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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 557
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WCL 557 May 2007
Counter-terrorism
From Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini's pronouncements, often ferocious in their denunciation of enemies, sinners and westerners, were invariably prefaced with the words: "In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful". No irony was intended or apparently noticed by his followers. The fatwas that condemned heretics or other erroneous and misguided unbelievers were sometimes bloodthirsty. Nor did they have regard for opinions not shared by the spiritual leader of the Iranian Shi'as.
This division of fundamental Muslim opinion can be seen from the opposite angle: an account of a Jordanian village gives a clue to the supply of suicide bombers in Iraq. It was the home to the former Al-Qaeda leader in that country, who is now dead. The village still houses a group of Sunni extremists who clearly have infected each other with a species of anti-Shi'a Islam which bears little or no resemblance to the religion that has enabled millions of Arabs and others to live peaceful and civilized lives for centuries. It also makes nonsense of the regular claim of Islamists to be acting on behalf of all believers against oppression by non-believers.
All religions include mixes of beliefs and legends in the legacy that the founders pass on to succeeding generations. The lucky believers and their countrymen are the ones who choose the better parts of the legacy: the unfortunate (and dangerous) are those who choose other parts, often vicious and even deadly. The present terrorists from Muslim lands are no more typical believers than the IRA bombers and murderers were typical of Christian believers in the 20th century. But they are eager to present themselves as defenders of the religion that they are both betraying and bringing into widespread, if unwarranted disrepute.
So what has to be done? Apart from the unbalanced and psychopaths who (as in Germany under the Nazis) will find congenial associations among violent and malevolent militants, there are sincere if misguided enthusiasts. They have to be addressed on the level of religious argument. If Islam is, as it has largely been for a thousand years, a religion of peace and harmony, its essential message has to be used to answer the challenges of terrorists and suicide bombers. Fire and sword had to be abandoned as valid instruments of conviction and conversion by Christian crusaders whose failure became disastrously obvious. So too do similar weapons have to be forsworn by their opponents.
On our doorsteps in any western city we are likely to be accosted at times by our home-grown enthusiasts, members of cults like Jehovah's witnesses, Latter-Day saints, or even Scientologists. And, if we are interested, we can find ways of using biblical arguments in retaliation to expose flaws in the professions or weaknesses in the arguments. But it is less easy if one confronts a believer schooled in a different tradition. The Koran may have truths equally devastating to the suicide bombers' case, but they are unlikely to be on the tip of the tongue of a Christian disputant. They are probably better found by a Muslim.
Thus this is not principally a task for the unbelievers. If sceptical world citizens attempt to convince the religious believers, even with so obvious a truism as that God is unknowable, they may still not be listened to. The doubts that all religions warn must be kept in mind are unlikely to be the sort of argument that appeals to extremists. They will need enthusiasts to balance their own convictions - perhaps "fighting fire with fire"? So this has be undertaken by Muslims - now and from now on.
John Roberts
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