Clash of Civilizations

It isn't just the Christian Right that thinks we are in a holy war with Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Muslim, now atheist, who endured physical abuse including clitoral circumcision as a child growing up in Somalia. As a young woman she refused a marriage arranged by her family and fled to the Netherlands, where she eventually became a member of parliament. Now she is a resident scholar in the United States with the American Enterprise Institute. In a long and interesting interview with Reason Magazine she had this to say about how to respond to the extremist elements of her former religion:

Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?

Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?

Hirsi Ali: I think that’s where we’re heading. We’re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?

Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.

Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.

Yikes. She certainly has a reason to be angry with Islam. But she can't be serious about "crushing" a worldwide religious movement. Call me naive if you want, but we need to learn how to get along with Muslims and we need to encourage liberal and moderate Muslims who are trying to bring about an Islamic reformation. Talk about crushing them ranks right up there in the annals of stupidity with launching unprovoked wars in their countries.

I do have problems with separate Muslim schools for children, in the same way I have problems with separate Christian schools for children. Not only do they tend to teach things that aren't true - like a separate "Christian" version of science that is any thing but scientific - but the proliferation of religious schools contributes to the balkanization of our society. In the public school format we are all in this together learning how to be American citizens; too many religious schools teach some version of an us versus them mentality where there are good Americans - them - and bad Americans - the rest of us. I don't know what to do about it since we have a long and legally sanctioned history of parallel parochial schools. From what I can tell it is an even worse problem in Europe than here, but it is a growing problem here. The public school system is one of the great melting pot experiences in American life, even with all its warts.

Anyway this interview just goes to show that it isn't just religious people who are prone to fanatical views. There are atheist fanatics too.