There's a good piece in The Times this morning by Gerard Baker on the question a lot of people have been asking. Asking not necessarily of the Islamic fascists who recruit, plan and arm the bombers, but of sections of our own political and media landscape.
Imagine this. Suppose we'd never invaded Iraq, and terrorists had blown up London in pursuit of their cause, what would the apologists have said about last week's attacks? In fact we know exactly what they would have said because many of them did say it after al-Qaeda attacked the US on September 11 - long before any American or British soldier set foot in Afghanistan or Iraq.
They said it was because of our support for Israel and its "brutal occupation of Palestinian territory", our complicity in the victimisation of Arabs from the Balfour Declaration to the ascent of the Jewish lobby in America.
He goes on to his extend this to pose the question, what if there were no Israel and instead a Palestine and we had still been attacked?
What would the apologists have said then? They would have said, of course, that we were to blame for having abused the Arabs and Muslims generally for decades through our colonial ambitions and economic exploitation of Arabia and the broader Middle East.
And further back he goes to push home the point that it doesn't matter, the anti war stoppers and appeasers will always find some justification to explain with a straight face how we brought this on ourselves.
Friday, July 15, 2005
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A Muslim friend recommended the book Infidels by Andrew Wheatcroft for a good low-down on Islam/ Christian relations over the past millenia.
Even though I suspect the author, and my friend, sought to infer Christianity was as much to blame as Islam in a Kingdom of Heaven kind of way, I must admit I was left feeling it was not quite so clear cut.
Certainly the West bears its own degree of responsibility for our past and present woes, but I couldn't help feeling that the aggressive expansionism of early Islam and its spectacularly vicious governance certainly kicked off the conflict and could be said to have "brutalised" the Christians to some extent (and that extent was pretty considerable if you consider the Caliphate encompassed Spain and began at Austria's borders). Indeed the suicide bombings, decapitations and the West's Abu Ghraib-tinged (Sp?) response are entirely in keeping with this depressing pattern.
The book does provide useful context however and makes it clear that the current troubles are simply a continuation of an age-old ideological struggle which went into remission with the decline of the Ottomon empire and now seems to have made a come back. The only difference is that now instead of responding with crusades for Christianity, the West now crusades for democracy. Much the same thing to the likes of OBL of course...
I couldn't agree less.
This is not a clash of civilizations.
I am so sick of the 'why do they hate us?' school of pseudo-analysis, that is so buying into OBL's analysis by adopting his dialectic of the other.
As for all this self-beration about media responses, do you not realise that here again - with this nonsense about 'stoppers' (can we ban that inanity from TETT please?) you are again adopting an AQ-style dialectic of war.
Which 'they' are you talking about? Think it through before you glibly reply 'Them, the bombers of course, then their appeasers and apologists' - admit it, its not EXACTLY what you meant.
Don't come out batting for AQ by accident.
But first some facts - there was simply not one historic caliphate.
The Western Caliphate of El- Andalus, was, at its height, not brutal at all and in fact many of the re-discovered great works of ancient Greece entered / re-entered Europe via the schools of translation so prevalent in El-Andalus during this period - in particular in Toledo.
These translated between Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin in particular and during this period great Jewish, Islamic and Christian scholars worked side by side.
Remember it was the Christian reconquistas Ferdinand and Isabella who expelled the jews from Spain.
The split that separated the Western Caliphate from the East is just one of many but goes right back to the origins of the Sunni/Shia split.
The early military history of Islam is interesting but I'm not sure how relevant it REALLY is to this discussion.
Equally, while Roman Catholicism, the Roman Empire and its ultimately ludicrous later echoes in the so-called 'Holy Roman Empire' do share some state/conquest/religion crossover with early (and later) islamic states, it must be said that, for all the strains of 'onward christian soldiers' coming from the local steeple its not quite the same.
BUT more importantly, nor is AQ the same as the armies of the prophet over a millenia ago.
The reality of islamist extremism today is that it is not about islamic theology and it is not about most moslems, any more than most christians are anything to do with the blowing up of abortion clinics and assassination of doctors which occurs in the Home of Freedom, (nor indeed with the burning of schollbooks which refer to evolution).
Vis Islamic extremism we are dealing with a qutbist minority within the wahhabi sect that chooses to pick up on this aspect as an essentially political tool. The historical and textual aspects are overlayed onto modern conflicts as propaganda as much as through actual belief.
Ask yourself why 'devout' Saudis spend so much time in London's casinos. Ask yourself who initially funded AQ and why. Think about the power and resources game and realise that while the ideology may be simplified and religiously justified for the bombers, it is undoubtedly more complex for some parts of terrorism's food chain - whether they consciously admit this to themselves or not.
The explanation of the use of a particular terrorist tactic by those recruited in Bradford or Aylesbury calls for something both more and less than a global argument about the correct analysis of a specifically islamic extremism. However it has not got much to do with imans and mosques, except in so far as, in most cases, the mosque explicitly alienates extreme fringe viewpoints; putting them below most imans' radars just as they were below that of the security services.
However that other hate figure of the west's warriors, the media-appeaser is, let us remember, after all what we are fighting for. We are certainly not fighting for Charles Clarke and Tony Blair to tell us that life itself is more important than our civil rights - it isn't. That is why we are getting on tubes and buses again all over London, rather than destroying our society through fear of random death being visited upon us - as the bombers would no doubt have wished.
The cartoon Baker referred to in The Times piece was crude, offensive even, but it was asking a question which may have been at least exploited somewhere in the stew of madness and violence that led to last Thursday.
I don't see a direct causal link but we can't have it both ways - we can't, as Nick implies, crusade for freedom and also claim that we are simply neutral bystanders when freedom's enemies drop in, be they bombers, idealogues or authoritarian Home Secretaries.
How are we doing in the cricket?
Simon
Did you read that piece? I'm not bating for anyone by accident.
The 'they' being talked about was clearly the appeasers and apologists'. That is EXACTLY what I meant.
But I will concede that stoppers - should be baned here - from hence forth.
I'm not sure who you're disagreeing more with CB, me or G...?
Well, I agree that obviously AQ and the quatbist bombers represent a small minority. Ditto about Saudi. And I never suggested Muslim Spain was not an advanced civilisation - street lamps in Cordoba and all - and Christian Spain was, well, a new Jerusalem.
But while I don't believe in a "clash of civilisations" either, it is clear there is a friction between aspects of Western (Christian) identity and aspects of Islamic civilisation. One can see - and indeed plot a direct course - throughout the centuries and see variations upon this theme, history repeating itself, if inexactly. Our current troubles are simply another variation - instigated by a minority yes, but financed and supported by enough people, who take history very seriously themselves, for us not to dismiss it as a crazy aberation either.
I certainly was not calling for or supporting a crusade, simply observing the similarities in the historical cycle.
For the record I don't think demonising Islam or fighting in Iraq (being a "stopper" myself) is the right way to go about tackling this issue. But ignoring inconvenient historical facts will not work either.
I think the point is that we DID invade Iraq and there IS an often brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Sure, these aren't the only reasons for Islamist violence, but they have an amplifying effect, drawing more to "the cause".
And no, I haven't read the article yet. It's 5AM on Saturday morning, fergawdsake. Later. But other than a few minor details I agree with Chris's analysis.
I recommend on this general subject:
Sir Bernard Crick and Ziauddin Sardar on the Toady programme this morning - listen again at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/
Its also worth listening to
Prince Hassan of Jordan and a very good Thought for the Day this morning from Dr Mona Siddiqui.
Last nights Newsnight special on Iraq incidentally (dangerous subject change - no overt linkage implied...) had news of some interesting re-alignments that should be discussed more elsewhere - when Moqtada Al-Sadr (the Shia radical and self-styled undefeated opponent of the US occupation) and Sunni clerics usually described as apologists for the insurgency start calling for joint Sunni and Shia religious services and name-checking each other there is something very interesting going on - and its about politics more than religion and as one would expect Iraqi politics in particular.
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