There was sarcasm in that "brothers", just as there was in the suggestion that some people would rather see me dead. You seem to have missed them in both places. But there is an important point there, too.
I regard these people as the enemy, their religion as the enemy's ideology, and our job here and now to fight them wherever they are and yeld nothing, either physically or morally, to them. We are at war. We have to win it, and that means not being too squeamish about such things as Guantanamo Bay, not accept the lies of the enemy about terrorism being generated by porverty and injustice - most terrorists are educated and, like Osama Bin Laden and Mohammad Atta, come from the leading classes in their native countries - and rejecting all notions of moral equivalence and all doubts that our cause is just. It is.
But at the same time, there is talk going around the internet that I do not like - burn the mosques, deport all Muslims, etc. Wars are not won by brutality; wars are not won by killing people - that just makes the others more obstinate (as our terrorist friends are going to find). Wars are won by convincing the enemy to stop fighting - it's as simple as that. If you do it by winning battles, all well and good; if you can do it by other means, even better. And in this case, to stop the enemy from fighting, you have to show that our cause, our behaviour, our culture, our religions, our beliefs, our attitudes, our institutions, our laws, our principles, are better than theirs. They are fighting for a view of the world; they and their supporters must be convinced that it is wrong and that ours is better. To act worse than them is hardly the way to do it.
To some people, this war we are caught in is an excuse to let loose the worst of their character and have fun cultivating murderous hatred and obscene vanity. To me, it is a reason to confirm our allegiance to the values of our culture. They are what we are fighting for, and we will not win unless they do.
Well-said, though I should stress that the Muslims I know - one, a close friend - are as horrified and disgusted by these things as the rest of us. Whenever something like this happens, I just get so frustrated with the world, and with people, because even people I like and respect start saying stupid things like "See? And you were saying we should stop locking illegal immigrants in detention centres! Look what'll happen if you let them out!"
And it all just seems to go on and on, endlessly. :(
One of my dearest net friends is Kikei, who is Muslim. However, it is my view that, although we are not necessarily fighting Muslims, we are certainly fighting Islam. I think that those people who, like Kikei, do not believe that Islam entails war, are good human beings, but not necessarily good Muslims. They read their own noble moral instincts in their religion and imagine that they are getting them from it, when in fact they are taking them to it. To remove jihad from Islam would entail rewriting or editing out about one-fifth of the Qur'an and disregarding the example of Muhammad, who fought several dozen wars in his lifetime; neither can be done without ripping the heart of the religion out. Many people want to do it, or else do it without thinking about it, but I think that when they do that they are moving away from what Islam really is - which is a religion with a political message and a code of laws to impose - into a kind of bland Unitarianism, morally exemplary, of course, but without the anger and titanism and fire of real Islam, and therefore bound to lose.
I'm not sure if I agree with that, given what I know about my friends and their beliefs, but I won't argue since I am not well-informed on the subject. There are, of course, some people who think that all religion entails violence and "convert everyone else to our way of thinking or destroy them". Not a view I agree with but... sigh. These arguments make me feel exhausted before I've even had them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 04:57 pm (UTC)Though, if you consider those dreadful people your brothers, I'm both a bit worried and confused.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 05:41 pm (UTC)("I am a man, nothing human is foreign to me.")
There was sarcasm in that "brothers", just as there was in the suggestion that some people would rather see me dead. You seem to have missed them in both places. But there is an important point there, too.
I regard these people as the enemy, their religion as the enemy's ideology, and our job here and now to fight them wherever they are and yeld nothing, either physically or morally, to them. We are at war. We have to win it, and that means not being too squeamish about such things as Guantanamo Bay, not accept the lies of the enemy about terrorism being generated by porverty and injustice - most terrorists are educated and, like Osama Bin Laden and Mohammad Atta, come from the leading classes in their native countries - and rejecting all notions of moral equivalence and all doubts that our cause is just. It is.
But at the same time, there is talk going around the internet that I do not like - burn the mosques, deport all Muslims, etc. Wars are not won by brutality; wars are not won by killing people - that just makes the others more obstinate (as our terrorist friends are going to find). Wars are won by convincing the enemy to stop fighting - it's as simple as that. If you do it by winning battles, all well and good; if you can do it by other means, even better. And in this case, to stop the enemy from fighting, you have to show that our cause, our behaviour, our culture, our religions, our beliefs, our attitudes, our institutions, our laws, our principles, are better than theirs. They are fighting for a view of the world; they and their supporters must be convinced that it is wrong and that ours is better. To act worse than them is hardly the way to do it.
To some people, this war we are caught in is an excuse to let loose the worst of their character and have fun cultivating murderous hatred and obscene vanity. To me, it is a reason to confirm our allegiance to the values of our culture. They are what we are fighting for, and we will not win unless they do.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 11:27 pm (UTC)And it all just seems to go on and on, endlessly. :(
no subject
Date: 2005-07-08 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-08 11:07 am (UTC)