Finger-pointing at Muslim Extremists

Sam Harris claims that Muslim fanaticism is a threat to the
world, and displays woeful ignorance of the facts. Religious fanaticism is not
a product of one faith over another, but thrives only under specific . . .

Sam Harris claims that Muslim fanaticism is a threat to the
world, and displays woeful ignorance of the facts. Religious fanaticism is not
a product of one faith over another, but thrives only under specific political
conditions. Four factors need to be present for fanatical faith to thrive – be
it of the Christian or Muslim variety. First, a group must be oppressed. In our
nation’s history, Southern religious fanaticism flourished in the wake of the
Civil War. As the South tried to get back on its feet, people flocked to hear
religious leaders that preached hell and punishment for the South’s oppressors .
In the case of Iran,
the Islamic fundamentalism flourished as a backlash against the Shah, who
ruthlessly oppressed his people.

The other necessary ingredient for religious fanaticism to
flourish is the absence of legitimate moderate voices. In the case of the
Israel-Palestine conflict, those advocating peace are called naive. In the wake
of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Palestinians who advocate negotiation
with Israel
are thought of as soft. Similarly, Israelis who want to sit at table with
Palestinian negotiators are considered out of touch with reality. Whenever a
society loses sight of the middle, you’ll get religious fanaticism on both
sides of the fence. The fact is any
religion can be easily twisted to give rage an air of legitimacy, to provide a
focus to extremism that, when people are oppressed, seems quite reasonable and
appropriate. It’s hard to advocate peace if those who do so are dead in a ditch
the following morning. Similarly, in Iraq, extremism flourishes in the
absence of workable moderate solutions. Since US
policy in Iraq
is failing, the entire playing field is now in the hands of the most hard-line Sunnis
and Shiites, ripe for payback after years of repression under Saddam. This is
not a problem with Islam. It’s a power vacuum that parallels what happened in
the former Yugoslavia after
Tito fell, what happened to the Biafrans in Nigeria
and the Tutsis in Rwanda.
The violence has to do with a response to oppression, not the core values of
one faith or another.

Let’s put this in a more familiar context. What if, after
having the presidency stolen from him in 2004, Al Gore had done what Mexican
candidate Obrearor is doing. What if he stuck by his guns, set up an
alternative government, hardened his positions and stance, as well as the
passions of his supporters. Imagine a military response, a violent one. Imagine
tit-for-tat going on for a couple of years, with increasingly violent
reprisals. You don’t think Southern churches would be full of militaristic
doomsday prophets, men ready to excommunicate anyone who didn’t take the
hardest line? Of course they would be. And the North would point at them and
say, “You can’t talk to those people. All they understand is violence.”

So those are the conditions that give rise to fanatical
faith. A society devoid of legitimate democratic institutions, where violence
and retribution are so severe that only the hardest line makes sense.

There’s another condition necessary for religious fanaticism
to really take root. As Chris Rock says, look for the white guy with the money.
In the 1950’s the US
had a choice to either support the pan-Arab social democrat movement of Nassar,
or support the authoritarian Islamic Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. You can guess
what America
chose. Nassar was pushed into the arms of the Soviet Union, and became the
second in a long line of Arab Terror Boys that each successive American
President used to justify military action (the first was Iran’s democratic and popular
reformer Mussegadeh, whom the CIA overthrew in 1954).

In truth, America
likes it this way. Our foreign policy demands that Less Developed Nations be
ruled by strongmen, rather than democrats. That’s because authoritarian leaders
can deliver the goods, and democrats, who must consult with their own people,
are unpredictable partners. (What if the poor people in a non-industrialized
nation begin to demand fair wages? The price of coffee goes up, the price of
leather goes up. Can’t have that).  In
the case of Saudi Arabia, oil
was at stake, and America
found itself in league with the most oppressive, fanatical voice in the Arab
world, the hardline dynasty that gave us Osama Bin Laden. We didn’t mind, as
long as we got the oil. In Congo,
where diamonds and copper were at stake, America preferred the authoritarian
General Mobotu (one of history’s most diabolical figures), to the reform-minded
Patrice Lumumba, whom the CIA overthrew in 1962.

So that’s where religious fanaticism takes hold: in nations
with weak democratic institutions, and leaders more interested in appeasing
world powers, than lifting up their own people.  Where freedom of expression is stifled, blind-faith,
martyrdom-seeking fanatics will find fertile soil.

The final thing you need for religious fanaticism to
flourish is writers who are willing to demonize the other side. Writers like
Sam Harris who, rather than remind us that people all over the world are just people,
that the vast, vast majority of Islamic worshippers are just as peace-loving as
anyone else, Sam is busy revving up the folks at home for a Holy War of nuclear
proportions. He would do better to point a finger at the Ayatollahs in our own
midst, rather than feed the Presidential war machine with more justifications
for its election-saving invasion of Iran.