Can We Talk About This? Rushdie And Others On Islamic Fundamentalism

Can we talk about this in a respectul and probing way? During the cartoon wars, I was distressed by what I perceived, from some here, as a dismissive or contemptuous attitude toward Muslims. At the same time I think that a discussion about Islamic Fundamentalism would be useful. Is it different from any other type of religious fundamentalism, or more specifically is it different from Christian fundamentalism? Is it different in essence or in scope? Is Islamic Fundamentalism more dominant in Islamic cultures than Christian fundamentalism is in predominantly Christian cultures? Exerpts from the article about Rushdie and other writers/artists below:

"The recent violence surrounding the publication in the West of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad illustrate the danger of religious "totalitarianism," Salman Rushdie and a group of other writers have said in a statement.

Rushdie, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen were among those putting their names to the statement, to be published on Wednesday in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, one of several French newspapers which reprinted the controversial cartoons.
"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," they wrote.
...
The others who signed the statement were: Somali-born Dutch feminist, writer and filmmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Iranian writer Chahla Chafiq, who is exiled in France; French writer Caroline Fourest; Irshad Manji, a Ugandan refugee and writer living in Canada; Mehdi Mozaffari, an Iranian academic exiled in Denmark; Maryam Namazie, an Iranian writer living in Britain; Antoine Sfeir, director of a French review examining the Middle East; Charlie Hebdo, director Philippe Val; and Ibn Warraq, a US academic of Indian and Pakistani origin who wrote a book titled Why I Am not a Muslim."

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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9F873D63-8FE0-4789-8292-BB3623E86995.htm

discussed here many times. I've lived in both the Islamic and Christian worlds and have seen fundamentlism up close for decades. I'm not talking about the tourist or journalist view, like snapshot in the moment. I'm talking about kitchen table stuff from living in an extended family in the ME. Fundamentalism was just as ugly there as it is among the fundamentalists in the little farming community I grew up in here in the Midwest. It is espoused by people who live in fear or who feel that they do not have a voice or do not have control over their lives. It is used by scrupulous leaders who exploit those people. Fallwell and Khomeini are one and the same. Dobson and Osama are one and the same. And beyond those to religions, look for similar fundamentalists in any other world religion and you will have the same face of ignorance and hatred glaring back at you, daring you to prove that they aren't God's chosen.

wielded by say, a Khomeni and a Falwell? I agree that Christian Fundamentalism and Islamic Fundamentalism are essentially the same, but I think they play out differently in the world, at least at this time. Can you address that? What do you make of Rushdie's remarks? Do they have any validity?
Was fundamentalism in the community you grew up in the controlling legal force?

is shrinking as fundamentalist in the US have taken positions of power. Fundamentalism in the US has been held at bay because there was aa choice to keep churches out of the business of governing. I don't think that we can assume that it will continue to be so. We are a stone's throw from having a theocracy ourselves. Just a few laws away from it. Believe me, lots of the things happening here now are not so unlike pre-revolutionary Iran. Hopefully, as a nation, we will find a way to protect our mechanisms of government from being overrun and overturned by fundamentalist, so that we are not stuck with an instutitionalized code made for fundamentalists long after the fever of the moment has passed.

is that politicians aren't necessarily fundamentalists themselves. It just makes sense for them to narcotize the masses by using religion. It's why some of these fundies think Bush is the second coming of Christ, yet he hasn't done anything that would make us a theocracy. He talks a lot and helps fund certain initiatives for faith-reasons, but, by and large, his God is the almighty dollar. We are in more danger of being over come by greed than God, or becoming genuflected by a Corporatist structure than a theocracy. But, it is something that does have correlations to the situation in Iran, you are spot on there. I think we have enough mechanisms to survive that. Plus, we haven't had to sit through someone like the Shah for a few decades. We are lucky enough to get to change stuff up every four years or at least every 8. The big scare is that we are only those few laws away from being in some trouble. Privatizing certain institutions and giving them off to churches can be a slippery slope. But getting out of that fever of the moment is crucial, more so than watching it go by incrementally. Increments aren't as big a deal as long as we keep them in a certain frame. But, say we have another catastrophic event that is utilized to change the governance of church and state's relationships to each other the way 9/11 was used to radically change our foreign policy in one fell swoop. Then we are right in that danger zone that you eluded to. That's when a Falwell can do more damage than a Khomeini could ever dream of doing. The power is relative in some ways because given the chance either a Khomeini or a Falwell is bad news to what our national myth believes in. We just have to fight to make sure that never comes to pass.

Can't say I agree. I think conflating pre-revolutionary Iraq and the US today is a bit facile. Nor do I believe that we're merely a stone's throw away from a theocracy, though that seems to be a popular view on DU. Just a few laws away from it? Actually, it would take a radical amending of the Constitution to get there. Hard to do. Even the SC, if it was enti\rely composed of Alitos and Scalias would have some pretty unsurmountable hurdles. I know there's a lot of alarm about the xian fundies, and it's certainly appropriate to keep a very watchful eye on them, but there are many strong countering cultural veins that are well established in the fabric of American life and history. I don't view dismantling them as an easy task.

I've lived both places and in both times. And, frankly, I'm very frightened by this atmosphere now. I'm chilled by the indifference to it and appalled at how quickly it is evolving. I fear that the opposition to such moves doesn't have the leadership or the heart to fight it out and preserve the nation. I also fear that it could be source of another civil war.

you've lived both places, and for me, that adds weight to your point of view. So too, do the the experiences of Rushdie et al.

Although there is some indifferece to fundamentalism within our own borders, there's also a vigorous debate and opposition to it. I don't see another civil war on the horizon. fundamentalism is a powerful force in some places, both inside and out of the government. We do need to fight it, and there are organizations doing just that. Those organization are legal and vital. They haven't been shut out of the debate.

Religious, political, economic.... I don't think it matters which particular group, path, pov, etc. undergoes the disease of fundamentalism, it will come out corrupted and dangerous.

I support the right of any and all to follow their own path, faith, or whatever they need to call it. I think their right to do so ends at the tip of their nose, before they intrude it into someone else's faith or path.

I support freedom of expression. I think freedom of expression should be exercised with respect. Without using your expression to bully others.

I think all people of any faith should quit trying to fight with the world about how their faith is seen, portrayed, or whether or not it is dominant. I think they ought to go home and live that faith, and leave the rest of the world to live theirs.

How's that?

Those are admirable sentiments that I agree with wholeheartedly, but they don't address the questions I posed or Rushdie's remarks. Do you disagree with what he said?

of "Islamism" to be "fundamentalist Islam," then no. I don't disagree with most of what he said.

I don't want to declare war on religion. I see that as counterproductive. There is a constant tension between the right to practice a faith of your choice, and where that right ends. For me, it ends when your practice interferes with the rights of another. For example, faiths that interfere with the rights of women to be self-determining would fall into that category. Faiths that demand that their members convert the world or kill the "others" would.

I would rather promote "universal values" than "secular" values. I think there can be secular fundamentalists, as well.

I think universal values like respect, honesty, responsibility, and empathy could be embraced by any faith or nonfaith.

role in all of this. Society would benefit from those universal values for sure. You know, I'm a pretty religious person, yet, my faith conflicts greatly with fundamentalism. I think there is room for pragmatism. That God is more loving and embracing than vengeful and fearful. Kurt Vonnegut, a secular humanist, says Jesus Christ and the Beatitudes are a good thing to live by whether you are a believer in God or not. To me, "Blessed are the etc..." is not so much a theocratic value as just a universal one, much like you said. Religion tends to oppress women and other groups when the followers become too dogmatic. That self-righteousness doesn't belong in a just and loving world, imho. So yeah, I think you're on to the right idea with the concept of universal values.

I think that universal values help us describe common goals, while different belief systems, religious and/or other, form the individual or group paths to that goal.

We need to acknowledge that there are many paths, and that any path that gets us there is valid for the person taking it. That's why, while I don't have a "religion," per se, I attend some religious gatherings. In the last several years, I've tried to attend a couple of "interfaith" services each year. My way of embracing that "many paths to living universal values" goal.

I've also, just recently, heard American fundamentalists coming out with all guns blazing, metaphorically speaking, in a full frontal assault of any more inclusive attitudes about faith. They apparently see the danger to their one-size-fits-all approach when people agree to value all paths to the goal, and focus on commonalities instead of differences.

I think, and there are quite a few layers to this situation, but many perceive the threat of fundamentalist Islam, and by proxy political violence, to be a clash of civilizations. A clash between the modern Western World and the archaic, primitive Middle East. However, what you are seeing is an expanding and unique phenomenon. I don't doubt that there is some type of clash there, however I'm not sure if that is the predominant problem. This expansion of fundamentalism has spread over the years and decades into the European communities. Meaning that you have young Muslims who are born, educated and have lived in Europe their whole lives in relative prosperity who are turning to a violent form of Islam. What may make this problem different is that we are not seeing a clash of two civilizations so much as a clash within Islam itself. There is a more gentle Islam vs a radical virulent Islam. The rise of Sunni terror has really added a different dimension to this problem as historically the Shi'a terror groups were stemming from less prosperous and occupied areas. Now we are getting college educated Muslims who are from a European community willing to become martyrs. It's a difficult phenomenom to pin down nowadays. There are similarities with Christian and even Jewish fundamentalism, but it seems that Muslims have developed political violence, or what we know as terror, into an indiscriminate and effective weapon. So they are more apt to use that violence than the other groups are. Not that the other two are above that type of violence, witness the abortion clinic bombings or even the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin or the actions of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish-American settler who gunned down 29 praying muslims in a mosque in the occupied territories in Palestine before getting killed himself. However, I think Islamic fundies consider themselves to be underdogs fighting a Zionist-Western monolith that they have to utilize terror against because they can't fight their fight out on a battlefield. It's complex, I truly don't comprehend most of it, just like the rest of you I give a relatively informed amateur opinion. My gut analysis after reading and looking into these issues for several years is that we are looking at a major battle within Islam itself more than anything though.

On edit I have to say Rushdie is right about it being reactionary. Islamic fundamentalist ideology is very reactionary. But reacting against what? I think that reaction has changed. You are now seeing a reaction happen, but not because of what we used to see. Reaction is coming from people who are not living in an occupied country for example. People who are not poor or underpriveleged. That's a relatively new phenomenon. I don't think we have any real understanding or answers to that yet. It seems to me that it's become less a reactionary force and more of an ideological movement in some ways. That is what's scary about it.

I agree with much of what you wrote, particularly the sensiblility of some that terror is the only weapon available to them to battle what they view as a monolithic force waging war on them. I think the war in Iraq has served to stoke this.

Got to say: Paragraph breaks are important.

except when I don't do them because I get a pass due to extreme laziness. :)

I read "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" by Bernard-Henri Levy a few years ago. He give a good argument about the clash within Islam. The radical vs the moderate.

My notion is that fundies typically have a victim mindset too. Much like how Islamic fundies believe they are fighting a monolith, you often here Christian fundamentalists in our country take that same mantle. Like when Dems where criticizing the SCOTUS choices of Bush, the fundies argued that opposing Alito was a battle against people of faith in our country. As if a (nonexistent)liberal monolith was just so totally against somebody because of their faith and not because of certain impartialities that a judge shouldn't have. A victim mindset is prevalent with fundamentalists of all stripes. They fancy themselves to be like Jesus or Mohammed, men who had to fight against great odds. So they use it to justify any action they do when they percieve that they are fighting those odds.

into power by colonial powers who saw them as a way to counter the more nativist Sufi clerics (many of whom led revolts against the British and other powers).

So, fundy philosophy came to dominate Islamic teaching during the 20th century.

Liberalization and secularization are taking place so quickly now (especially in the Middle-East), the fundamentalist status quo won't survive in its current form.


So fundys are a minority, but they totally dominated the Muslim religious conversation from the late 19th through the 20th century.

Essentially, I see Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism as being same in essence and scope. They are both extreme, literal interpretations of their religions and view the world with blinders on. The difference with Islamic fundamentalism is that there are people in power(Ahmadinejad in Iran for example)who rule their countries based on their extreme interpretation of Islam. Now, that being said, I believe that our country is moving dangerously in that direction with Christian fundamentalist gaining more and more power. The difference is that the Christian fundamentalist's rise to positions of power has been insidious. I'm not sure if Islamic fundamentalism is more predominant than Christian fundamentalism, but my guess is that it's probably not. If we were to ever have a fundamentalist president, the fundies would be crawling out of the woodwork.

really vital to the discussion, and that's the victim/martyr mentality that seems so basic to fundamentalism in any of its guises.

In a way it's a paradox. Despite the chaos that causes, it is a craving for stability. A belief that everything will be fine, if only...

It's not limited to religion which is just one of many Quick Fixes offered by demagogues from Moses to Hitler. The promise of a golden age, if only..

The problem is that, in order for the Golden Age, to arrive, whether it is the resurrection of Christ, the Peace and Brotherhood offered by Islam, the Communist worker's paradise, The Triumph of the Will of Naziism, or the glorious Amerian Dream of unbounded materialism, it requires that all must conform and become part of the group. If there are those that refuss, then they are a threat that will destroy the dream. Whether they are Infidels, Blashphemers, unBelievers, hippies, "terrorists" (a ridiculous term at best, considering the massive terror done by "legitimate" states), artists, writers, or anyone who steps out of line.

They all require obedience to the "leaders" who know best. Moses, Muhammed, Jesus, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Quran, the Bible, the Constitution, preachers, politicians, GOD. And, they all require "enemies", for fear is what keeps the leaders in power.

Islam is only one of many ideologies that promise stability if only everyone conforms.

That's why I'm an Anarchist and refuse to be led.

"There is no safety in the cosmos". Alan Watts

but I am not willing to forego all leadership and structure either. I think that organized religion serves the purpose of providing some framework for human behavior, much like the modern secular state does. Statism and religion are not so unalike. Regardless of the personal needs for adulation by erstwhile ideological leaders, we still need some framework in which to serve to the goodness in human kind and to control for inhumanity.

The best laid plans of mice and men....


....are screwed up by human beins....

What we need to function and maintain our freedom (a highly relative term) are "representatives" not "leaders". I have no quarrel with "providing a framework" of behavior for the group, as long as the dissenting minority is protected.

I guess I'm an optimist who believes that most people, left to run their own lives without the aid of bosses, will usually try to get along, if for no other reason than it makes more sense to do so than fight.