Open Integral

Another example of Muslim intolerance. In an essay on Frank’s site I discussed the cartoon controversy. Okay, let’s get the caveat over and done with (although I’ve said this time and time again). This is NOT about all Muslims. In fact I’m dismayed I even have to make such a disclaimer. Everyone should know that Islam contains a wide variety of opinion and that it is impossible to speak for all Muslims. In fact that’s the absurdity of Western complaints about essentializing. It is they who essentialize because they assume there is such a thing as an average Muslim, a unified ‘moderate’ majority. I’m actually very careful about what I say. And everything I say has been said by Muslims themselves.

In fact there is a great deal of crossover between the West and Islam. There are even pro neo-con Muslims and pro-Israeli Muslims, just as there are gay, feminist and progressive Muslims. Anything anyone says is bound to offend a Muslim somewhere at some time, not because they are Muslim but because they disagree.

Some more demonstrations – and the demonstrations are by the same people who protested the publication of the cartoons. This is not about what the Pope said. At its base it is simply an anti-Christian campaign. The objection is not to what the Pope actually said but that he dared say anything about Islam at all. Amongst certain schools of Islamic thought it is an offence to criticize Mohammed and the Koran at all, ever. The Koran is God’s word and it is perfect. Mohammed is faultless. In the most puritan of these schools it is especially an offence for non-Muslims to criticize Islam. They are simply scum who must stay silent.

It’s interesting to note that churches have been attacked in both Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian Christians have been getting increasingly nervous. Islamists have been painting slogans “first the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” This is just an excuse to attack Christians – and they need very little excuse.

Islam has long felt the need to prove itself superior to the Abrahamic traditions that preceeded it. It is a competition that is largely driven by internal dynamics. If you come after Judaism and Christianity and claim that you are necessarily superior to them because you have the ‘final’ word of God then you are naturally in competition. In fact the very failure of these previous versions to submit and convert is an insult to God. Their existance is evidence of the failure to convince them about what should be perfectly obvious.

It’s not that Muslims as inividuals are any different to any one else. This is not about people. It’s about ideology and doctrine. It’s about the internal logic of a belief that says it has the final and absolute word of the only God. Such a belief leads to fanaticism. And it leads to fanaticism in any religion.

I don’t make much distinction between Christianity and Islam, they are two peas in the same pod to me. There are differences but they also share a lot in common. It’s an absurd argument about which end a boiled egg should be cracked open. In my view, they’re both deluded and wrong.

What the Pope said was trivial amongst all the things said about Islam. Why pick on this one statement out of thousands? Because it suits the fundamentalists anti-Christian agenda.

It’s also simply about bullying and intimidation. The fundamentalists know that their base is being steadily eroded by free speech. They know that the only way they can protect their absurd beliefs is by suppressing criticism. Islam has maintained its power by oppression. The very reason the gates of ijtihad were closed was to prevent Islam disintegrating into a thousand sects.

Imagine this – every Muslim is given the freedom to question the Koran. The laws against blasphemy and apostasy are all removed. There are no consequences if you declare your disbelief or convert to another religion. What happens next?

We forget that in evey Christian (and Jewish) country we are free to disbelieve, that we are even free to criticize. In many Muslims countries you simply do not have such freedom. You have to be careful about what you say. Why? Because purist imams and mullahs will inspire their followers to kill you (and they do kill you).

When was the last time anyone in a Christian or Jewish country was persecuted for heresy, blasphemy or apostasy? Yet it is a regular occurance in the Muslim world.

But sadly, I’m guessing there are some in the West who think the Pope should apologize and fully retract his statements. Great. The leader of the Catholic church having his speeches vetted by Muslim fundamentalists. Next all religions…

Now, for balance, consider some of the vicious anti-Christian and anti-Papist polemic that comes out of the ME.

Yep, let’s not upset fundamentalists.

The core beliefs of Islam are false. Islam needs to be roundly criticized. Mohammed made it all up. It was a fantasy. We do not have to kow-tow to myths. We do not have to be sensitive to the demands of bullies.

I just thought to add this comment. A few weeks ago I saw an interview on the US PBS Newshour program. Two ‘experts’ were debating the Arab/Israeli conflict. One was an Arab academic at a US university and the other was a retired military strategic specialist. I didn’t bother to note their names I’m afraid.

I used to be immediately sceptical of anything anyone from the US military establishment had to say, until I realized that there is quite a variety of opinion and degrees of expertise amongst such specialists and analysts. They are not all neo-con apologists.

The thing that caught my attention was the return to the same old territory. The Arab academic claimed the problem in the ME is largely the West’s fault. This is actually a critical issue. There is no doubt that the West has interfered in the ME but whether or not this is the primary cause of its problems is open to debate.

The military strategist argued the problem was really that Islam is a failed civilization and its problems are primarily caused by the internal fallout. I must admit to now favouring this idea.

There is a common argument that the West props up dictatorships in the ME. This claim largely falls down when you look at the detail. I do not deny that the West has interfered and has a vital strategic interest in the ME. I do not deny that the West (and other countries such as Russia) seek allies in the region. Nor do I deny that the West (and Russia) have engaged in covert activities. The involvement of the CIA in supporting the Shah of Iran is a well known case. But even this bares a closer examination. Even the noted ‘leftist’ writer Tariq Ali acknowledges that the Western left made a huge mistake in simplifying the internal politics of Iran. The left supported the Islamic revolution simply on the grounds that it’s public rhetoric was anti-US. Tariq goes on to say that the left failed to understand that some of the same clerics who came to power using anti-US rhetoric happily took CIA money to topple Mossadeq and install the Shah. The clerics hated the socialist, Russia friendly Mossadeq more than they hated the Shah. They turned against the Shah when he put forward a number of secular reforms. So who used who? Did the CIA use the clerics or did the clerics use the CIA? What the CIA largely did was fund the opposition to Mossadeq, but there had to be an opposition to fund in the first place. The CIA did not create the opposition out of thin air. Tariq Ali admits that Mossadeq was unpopular and that his time was short. His fall was inevitable.

But Iran forms the model for a suspicion about the rest of the ME. (Incidentally, oil was first discovered in Iran by a joint German and British company just before WW1. We can’t forget that the Germans had just as much a stake in the ME as the allies). So who are all these ME leaders that are propped up by the West? How are they propped up?

There is a naive assumption that if these leaders weren’t ‘propped’ up they would naturally fall and the people would triumph and establish what, democratic states? Or would one dictator fall to be replaced by another dictator aligned to another group, say Russia and China?

Let’s look at Saudi Arabia as an example. There is US/SA co-operation but the US actually has very little say in domestic SA politics. It has failed to pressure the Saudis to undertake democratic reforms. I seriously doubt that if the US stopped buying Saudi oil that the Saudi regime would collapse. And if the rule of the al-Sauds failed there is every chance a more fundamentalist coalition of families would take over. The same applies to many of the gulf states ruled by particular families and clans. This pattern of governance is uniquely Arabic and existed before oil and it will likely continue after oil.

Next let’s look at the Ba’athist states of Syria and Iraq. How much influence did the West have in these countries? I’m sure the CIA tried and I’m sure they were involved in several plots. I’m also quite sure the Russians were equally involved. What, do we ignore the Russians and only concentrate on the CIA? Seems to me that the West has failed to get either Syria or Iraq on side.

When it all comes down to it the two countries that seem firmly in the West’s pocket are Jordan and Egypt, and Egypt is wonky. So that makes one stable and firm ally propped up by the West. Wow! Great! Anyone else might see this as evidence that the West has largely failed to have much influence at all. And what would replace the rule of the Hashemites? Something even more democratic or something more fundamentalist?

I think we can largely ignore the argument that the West props up governments in the ME. They are dictatorships because the ME model has always been authoritarian. And this, I believe, is the real problem. As Europe grew in economic might it was inevitable that Islam would have to deal with it. There were trading opportunities and especially new technology. As Islamic civilization engaged with Western civilization it was also inevitable that Western ideas found their way into Islamic civilization. When you read Islamist literature you see a very clear condemnation of Western culture, not just Western power. The Islamists know that if allowed to the majority of people in the ME will gradually adopt Western ways.

Islam is collapsing, failing. The fundamentalist backlash is a futile attempt to hold the tide back. It succeeds temporarily through repression and authoritarian rule. In fact the very reason the fundamentalists are prominent is because they are prepared to be strict and harsh. They think they are saving Islam, returning it to a pure state. They will succeed in the short term but repression eventually creates opposition.

There was never any doubt that the Shah of Iran sowed the seeds of his own demise through the savage actions of Savak, his secret service. But is Iran better today? There was another, disturbing documentary about the public execution of a 16 year-old girl. It was a Kafkaesque scenario. Her mother had died when she was young and her father was incapacitated by grief and turned to drugs. She was left largely to her own devices. In Iran the age of consent is 9 – or rather, a girl is considered to become a sexual temptation at the age of 9, consent has little to do with it. She is supposed to don the burqa and only go in public escorted by a male relative. She had no male relative she could turn to. She defied custom and wandered the streets. In Iranian society a lone girl over the age of 9 is considered fair game and a moral threat. So a cycle of arrests began. But here’s the nasty twist. It is the moral police who do the arresting and they are usually ex-revolutionary guards. They have the idea that they can rape these women because once charged they are despised and considered the problem. So this young woman was raped and became known to the moral police. She was ‘protected’ by a taxi driver who was a former revolutionary guard, but only if she had sex with him. She was protected by him from 12 to 15. Then an anonymous complaint was filed against her and she was charged again. Under recent reforms adolescents under the age of 21 could not be executed, but someone deliberately made her out to be older than she was. It seemed to be an inside job, the judge rushed the case and one day she was hung in the local square. What they do is drive in a crane and attach the rope to the jib. Then they haul the struggling body up so the crowd can see. She was 16, She’d been raped by the moral police since she was 11.

Hezbollah is inspired by the Iranian revolution.

And as a final note, the military strategist said he had gone to the ME to do some consulting work and he met with both Israelis and Palestinians. He said the difference was remarkable. The Israelis were frankly discussing their mistakes and working out how to avoid them. The Palestinians were blaming others and speaking conspiratorally of Mossad and the CIA. They were not looking at their own failings.

The word I keep hearing from both Muslims and non-Muslims is ‘humiliation’. But what can anyone do about humiliation? Someone can be humiliated by their own failings. Pride and honour will prevent them from seeing where they were at fault. Honour is an important value in the ME.