At the cost of oversimplifying an overly complex
situation, I propose that the major threat to
modern democracies is not terrorism per se, but
ideological fundamentalism, particularly of a
religious nature. Political fundamentalism has
now essentially disappeared, at least for now,
with Fidel Castro as one of the few pathetic remnants,
destined to soon disappear naturally into oblivion,
like all mortals.
No,the real problem is religious fundamentalism,
and in particular the one rooted in the twin monotheistic
branches of Christianity and Islam (with Judaism
ranking as a distant third only because it is
numerically much less represented worldwide).
This is not, of course, because every (or even
the majority) of fundamentalist Christians, Muslims
and Jews are willing to blow themselves into pieces
to achieve a political goal, or because they are
all bent toward the destruction of everything
and everyone that disagrees with them. Far from
it. But the fact remains that fundamentalism of
any sort, by definition a form of extremism and
therefore ill-suited to live within a democratic
and pluralistic society, easily breeds intolerance,
self-righteousness, and even more extremes, of
which the world has experienced the consequences
all too clearly during the past few years.
Let us not make the mistake of dismissing the
problem as simply a modern incarnation of the
old (and certainly true) observation that political
power exploits religious feelings, and that therefore
the problem is with the greed for power and with
people like Saddam Hussein (or George Bush) who
want power and find it easy to manipulate the
masses using religious appeals. There surely is
part of that going on too, but George W. Bush,
I think, really believes that God is on his side,
and so do Tony Blair, Hussein, Bin Laden, and
a host of other characters that are concurring
in making a mess of the just-born 21st century.
The extremes to which Islamic fundamentalists
(including Palestinians and their leader Arafat,
currently as pathetic as, but much more dangerous
than, Castro) can go in the name of their version
of the universal truth are well known and need
not be belabored here. But the New York Times
has recently reported some comments by “mainstream”
politicians in the US and Israel that should be
chilling to the bone of every rational and truly
compassionate human being. For example, Benyamin
Elon, a minister with the current Israeli government,
has been quoted as referring to cardinal principles
of the Palestinian-Israeli accord such as the
idea of land-for-piece as “clichés”
to be overcome, and has essentially called for
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As an exponent
of the latter as pointed out, can we imagine what
would happen if somebody made the same casual
suggestion about moving Jews out of their unhappy
land?
On this side of the Atlantic things aren’t
much better. The extremes of the Christian right
are now documented in books upon books, but a
recent addition is a declaration by Gary Bauer,
of American Values, who said (again quoted in
the NYT) that conservative Christians must accept
the Abrahamic Covenant as described in Genesis,
by which God personally promised the land of Israel
to the Jews, and that’s that. Tom DeLay (the
House majority leader) has been quoted in the
same newspaper as referring to the West Bank using
the biblical names of Judea and Samaria!
It is simply astounding that a species that has
conquered space, split the atom, figured out the
essentials of where it came from evolutionarily,
and has invented democracy, is currently in the
hands of a bunch of nut cases who still believe
in the literal reading of a book written by ignoramuses
several thousand years ago! How can we vote into
office, support, and take seriously a political
class that on the one hand uses computers and
airplanes, but on the other firmly believes in
the actual existence of heaven and hell, concepts
obviously invented by primitive human beings who
slaughtered each other with swords and arrows?
How much longer are we going to leave the future
of the world in the hands of deluded minds who
are so sure of their own viewpoint that they constantly
affirm God is on their side (on all of their sides,
of course)?
I keep hearing of the existence of a “silent
majority” of moderately religious people
in Western democracies and even among Muslims
and Jews, who apparently have a distaste for the
outrages of the nut cases that run them. Where
is this silent majority? Isn’t it time to
wake up and kick these guys out of office (or,
if not elected, out of Mosques, Churches, and
Synagogues)? The recent worldwide anti-war demonstrations
may have been a signal that people are in fact
waking up. But let’s keep the alarm clock
ringing loud, or Bush, Bin Laden & co. will
plunge us all back into the Dark Ages, real soon.
And we call them “dark” for reasons
other than the fact that electricity hadn’t
been invented yet.
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