Thursday, October 05, 2006
Jihad, the example of Iran, and the demonization of freedom
As advertised at the right sidebar, I am in the middle of Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
For Muslims everywhere, Khomeini reframed the debate with the West. Instead of conceding the future of Islam to a secular, democratic model, he imposed a stunning reversal. His intoxicating sermons summoned up the unyielding force of the Islam of a previous millennium in language that foreshadowed bin Laden's revolutionary diatribes. The specific target of his rage against the West was freedom. "Yes, we are reactionaries, and you are enlightened intellectuals: You intellectuals do not want us to back 1,400 years," he said soon after taking power. "You, who want freedom, freedom for everything, the freedom of parties, you who want all the freedoms, you intellectuals: freedom that will corrupt our youth, freedom that will pave the way for the oppressor, freedom that will drag our nation to the bottom." As early as the 1940s, Khomeini had signaled his readiness to use terror to humiliate the perceived enemies of Islam, providing theological cover as well as material support. "Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!"
The fact that Khomeini came from the Shiite branch of Islam, rather than the Sunni, which predominates in the Muslim world outside of Iraq and Iran, made him a complicated figure among Sunni radicals. Nonetheless, Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad, supported the Iranian revolution with leaflets and cassette tapes urging all Islamic groups in Egypt to follow the Iranian example. The overnight transformation of a relatively wealthy, powerful, modern country such as Iran into a rigid theocracy showed that the Islamists' dream was eminently achievable, and it quickened their desire to act.
Presumably, the old idea that the Shiite and Sunni radicals or the Persian and Arab radicals would not work together is dead and buried, even if at one time it held some currency in American intelligence and analytical circles. The more interesting point in Wright's passage above is the reminder that Islamism in any of its forms is the implacable enemy of popular sovereignty, which is the foundation of the Western system. Why is this? Because democracy is inherently corrupting, and because there can be no source of authority other than Allah. The Islamists, who run Iran, dominate the Palestinian Arabs and exert considerable influence in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, hate our freedom and will always do. We will not be rid of them until we have killed them, or so discredited their ideology that they can no longer attract new adherents and many of the old ones "defect" to moderation. Fortunately, there is precedent for the second result -- it is precisely what happened to Communism.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Oct 04, 11:23:00 PM:
The problem with Islamic "moderates" is that in times of real or imagined personal crisis they become radicals. Seen on a large scale, an entire "moderate" Islamic nation becomes radical. Purification movements are cyclical and, I fear, intrinsic to Islam. Furthermore, the "moderates" have exactly the same goals as the radicals, even if they don't personally wield the sword: the dominance of Islam over all things, forever, which I believe would be a permanent dark age for all mankind.
By 
Doug, at
Thu Oct 05, 02:10:00 AM:
I was surprised to see Sayyid Qutb mentioned in this Sept 26, 2001 ONION article.
Don't recall him being widely mentioned at the time.
Talking with your Child
"As your child may or may not know, much of modern Islamic fundamentalism has its roots in the writings of whose two-year sojourn to the U.S. in the late 1940s convinced him that Western society and non-Islamic ideologies were flawed and corrupt. Over the course of the next several decades, his writings became increasingly popular throughout the Arab world, including Afghanistan."
By Doug, at
Thu Oct 05, 02:11:00 AM:
Hewitt interview of Lawrence Wright is transcribed here .
Audio is here (Sept 22)
By Doug, at
Thu Oct 05, 02:25:00 AM:
The Cult of Islam: "Muslims Killing Muslims."
By , at
Thu Oct 05, 04:21:00 AM:
"Presumably, the old idea that the Shiite and Sunni radicals or the Persian and Arab radicals would not work together is dead and buried, even if at one time it held some currency in American intelligence and analytical circles."
I would suggest there are still some in intelligence pushing the view that Suunis and Shiites will not work together to kill off the infidel.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Oct 06, 04:13:00 PM:
It really depends on the brand of fundamentalist. Some see the other sect(s) as actual heretics and therefore, no, they will not cooperate. Others will, and others actively try to reunite the two branches. Islamic theology is more complicated than just "well are they Sunni crazies or Shi'i crazies?"
