[BRIEF NOTE] What should be often isn't
Way back in April 2004, I wrote a little post called "Religion(s) of Peace, Religion(s) of Hate". In it, I examined Algeria's Front Islamique de Salut, a fundamentalist Muslim party that did very well in the Algerian polls despite--perhaps because--of its extreme misogyny, because of the way that it denied women any right to participate in public life and quietly permitted stupid young men to go do horrible things to inconvenient women. The military intervened when the FIS won a parliamentary election, prompting a very bloody civil war in which some sections of the FIS decided to turn on women specifically, to kill women as an act of terror. At its peak, this tactic included selecting female residents of government-controlled villages as sex slaves. Abstract theological debates took place in which insurgent theologians debated the burning questrion of whether it was okay for a single fighter to rape both a mother and her daughter, or whether he could rape only one, and if so who should he rape. Other things, like throwing acid on the faces of unveiled women, were taken for granted as moral.
Is this what Islam is about? Of course not! The FIS' systematic campaigns of rape, mutilation, and murder directed towards conveniently vulnerable women appalled Muslims around the world. Every human culture that isn't horribly dysfunctional--including, I'm ashamed that I have to emphasize, every Muslim culture--holds these acts in repugnance.
Is this Islamic, can this be Islamic at all? Well, yes. If an act is defined by the perpetrators as being undertaken for a specific goal while using very specific language used in support of this goal, I'm inclined to take the perpetrators at their word.
All too often these days, people take prescriptions and mistake them for descriptions. It's an innate human tendency, I suppose, for people to believe that their things are as they should be, and that any criticism to the contrary is funamentally unfair and biased. It's an innate human tendency, but it's one that's terribly destructive of any serious discourse, of any inconvenient criticism. Every complex cultural construct can have multiple interpretations. Many of these interpretations work well. Many of these interpretations lead people to evil ends. It would be nice to be able to pretend that the latter interpretations don't exist, It would be nice, but since these interpretations do exist, and do wreak havoc, it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that they don't.
There's plenty of other myths, of course. Say, "Denmark is a tolerant and liberal country." Or, "Canada/[$countryname] is the best country in the world." Or, for that matter, "Randy McDonald never makes mistakes." I'm sure that you can come up with your own.
There may or there may not be truth to these myths, who knows? It is certain that it's impossible to discern what's true and what's not if you pretend that everything is true, no, really it is! Credibility counts.
Is this what Islam is about? Of course not! The FIS' systematic campaigns of rape, mutilation, and murder directed towards conveniently vulnerable women appalled Muslims around the world. Every human culture that isn't horribly dysfunctional--including, I'm ashamed that I have to emphasize, every Muslim culture--holds these acts in repugnance.
Is this Islamic, can this be Islamic at all? Well, yes. If an act is defined by the perpetrators as being undertaken for a specific goal while using very specific language used in support of this goal, I'm inclined to take the perpetrators at their word.
All too often these days, people take prescriptions and mistake them for descriptions. It's an innate human tendency, I suppose, for people to believe that their things are as they should be, and that any criticism to the contrary is funamentally unfair and biased. It's an innate human tendency, but it's one that's terribly destructive of any serious discourse, of any inconvenient criticism. Every complex cultural construct can have multiple interpretations. Many of these interpretations work well. Many of these interpretations lead people to evil ends. It would be nice to be able to pretend that the latter interpretations don't exist, It would be nice, but since these interpretations do exist, and do wreak havoc, it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that they don't.
There's plenty of other myths, of course. Say, "Denmark is a tolerant and liberal country." Or, "Canada/[$countryname] is the best country in the world." Or, for that matter, "Randy McDonald never makes mistakes." I'm sure that you can come up with your own.
There may or there may not be truth to these myths, who knows? It is certain that it's impossible to discern what's true and what's not if you pretend that everything is true, no, really it is! Credibility counts.