a response to post-colonialism. Topple nationalists (like Saddam) and Muslims will want self-government. The Western-educated leaders who arose in the developing world after WWII kept religious movements at bay. Throughout South East Asia, the Middle-East and ex-Soviet territories, the rapid growth of communications technology is now allowing them to organise.

This doesn't explain the phenomenon of suicide bombers, but it puts Islam's relationship with the west as central to the argument.

As to your argument that we are a generation without "right or wrong", how do you place the rise of religious movements, and in particular, religious movements such as fundamentalist Islam and Christianity with very clearly defined notions of right and wrong?

My argument is that the "right" and "wrong" are changing - as they always have. It's very relativist, I suppose. Revolutions in politics, technology and ethics have always occurred. We are by no means at some "end point" in history. If we were, your argument that a 1300 year old religion is to blame wouldn't make much sense.

But we are in a shift in the West between an industrial and information-based economy, and this brings with it a fundamental shift in power. As always, economic shifts influence political shifts (and vice-versa). We can trace the political and ideological money-trail back to the Western oil crisis of the 1970s and the Mujahadeen/Taliban struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s (with US support).

The end of the Cold War saw a vacuum to be replaced - on the one hand - by Islamic militancy as the enemy of the West and - on the other - interventionalist and "corrupt" Western powers as the enemy of Islam. The problem here, however, is not so much the respective powers themselves but the knee-jerk reaction to identify a clearly defined enemy - the necessary understanding of "good" and "evil" you mention. Things are never this easy to identify. Speak to any CIA analyst. Things are complicated.

My defense of Islam is based on its identification of the enemy within as something that needs to be erradicated - its "jihad" as a daily spiritual struggle in your own mind and life. This, I think, puts the blame where it is needed, not on some constantly shifting enemy of the state.

We know things aren't all ginger beer and Jesus on this planet, but I believe that the only way you'll fix something - anything - is if you can stop the whole cycle of blame and look first at what contribution you make yourself. Anger and hatred will only ever get in the way of change - even in war. Call it the code of the Samurai, but I believe that this is also the core teaching of Islam - and Christianity too.

And before anyone can claim that this problem does not have an ethical or spiritual weight to it, look at what it must take to even think about strapping on an explosives belt and walking into a crowd.

Realistically, the war will never end. Only the alliances change. If you want a good enemy, look in the mirror. I swear I haven't found a better one yet.