A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage
“A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage"
Op-Ed Columnist
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, July 15, 2005
A few years ago I was visiting Bahrain and sitting with friends in a
fish restaurant when news appeared on an overhead TV about Muslim
terrorists, men and women, who had taken hostages in Russia. What
struck me, though, was the instinctive reaction of the Bahraini
businessman sitting next to me, who muttered under his breath," Why
are we in every story?”The"We"In question was Muslims.
The answer to that question is one of the most important issues in
geopolitics today: Why are young Sunni Muslim males, from London to
Riyadh and Bali to Baghdad, so willing to blow up themselves and
others in the name of their religion? Of course, not all Muslims are
suicide bombers; it would be ludicrous to suggest that.
But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims.
There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry
Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel
entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent
people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni
radicals. What is going on?
Neither we nor the Muslim world can run away from this question any
longer. This is especially true when it comes to people like Muhammad
Bouyeri - a Dutch citizen of Moroccan origin who last year tracked
down the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a critic of Islamic
intolerance, on an Amsterdam street, shot him 15 times and slit his
throat with a butcher knife. He told a Dutch court on the final day
of his trial on Tuesday: "I take complete responsibility for my
actions. I acted purely in the name of my religion.”
Clearly, several things are at work. One is that Europe is not a
melting pot and has never adequately integrated its Muslim
minorities, who, as The Financial Times put it, often find
themselves"cut off from their country, language and culture of
origin"Without being assimilated into Europe, making them easy prey
for peddlers of a new jihadist identity.
Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a
long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis
of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam. Islam's self-
identity is that it is the authentic and ideal expression of
monotheism. Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0,
Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0.
Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is
that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and
ashamed of being tempted. On the other hand, they are humiliated by
Western society because while Sunni Islamic civilization is supposed
to be superior, its decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation
of Islam since the 12th century has choked the spirit of innovation
out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less
economically developed, less technically advanced than God 2.0, 1.0
and 0.0.
"Some of these young Muslim men are tempted by a civilization they
consider morally inferior, and they are humiliated by the fact that,
while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations
seem to be doing much better," said Raymond Stock, the Cairo-based
biographer and translator of Naguib Mahfouz.”When the inner conflict
becomes too great, some are turned by recruiters to seek the sick
prestige of 'martyrdom' by fighting the allegedly unjust occupation
of Muslim lands and the 'decadence' in our own.”
This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of
dignity and the rage it can trigger.
One of the London bombers was married, with a young child and another
on the way. I can understand, but never accept, suicide bombing in
Iraq or Israel as part of a nationalist struggle. But when a British
Muslim citizen, nurtured by that society, just indiscriminately blows
up his neighbors and leaves behind a baby and pregnant wife, to me he
has to be in the grip of a dangerous cult or preacher - dangerous to
his faith community and to the world.
How does that happen? Britain's Independent newspaper described one
of the bombers, Hasib Hussain, as having recently undergone a sudden
conversion"from a British Asian who dressed in Western clothes to a
religious teenager who wore Islamic garb and only stopped to say
salaam to fellow Muslims.”
The secret of this story is in that conversion - and so is the crisis
in Islam. The people and ideas that brought about that sudden
conversion of Hasib Hussain and his pals - if not stopped by other
Muslims - will end up converting every Muslim into a suspect and one
of the world's great religions into a cult of death.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15friedman.html
A Poverty of Memory
2005 July 15
by Brian
I have frequently and sometimes vigorously disagreed with New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman. In what follows, I will find cause to criticize an argument of his again. But you'll never hear me say that this guy doesn't have cojones.
In his column today, titled"A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage", Friedman expresses a pervasive opinion in the West, to the effect that it seems as if all the terrorists and suicide bombers these days are Muslims, and that Islam is the scourge of our age.
Obviously, I hope Friedman is never physically attacked for that opinion, in spite of Ann Coulter's wishes to the contrary. I would only suggest that his focus, even allowing for the global climate we're in at this moment, is rather narrow.
Friedman complains of the fact that virtually all of the most violent murderers of our time seem to be Islamic fundamentalists. He cites the example of Muhammad Bouyeri, the confessed murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who claimed that he acted"purely in the name of my religion.”Friedman goes on to consider the possible factors involved in this epidemic of Muslim murderers, and he concludes, quite correctly, I think, that a regressive fixation with medieval notions of heavenly justice and religious revenge is responsible.
Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam.
Fundamentalist Christians have the same attitude toward the Jews: the latter comprise a necessary but temporary ally in the war against Satan. Once that war is won, the Jews will be sent off to join Satan in the pit of damnation. So it is with institutional religion and fundamentalism of all stripes: it's all about a pre-defined exclusivity that I call"cosmic racism.”
Friedman's chief complaint, then, is not really with Islamic fundamentalism, but with fundamentalism, period. The same superiority- complex that drives Sunni Islam also fuels the actions (and pre- emptive reactions) of the Israelis in Palestine; or the Bushies' religiously-motivated murder of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Here in America, we have seen it time and again: the suicidal cult driven by a cultish religious leader obsessed with medieval ideas of rectitude and sanctity: we have seen it in Waco, in Jonestown, and in hundreds of smaller-scale murder/suicides committed in the name of (or by one claiming to be) Jesus, God, Allah, or what-have-you.
Finally, Friedman follows the story of the conversion of one of the London bombers, and concludes," The secret of this story is in that conversion — and so is the crisis in Islam.”
I would agree, but with a very crucial qualification added: Islam does not have the market cornered on either conversion or fundamentalism. The"secret"to both our current distress and, paradoxically, our potential escape from the inner slavery of group- violence, is not in the problem of Islamic conversion (or conversion to Christian fundamentalism, or White Supremacy, or Judaism)—the secret is in identifying and undermining the conversion to fundamentalism of any order or degree. To the extent that each individual looks within and identifies his and her own psychological burden of fundamentalism, and then discards it, we will become more and more liberated from the pall of fundamentalism that currently hangs over our world. This is what the Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, asked us to do in the days following 9/11: he simply asked that before we strike out or respond in action to the violence committed against us, we turn within and kill the"Inner bin Laden"of prejudice, intolerance, exclusivity, and the impulse to violence. I thought it was a good idea at the time (and I still do); obviously, the American government did not agree. Today, that opportunity that Thich Nhat Hanh saw has been all but lost: the nations of this earth are trapped in a vortex of panic, death, and violence. In many of these nations lie the secret red buttons which can launch the missiles that will kill this planet.
Islam does not have to be rooted out of the world, but fundamentalist ideologies, grounded in the violence of feudal beliefs, do. Anyone, of any prejudice of belief or dogma, who projects the phrase"Vengeance is mine"Into the mouth of God, is a fundamentalist, and is likely to murder—either suicidally or otherwise—in the name of that phrase and that false God. This goes for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and the various secular cults that have sprung up around the world in recent times. As we in the West know all too well, Science, Money, and Government can become the gods of a fundamentalist ideology, too.
I would encourage Mr. Friedman to continue speaking out to all nations and all religions—not just to Islam—that they cleanse themselves of the scourge of fundamentalism. It is more pervasive than he may imagine: just review the history of war over the past 5,000 years or so. In every era, every religion, every cult of sacrifice and state, you will find words and sentiments very much like these:
Let me die dignified in wars: honourable death is better than my current life.
Those particular words, by the way, were written by Osama bin Laden, in the fatwa against the United States.
https://dailyrevolution.net/?p=33
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