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What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves
Guardian UK ^ | September 15, 2005 | Timothy Garton Ash

Posted on 09/15/2005 5:02:26 AM PDT by billorites

Sitting in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a metal arrow on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing to Mecca and the television showing a female news presenter in full hijab, I feel impelled to write about our troubles with Islam.

Four years after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which were perpetrated in the name of Allah, most people living in what we still loosely call the west would agree that we do have troubles with Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but most of the terrorists who threaten us claim to be Muslims. Most countries with a Muslim majority show a resistance to what Europeans and Americans generally view as desirable modernity, including the essentials of liberal democracy.

Why? What's the nub of the problem? Here are six different views often heard in the west, but also, it's important to add, in Muslim countries such as Iran. As you go down the list, you might like to put a mental tick against the view you most strongly agree with. It's logically possible to put smaller ticks against a couple of others, but not against them all.

1 The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. If we must have a framed image of a bearded old man on the wall, let it be a photograph of Charles Darwin. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society.

This is a view held by many highly educated people in the post-Christian west, especially in western Europe, including some of my closest friends. If translated directly into a political prescription, it has the minor drawback of requiring that some 3 billion to 5 billion men and women abandon their fundamental beliefs. Nor has the track record of purely secular regimes over the last hundred years been altogether inspiring.

2 The fundamental problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion of Islam. Islam, unlike western Christianity, does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that my Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth. With its systematic discrimination against women, its barbaric punishments for homosexuality and its militant intolerance, Islam is stuck in the middle ages. What it needs is its Reformation.

A very widespread view. Two objections are that such a view encourages a monolithic, essentialist understanding of Islam, and tries to understand its history too much in western terms (middle ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do", there is a huge spectrum of different realities.

3 The problem is not Islam but Islamism. One of the world's great religions has been misrepresented by fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, who have twisted it into the service of a political ideology of hate. It's these ideologists and movements of political Islamism that we must combat. Working with the benign, peaceful majority of the world's Muslims, we can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree.

The view promulgated by Qur'an-toting western politicians such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? They're not going to insult millions of Muslim voters and the foreign countries upon which the west relies for its imported oil. But do they really believe it? I have my doubts. Put them on a truth serum, and I bet they'd be closer to 2, while many atheist or agnostic European leaders would be at 1. On the other hand, this analysis is made with learning and force by distinguished specialists on the Muslim world.

4 The nub of the problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but a specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 members of the Arab League, none is a home-grown democracy. (Iraq now has some elements of democracy, but hardly home-grown.) Needless to say, this is not a racist claim about Arabs but a complex argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernisation.

A case can be made. There are democracies with Muslim majorities (Turkey, Mali). The political scientist Alfred Stepan has written a fascinating article suggesting that, in the democracy stakes, non-Arab Muslim countries have fared roughly as well as non-Muslim countries at a comparable level of economic development. But I'm struck by the fact that even in a traditionally anti-Arab country such as Iran, very few people think the trouble is just with Arabia.

5 We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created this antipathy to western liberal democracy; and, at the extreme, its mortal enemies. Moreover, after causing (by the Holocaust of European barbarism), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of the state of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians.

A widespread view among Muslims, and by no means only among Arabs in the Middle East. Also shared, from a different starting point, by some on the western left. Of course, even if this simplistic version of history were entirely true, we couldn't change the past. But we can acknowledge the historical damage for which we are genuinely responsible. And we can do more to create a free Palestine next to a secure Israel.

6 Whatever your view of the relative merits of the west and Islam, the most acute tension comes at the edges where they meet. It arises, in particular, from the direct, personal encounter of young, first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants with western, and especially European, secular modernity. The most seductive system known to humankind, with its polychromatic consumer images of health, wealth, excitement, sex and power, is hugely attractive to young people from often poor, conservative, Muslim backgrounds. But, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes, alienated by the reality of their marginalised lives in the west or feeling themselves rejected by it, a few - a tiny minority - embrace a fierce, extreme, warlike new version of the faith of their fathers. From Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida, through the bombers of Madrid to those of London, this has become a depressingly familiar story.

I wish I could find some compelling evidence against this claim. But I can't. (Can some reader help?) Even if we were to assist at the birth of a free Palestine and pull out of Iraq tomorrow, this problem would remain. It threatens to make Europe a less civilised, comfortable place to live over the next 10 years.

Now, which of the six views got your largest tick? In answering that question, you will not just be saying something about the Islamic world; you will be saying something about yourself. For what we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves. Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alqaedagermany; hamburg; islam
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1 posted on 09/15/2005 5:02:26 AM PDT by billorites
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To: billorites

Idiot........


2 posted on 09/15/2005 5:04:51 AM PDT by NRA1995 (When liberals speak I hear the Vonage music playing.....woo-hoo, woo-hoo-hoo....)
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To: billorites

This guy is really intelligent! /sarasm


3 posted on 09/15/2005 5:06:56 AM PDT by marvlus
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To: billorites

British humor !


4 posted on 09/15/2005 5:10:34 AM PDT by SIRTRIS
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To: billorites

So according to Ash, it's God's fault.


5 posted on 09/15/2005 5:14:49 AM PDT by auboy
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To: billorites

He is singing a different tune these days. I remember his pieces when the french tried to ban the hijab. He was defending muslims right to wear it. Now he has a different vision. About time.


6 posted on 09/15/2005 5:16:08 AM PDT by oilfieldtrash
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To: billorites

When this guy looks in the mirror, he sees a total inability to make moral distinctions.


7 posted on 09/15/2005 5:21:11 AM PDT by tkathy (Tyranny breeds terrorism. Freedom breeds peace.)
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To: billorites

There isn't anywhere in the world where Muslims have been in power for any significant amount of time where they haven't turned the country they control into a living (dying) hell hole. In addition, in those countries no other belief system can coincide with them without being terrorized to the point of extinction.

The one common denominator throughout is Islam.


8 posted on 09/15/2005 5:24:41 AM PDT by DB (©)
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To: billorites

Monte Python is back!?


9 posted on 09/15/2005 5:28:09 AM PDT by mcg2000 (Wolf Blitzer: "They're all so desperate, so poor and so black.")
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To: billorites
Hmmmm ... #2.

In my mirror I see someone who understands that you cannot have a "religion of peace" that was founded by a -- shall we say -- less than peaceful "prophet".

10 posted on 09/15/2005 5:30:14 AM PDT by Mr. Buzzcut (metal god ... visit The Ponderosa .... www.vandelay.com ... DEATH BEFORE DHIMMITUDE)
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To: billorites

In order: 2,3,4,6,5,1


11 posted on 09/15/2005 5:34:30 AM PDT by ecomcon
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To: billorites
The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right.

I stopped reading right there. Another self-hating athiest throwing stones.
12 posted on 09/15/2005 5:40:38 AM PDT by reagan_fanatic (Proud member of the 21st century Christian Crusaders)
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To: billorites
The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right.

That would explain all the Christian suicide bombers, beheadings of non-Christians and Christians burning or destroying anything non-Chrisitian. What a "useful idiot."

13 posted on 09/15/2005 5:42:34 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - They want to die for Islam, and we want to kill them.)
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To: billorites

Seems most people are missing the point of this article. It's supposed to be a kind of test ; which of the following best describes your feelings, etc.

Personally, I don't think it's really worth the time to decide which of Mr Ash's ideas best fits mine.


14 posted on 09/15/2005 5:46:12 AM PDT by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR) [there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business])
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To: billorites

I pointed to Mecca last night when I voided my bowels.


15 posted on 09/15/2005 5:54:04 AM PDT by One Proud Dad
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To: billorites
* * * ASH ALERT! * * *

16 posted on 09/15/2005 5:56:09 AM PDT by N. Theknow (Be a glowworm. A glowworm's never glum. How can you be grumpy when the sun shines out your bum?)
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To: billorites

The fundamental problem is Islam and people like this author who try to intellectualize it's faults. Michael Graham was right, Islam is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. They hate us because of who we are. That cannot be changed. Make no mistake, this is not isolated extremism, this is a culture war.


17 posted on 09/15/2005 5:59:00 AM PDT by FairfaxVA (SELECT * FROM liberals WHERE clue > 0. Zero rows returned!)
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To: billorites
"........What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves.........."

What 'We'. Speak for yourself.

He must really be referring to the fact that it is the antithetical opposite and Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass cult of Religions leading to a degenerate and backward societies.

18 posted on 09/15/2005 6:00:43 AM PDT by DoctorMichael (The Fourth-Estate is a Fifth-Column!)
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To: FairfaxVA
Make no mistake, this is not isolated extremism, this is a culture war.

I think you're right, but it's a war between one culture that can't handle the free flow of information, that keeps one-half of its population (and their intellectual and creative capacity) locked out of sight in second-class status, that utilizes state-enforced mass ignorance to keep control over its populations. There was a report one or two years ago in which it was stated that the sum total of all books translated into Arabic by all the Muslim nations combined is less than the number of books translated by Spain into Spanish.

A war in which one side is kept weak, forever, by the same delusions that prompted it to start the war. The end-game of a failed culture.

19 posted on 09/15/2005 6:09:06 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Fortunately, the Bill of Rights doesn't include the word 'is'.)
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To: billorites
The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists,

The real statement is that the vast majority of Muslims are willing to tolerate terrorism.

20 posted on 09/15/2005 6:12:32 AM PDT by aimhigh
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