When members of the Administration talk about how ISIS is not Islamic, when they can't mention Islamic terrorism without also mentioning the Crusades, when they use the euphemism "violent extremism" over and over again, they're not talking to us, they're talking to themselves. They're trying to convince themselves that there really is a sparkly unicorn called multiculturalism and it really is the Truth. To say otherwise puts a dagger in the heart of the secular, post-modern faith.
If ISIS and its colleagues are not aberrant, if they are Islamic with a genuine basis in an interpretation of the Koran, then either one culture is better than another or there is no definition of "better" at all. As soon as you admit one culture is superior to another, you instantly are forced into some kind of ranking system, one that undercuts all of the foundations of the multicultural belief system.
When we hear Administration spokescreatures, university professors and lefty pundits try to describe ISIS as some kind of fit of insanity, totally detached from Islam, they're not defending ISIS or Islam, they're defending themselves.
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| All cultures are equally valid. This is not a culture. |
6 comments:
Just out of curiosity, what is your opinion of the Lord's Resistance Army? "Aberrant fit of insanity", or a group with a "genuine basis in Christianity"?
Why are those my only two choices?
I've never heard of them. Looking at that wiki article, I saw this:
The LRA was initially formed to resist the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), called the National Resistance Army (NRA) before it took control of the country. The NRA/UPDF has been accused of widespread murder, rape, and pillage. In June 2006, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN's special representative for children, found more than 5000 children recruited in the Ugandan government army.
That sounds like a lot of the South American rebel groups so beloved by the Jesuits of Liberation Theology bent. I can't immediately tell what the organizing principle is here. Is it rebellion against the government first or is it spreading a faith first?
In any case, that's a pretty brutal part of the world and has been for a long, long time. See also: How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa. There's nothing insane about being tough in a tough part of the world.
Here's my answer: None of the above. They're a rebel group. If they win their war, they'll be the government. Not insane, not Christian.
So, then, why doesn't what you say also apply to ISIS? They also are largely a rebel group against the local governments. They are in a tough, brutal part of the world that has been that way for a long time. They are using their religion as a cover justification and recruiting tool while most of their co-religionists try to disavow them. And if they win, they will be the government of the area they occupy. Why are they any more of a reflection muslims in general, than the Lord's Resistance Army is on christians in general?
I have no problem if you want to claim LRA is Christian. Dittos for the Westboro Baptist hate-mongers. I also have no problem making value judgments on what is better and what is worse.
If I mix rat poison in with Vanilla Ice Cream, it's still ice cream. If one claims that all ice creams are equal, then you must say that my Rat Poison Ice Cream isn't ice cream at all otherwise you've wrecked your foundational statement.
ISIS and LRA may be rat poison, but they've still got some kind of holistic world view. So did Che Guevera. There's a culture there. It just sucks and I'm not afraid to say it.
OK, thanks for clearing that up. Your original posting seemed to me to be saying that, since ISIS is a bunch of evil monsters (that work by specifically picking the nastiest bits of their holy book to justify their monsterdom), this meant that all other muslims were evil as well. If all you meant was that *some specific* muslims have created a monstrous culture for themselves, then that's different.
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