Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Radicalism there and here
An Iranian-French scholar interviews the Islamic militants in a French prison. If you have read a fair amount about the jihadis there is nothing much to surprise you. This observation about the "buffering" role of religion in American life is not new, either, but well-worth remembering:
In the United States, in spite of 9/11, it is a society which understands religion much better than in Europe. Muslims can be practicing and devout without being treated as if they were fundamentalists.
If you were looking for a utilitarian reason to treat American Muslims with respect, that would be it. Our individual freedom, which is considerably greater than Europe's and which would seem to make us more vulnerable to terrorism, turns out to be our best defense. The catch is that by "individual freedom" I mean something more than the rights guaranteed under the Constitution: the geographic and social mobility, tremendous economic opportunity, absence of social stratification, the resulting mutual acceptance that Americans naturally have for each other, and the fundamental point that virtually all Americans, including African-Americans, are descended from people who have freed themselves from one or another oppressive condition (Native Americans being the obvious exception). In America there is always the possibility to free yourself anew, and that makes it very difficult for radicalism of any sort -- religious or secular -- to make progress against the center.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Nov 25, 01:06:00 PM:
I think it was the Pew Research group a few years back who found that American Muslims are some of the happiest people in America. They pointed to three key reasons:
1) The ability to practice their religion unfettered and without any judgment.
2) The ability to reach one's potential irrespective of current status and that meritocracy is the only thing that matters in America (The American Dream.) Which if you think about where most of these people emmigrated from, this is not too much of a stretch to believe.
3) America's religiousity - the idea that most Americans still believed deeply in formalized religion and that it still provided something of a moral compass socially.
This third point is surprising, but if you think of all three points - new American Muslims would be great targets for the Republican party.
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 25, 03:35:00 PM:
If they can dig themselves out of their 1970s ideological rut, that is.
By Escort81, at
Tue Nov 25, 03:56:00 PM:
DF - "They" referring to American Muslims or Republicans?
QuakerCat makes an interesting point. Politics would indeed make strange bedfellows.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 25, 07:25:00 PM:
The Republicans. Muslim ideological ruts go *way* further back than merely the 1970s.
