It's Natural Appeal and Inevitable Defeat!
Okay....I was jumping from site to site when I came across this intrestingly written opinion piece regarding Islamic Fundamentalism on Victor David Hanson's site...take note of the authors name when you read it...then chime in with your own thoughts.........
November 1, 2004
Islamic Fundamentalism
It's Natural Appeal and Inevitable Defeat
by Raymond Reda Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim is a graduate student in the United States.
One of the fundamental problems facing the Middle East today is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Objectively speaking, as an ideology, it clearly possesses some appeal (particularly to the socially and economically underprivileged); yet to all who do not embrace it—to the neighboring and often more prosperous world outside Islam—it is a thorn in the side. Still, if the social mores and cultural concepts behind Islamic fundamentalism are aberrant today, they are not wholly alien to human nature. Throughout history, millennia prior to the coming of Islam, diverse peoples all around the world have clung onto ultra-conservative social and cultural values that are now often viewed as being synonymous with, and peculiar to, Islamic fundamentalism. The problem, however, is that these values are at a clash with the predominant world of modernity—and vice-versa.
Aside from the superfluous theological aspects, Islamic fundamentalism sponsors many of those qualities—now considered outdated and "machismo"—that have traditionally been requisite of all men around the world: excessive if not aggressive self-dignity and honor; self-independence; ruthless retaliation to insult and an overall martial demeanor; patriarchy; a sharp division between the sexes—in other words, all the prerequisites needed for fascist thinking. From ancient history to recently, many men—from Gilgamesh and the heroes of the Trojan War, to the mighty warriors and soldiers of the Mediterranean empires, to the knights of the Middle Ages, to modern tyrants—have conducted their lives (in modern times, at least outwardly) in accordance with these universally, almost innately, understood ideals. Added to this "medievalism" has always been the outright rejection of liberalism, democracy, materialism, feminism, consumerism, and capitalism—the very things that are the fabric of the modern world. It becomes rather evident, then, why people who are already impoverished—who have no familiarity with modernity, and thus no appreciation of it—and who adhere to a religion that earnestly advocates many of the aforementioned forms of conduct, find a sort of dignified satisfaction, find respect and solace, in Islamic fundamentalism.
Due to the secular component of Islamic fundamentalism's appeal to man's more primitive nature, it becomes evident that fanatical fundamentalists—fanatics—are not products of brainwashing but, on the contrary, products of primitive living social conditions, that is, products of an environment wholly ripe and conducive for the cultivation of primordial thinking. Moreover, many Muslims, now reduced to poverty and shame, zealously remember the glory and dynamism of their ancestors—during the West's purported "Dark Ages." This nostalgic memory aids in inciting many Muslims to emulate the medievalism of their forebears in an effort to regain their lost honor and integrity vis-à-vis the West. If they lose (and again, many have little to lose already), at least they will fall with their pride intact, firmly believing that theirs was the just cause.
Regardless of ethical and moral issues confronting the culture produced by Islamic fundamentalism, by falling back on this inflexible form of medievalism, fundamentalists are unwittingly bringing the wrath of the modern world—not through romanticized swords and spears but devastating bombs and missiles—on them, as fanatics from Afghanistan to Iraq recently learned. For intolerance is inseparable from fundamentalism, and this ultimately is where the problem lays: by rejecting the rest of the modernizing world—with great vociferousness and violence—by not allowing room for compromises, Islamic fundamentalists have created a world fraught with hostility and fear. Yet the medievalists are destined to either acquiesce or perish; for it is they who are an anachronism. Inevitably, as globalization continues, all belligerently unyielding factions will be singled out and effectively dealt with.
This is not to say, of course, that it is merely due to the fundamentalists' adamant rejection of the West and modernity that they err. Islamic fundamentalism brings with it a much greater ill to its own adherents: lack of democracy and freethinking within the Muslim nations themselves. Just because some Muslims wish to live a stern, antiquated life, without the bounties of modernity, does not necessarily imply that all Muslims aspire to this. Yet whenever a nation embraces Islamic fundamentalism (e.g., Iran and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan) all its citizens, by necessity and no freewill, are forced to adhere to the strict regiments of a fundamentalist state. The countless clean-shaven men and unveiled women in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban demonstrate that not all Muslims are extremists—unless coerced. Moreover, not all members of the Arab world are Muslims; Christian Middle Easterners, and these are not few, quickly discover that they have no place in a fundamentalist nation.
Thus Islamic fundamentalism, though possessing a natural appeal to some—particularly to the desperate and destitute—is destined to fail. Yet it will only be obliterated entirely when the Middle East comes to enjoy the prosperity and democracy of the West: one who lacks prosperity and freedom will eventually hate both—along with those who have and enjoy them—thus slipping back necessarily into a primitive yet seemingly proud fundamentalist state.
If you like the article...and are intrested in seeing what else is on Mr. Hanson's site..the link is under my Favorite News/Blogs group in the upper right....he has an interesting take on a wide variety of issues....worth a look.
Couchman::::
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