Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Extremist Mentality in Islam


My posts and internet discussions tend to focus on inter-faith relations and terrorism issues. It is not that I enjoy it, but there really is much to say. The Wikipedia-origin drawing of the eleventh-century Crusader, Godfrey of Bouillon, should provide a clue where I am going with this.

Religious extremism and conquest are nothing new, and the
Jihad of Islamic extremism should not be any sort of mystery to one having an acquaintance with European history. It is really nothing more, or less, than the Islamic crusades, in a modern setting, with a vague goal of a return to Islam's golden age. The phenomenon is amplified by the military legacy of the birth of Islam, which may be part of the reason the Muslim counterpart to the Christian reactionary, who rants in bad-imitation King James English down by the subway station, becomes a major political and military force in Arabic society. Legions of followers are absorbed by their phony tenth-century classical Arabic prose, and motivated to acts of destruction by lies disguised as Quranic-style text, appearing only slightly removed from the words of the prophet.

In Christianity this variety of hype, usually built around the Book of Revelation, is widely known as damaging and destructive, and is far enough removed from mainstream faith that we discard it easily. In Islam it seems to work however.

Back to the point-

Analogy is a very powerful intellectual tool, and I have wondered at times if it has been overlooked in that philosophical effort to uncover what distinguishes men from machines, or been considered as a factor in the Turing test. Religious and historical analogies certainly have applications in security and counter-terrorism! As an example, we should consider why pressuring nations to control terrorist organizations operating within their territory is only of limited usefulness. Consider the relationship between the Knights Templar and the monarchy of France. Is it realistic to assume that Syria, or even Iran, can dictate orders to Hezbollah?

In closing, History and Religious Philosophy are as important to the counter-terrorism arsenal as Forensics, Diplomacy, and Military science. With a little thought and practice, it isn't difficult to stay ahead of the analyst community. Certainly, religion and history based models produce more reliable results than efforts built entirely on geopolitics, or centralized conspiracy arguments built around
Hitler-like personality cults, the latter being almost exclusively damaging.

Of course, no advance in counter-terrorism would have the impact of the wide understanding within Islamic culture that these extremist elements are no different from the loathed Western crusaders. That could change the whole game!


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