The Economist, a publication that has already shown that its understanding of Islamic radicalism is zero minus eight degrees, does it again in a gushing piece subtitled "How Muslim fundamentalism has a thoroughly modern streak" (thanks to Ming the Merciless for the link). In this love letter to Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel, two French scholars of Islam whose optimism evidently outstrips their objectivity, they seem to think that because young European Muslims prefer halal hamburgers to traditional Muslim fare, they will eventually forsake jihad. No mention is made, of course, of the fact that modernity and jihad have coexisted quite well so far — witness the sophisticated use of computer code techniques and other effluvia of modern life by jihadists.
This, of course, gives the lie to the common idea underlying this piece, that jihadism is a rejection of modernity. It is not so much a rejection of modernity as of non-Islamic culture, which happens to be modern. But jihadists will happily appropriate the technological creations of those they hope to conquer.
The results of this high-octane brainwork are not always appealing to English-speakers; but when the topic is political Islam, and the authors are among the leading French (and international) authorities on the subject, people who care about the future of the world can hardly fail to prick up their ears. They will not be disappointed. Neither Olivier Roy nor Gilles Kepel conforms to any stereotype of the Parisian egghead, yet they make full use of Gallic gifts in their latest analyses of the Islamist response, whether peaceful or violent, to the liberal, capitalist West.At the heart of both works is an understanding of a central paradox: in all its varieties, whether political, pietistic or warlike, Muslim neo-fundamentalism is an essentially modern phenomenon. The more stridently it calls for a return to the “old-time” religion of 1,400 years ago, with all later additions removed, the more contemporary this movement looks.
In “Globalised Islam”, published in French in 2002 and newly issued in an updated and revised English version, Mr Roy takes a broad look at the way in which militant Islam is expressed and organised in a world where people, ideas and electronic messages move swiftly across borders that used to be sealed. As he convincingly argues, the striking revival of outward piety among the second generation of families which have moved from Islamic countries to the West does not in any way imply a slowdown of modernisation. Precisely because traditional cultures, societies and extended families are breaking down, both among immigrants and in their home countries, a younger generation of Muslims in the West is attracted by the idea of a simple, stentorian version of their faith, stripped of the cultural accretions that were built up in the “old country” over many centuries, and compatible with modern patterns of consumption.
To take one crude example, young European Muslims are more likely to demand halal hamburgers at their school than to take an interest in the elaborate recipes by which forebears in Pakistan or Algeria broke their fasts. For angry, restless young Muslims, a back-to-basics version of the faith can be a way of protesting against their parents as well as against their host societies; it fills the same space as radical leftism did in a previous French generation, and as counter-cultural rap does in America's ghettos. Even suicide bombing, whose indifference to individual life might seem deeply unmodern, is presented by Mr Roy in a contemporary light. As he argues, the culture of suicide attacks—as fostered by al-Qaeda and its imitators, and promoted on their websites—has a self-indulgent, me-generation flavour about it. The narcissistic characters who carried out the September 11th attacks were no exception to this....
OK, so they were narcissistic. But modern? Me-generation? Hardly: John Paul Jones encountered suicide attacks by Muslim Turks in 1788 (thanks to Andrew Bostom for the citation):
“…for it was the intention of the Turks to attack us and board us, and if we had been only three versts further the attempt would have been made on the 16th [June 1788] (before the vessel of the Captain Pacha ran aground in advancing before the wind with all his forces to attack us,), God only knows what would have been the result…The Turks had a very large force, and we have been informed by our prisoners that they were resolved to destroy us, even by burning themselves, (in setting fire to their own vessels after having grappled with ours.) [note added by Jones: Before their departure from Constantinople, they swore by the beard of the Sultan to execute this horrible plan…if Providence had not caused its failure from two circumstances which no man could forsee.”]
That's from John Paul Jones’ Letter to Prince Potemkin, June 20, 1788, from Life and Character of John Paul Jones-A Captain in the Navy of the United States, John H. Sherburne, 1825, p. 308.
The Economist concludes:
Yet Mr Kepel ends on an unexpectedly upbeat note. It is possible, the author suggests, that European Islam might evolve in new ways that could co-exist with modernity, asserting its distinctiveness without pretending, dishonestly, to live in another century. If that happy scenario were to unfold, Muslims and non-Muslims alike would need a keen sense of what modernity and tradition really mean. In the development of such an understanding, both these books can make a large and highly intelligent contribution.
I hope that Islam does indeed evolve in new ways. But this will not happen because Muslims stop "pretending...to live in another century." The methods of the global jihadists show that they aren't really doing that at all. A new Islam will only evolve if Muslims confront the sources of jihad violence and renounce them. But you won't hear that from Roy or Kepel — or The Economist.
Of course they are modern. They still use modern conveniences, ride in modern vehicles rather than on donkey carts or conduct warfare on horseback using swords rather than AKs and C4. They've always moved with the times in the use of warfare technology. They use electricity and modern forms of communication. To truly go back they would eschew all of these 21st century Western devices. They want to "cherry pick" to discard and then destroy those items of modernity that they find offensive, to be prohibited for all of humanity.
This is nothing new. One only has to look back in the development of Muslim thought and in history to find the upswelling of jihad violence using "modern" technology and the subsequent retraction into hudna (strategic truce) as a normal pattern of jihadist behavior.
The Economist blends the sinister Euro-Arab Dialogue line, complete with anti-American and even more, with anti-Israel attitudes, carefully cultivated and promoted in their readers, with a pollyannish view of the islamification of Europe. But to view things otherwise, to see them steadily and whole, would require a wholesale admission of misunderstanding, over many years, and would also require them to take stands that would alienate their valuable clientele (both readers and advertisers) who are in, or have dealings with, the rich Arab Gulf countries. This they cannot possibly do. Nor can the editors and writers on The Economist dare to confront what the belief-system of Islam means -- or rather what a multipliation of the adherents of that belief-system will mean -- for the continuation of art and science, of free inquiry and free expression, in Europe itself.
Better to stick to those halal hamburgers. On that level -- just like all those adidas sneakers that one used to hear so much about as being worn by happy Saudi graduates of American universities -- we can all sleep o'nights.
Bonne nuit.
Wow..those french academics are doing such important academic research for the west.
Problem: International Islamic Terrorism
Solution: feed terrorists halal hamburgers (TERRORISM ENDS!!)
MY GOD!!!!!!! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT BEFORE..IT IS SO SIMPLE!!!!!!
MAYBE IF WE USE DOUBLE BEEF AND BACON AS EXTRA FILLER THE TERRORISTS WILL BECOME SECULAR AS WELL. THIS VITAL RESEARCH MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY!!!!! AND DON'T FORGET THE CHEESE!!!!
URGENT NEWSFLASH FROM EURO NEWS
The French aircraft carrier Charles de-Gaul, in urgent response to advanced French social science breakthroughs, has been dispatched to the Middle East to solve the world terrorism problem armed with a frightening array of anti-terrorism weapons like quarter pounders with cheese, big macs, onion rings and fries.
Miraculous changes to terrorists everywhere are occurring right now as this armoury has been unleashed with devastating force. First the weapon makes it way to the mouth where the screams of "Allah akbar" are immediately replaced with "mmmm so tasty!!!". Then the coup de grace is made as the super-weapon makes its final insidious way to the brain where it results in the terrorist reaching for an ice cold coke or pepsi."Ahhhh so refreshing my jihad days are over. Thanks Pepsi...the taste of new generation!!!!" Then the last death knell of Islamic terrorism is signalled by a stomach burp and reaching for the onion rings.
Next the French are devising a replacement for all their conventional weapons with the ultimate bio-weaponry... Kentucky fried frog’s legs in snail sauce.
The term "fundamentalist" should not be used of the Islamofascists. "Fundamentalists" were and remain people who stand for the FUNDAMENTALs of the CHRISTIAN faith concerning Jesus and the Bible. One characteristic of Protestant Christian fundamentalists--at least in the USA where ecclesiastical order was shaped by Geneva rather than Canterbury, Rome, or Constantinople--is democratic or semi-democratic church polities (congregationalism and/or presbyterianism); not pyramidical hierarchies.
On the other hand, many Islamofascist organizations, including the Ikhwan itself, aped the disciplined, tightly hierarchical "vanguard party" organization used by modern ideological movements such as Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism. Their conception of Islam as a revolutionary ideology geared to combat "oppression" (read; ways of life with which they don't agree) reeks of 1930's-vintage totalitarianism.
Where, in the entire Islamic world, is a large, well-organized body of influential theologians who use their positions to deny the cardinal tenets of Islam--analogous to the liberal and modernist theologians of 19th and 20th century Protestant Christianity? The original Christian fundamentalists were a protest against such theological modernism; but it seems that even those Muslims appalled by the beheadings, use of Islam as a cover for terror, etc. still accept the Qu'ran as divine revelation rather than naturalistic explanations of its origin, the historicity of Adam and Eve rather than evolution, and seek the conservation rather than amendment of their traditional beliefs.
The original Christian fundamentalists were, at base, a theological and spiritual rather than political movement. Until the Democrats made lifestyle liberalism, abortion, and government interference in private education their party platform, Evangelicals and fundamentalists in America tended to be as split in party affiliation as any other social or religious group; and even as an organized "evangelical right" political bloc, do not question the esssential soundness of the American system of limited government, checks and balances, and consent of the governed. Indeed, if they overcame their 19th century-vintage mistrust of "Calvinism" and went back to their roots in Reformed and Puritan Protestantism, the Evangelicals would find that modern contstitutional liberalism is, in some respects, their political baby.
The radical Islamicists, however, seem both political and utopian in their motivation and program. Indeed, it is probably the utopianism of Khomeini's revolution that may explain the Los vom Islam going on among Persian-speaking immigrants in the USA, and the "out of control" Christians in Iran, of whom we have heard. After all, if someone sweeps into power promising the moon on a silver platter, even his best-organized terror is going to fail to protect him when it becomes clear he cannot deliver.
I note that Scott Appleby, one of the first to widely speak of a trans-religious and trans-cultural "fundamentalism" back in the early 1990's both admitted the inappropriateness of the term and, recently, has tried to help Tariq Ramadan come to the USA. It is my guess that the use of the term "fundamentalism", dating from no earlier than the Iranian Revolution of 1979, was simply a ploy by liberal media to declare conservative Protestant Christians un-American and heighten hostility against them.
obl r us
I keep having this picture in my mind of hundreds of Big Mac's flying through the air after being shot out of a .50cab over Gaza.
My sides hurt from laughing.
OT, but...
Lies about the Bush / Saudi connection, EXPOSED FOR WHAT THEY ARE:
http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/10/17/215142.shtml
The Economist doesn't really believe that people could really believe in islam and the koran.
After all, nothing's really more important than money, is it?, so it stands to reason that all this fuss about terrorism and killing unbelievers is just plain silly, and muslims really just want to get on with all the important things in life like bank accounts, interest rates, investments and so on, you know, the REAL purpose of life.
Interestingly enough, they sound like their opposite number on this, the left, as neither has any deep seated non-material belief in anything, they simply cannot countenance that such beliefs exist in anyone else.
And besides, I bet they're lying awake at night thinking of all that cheap labour just waiting to fall into their laps when turkey joins the Euro empire, oh what bliss!
taking off on kepha1's blog, what is ironically interesting is that totalitarian philosophies like communism, fascism, national socialism, and islam are bastardizations of perfect government as elocuted by God in the heavenly realm. one has to wonder if these are not indeed manifestations of luciferian origin