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the Message Continues ... 8/41
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Excerpts summarizing this short article from the L. A. Times:
<<...Paranoiac Islamism maintains that "modernity" or "the West" or "the Jews" or "the superpowers" or even "the entire international community" are conspiring to erase Islam and therefore true believers must act preemptively by wiping out all Islam's enemies and almost everyone in the world is considered a deadly foe....Chauvinistic extremism has become the worst threat to the culture of the Arabs in general and to almost every Arab political structure in particular.
Ironically, it must be noted that a somewhat similar mixture of paranoia and aggressive chauvinism is also threatening Jewish Israel from within, and certain Christian societies may not be immune either......I believe that the antidote for Islamism gone mad can be found only within the realm of moderate, sane Islam. And the same is true for other cultures that contain seeds of internal insanity. We cannot cure madness just by smashing it...
...Rather than wag our fingers at Islam, or at the Jews, or at the "West," let us seek, find and reinforce the moderates in every society. Let us help them prevail. Let us help them tame and heal the contaminated parts of their own families...>>
Cure for an Islam Gone Mad
-- Moderates must be encouraged to leaven extremists destroying our civilizations.
by Amos Oz
( Amos Oz is an Israeli novelist )
courtesy: L. A. Times, August 21, 2003
The suicide-murder at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the suicide-murder in Jerusalem that targeted a bus full of families and children on their way back from prayer occurred only about five hours apart. They claimed about 20 lives each and also injured about 100 people. We do not yet know who carried out the attack in Baghdad, but we know exactly who destroyed the families' bus in Jerusalem.
He was Raed Abdel-Hamed Masq, from Hebron. He was not the usual brainwashed teenage suicide bomber. No. In fact, he was one of the brainwashers: a chief cleric, an imam, in one of the most prominent Hebron mosques; he was also a teacher of religion in a high school.
The two crimes were not orchestrated by the same mastermind, but they do have a great deal in common: A force that can be described as "paranoiac Islamism" was at work in both cases.
The same phenomenon is probably behind the fact that out of 28 violent conflicts raging right now all over the globe— from Indonesia to Kashmir, from Sudan to Chechnya, from the Middle East to North Africa
— 25 involve an Islamist faction.
Paranoiac Islamism maintains that "modernity" or "the West" or "the Jews" or "the superpowers" or even "the entire international community" are conspiring to erase Islam and therefore true believers must act preemptively by wiping out all Islam's enemies — and almost everyone in the world is considered a deadly foe.
Paranoiac Islamism has become the worst enemy of Muslim civilization, an enemy of its values, of its heritage and of its long-standing tradition of tolerance and wisdom.
Chauvinistic extremism has become the worst threat to the culture of the Arabs in general and to almost every Arab political structure in particular. Ironically, it must be noted that a somewhat similar mixture of paranoia and aggressive chauvinism is also threatening Jewish Israel from within, and certain Christian societies may not be immune either.
This bloody ailment cannot simply be squashed by force. It is not enough to tame it with a big stick; it needs to be cured.
I believe that the antidote for Islamism gone mad can be found only within the realm of moderate, sane Islam. And the same is true for other cultures that contain seeds of internal insanity. We cannot cure madness just by smashing it. We are bound to endorse, support and indeed to rely primarily on the healthy elements, on the silent majorities, on the pragmatic forces within each infected society and culture.
Rather than wag our fingers at Islam, or at the Jews, or at the "West," let us seek, find and reinforce the moderates in every society. Let us help them prevail. Let us help them tame and heal the contaminated parts of their own families.
The trouble is that moderates normally don't have the zeal to defend their moderation against fanatics. If they have zeal, they might easily lose their moderation.
Yet I believe it is time to combine zeal and moderation. Those who have the blend of moderation and determination deserve to inherit the Earth, if only because they never crusade for the Earth and never launch a jihad for it.
( The article has been slightly edited for al-huda )
courtesy: Kalim Irfani
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