[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

> What I find worrying is that there isn't much of a reaction of rejection
> from more moderate muslims about others hijacking their religion.

I share your concern about this. I'm not so sure they actually feel the
religion is being hijacked, as much as that a certain group -- unfavorably
received by most Westerners -- reflect badly on them, sort of like an
embarrassing relative. Since the first they do after disclaiming that all
Muslims are terrorists (true but trivial) is to vent a long list of
grievances against the West, Western policies, etc., it's clear they don't
get the point (hiding behind the next fallacy to add to our list; see
below).

> And even if Islam itself were the problem, then I am not sure that
> direct confrontation, a sort of war, a new sort of war as some called
> it, is the solution.

One of the problems is no one seems to have a clue about how to deal with
it. Violent confrontation tends to steel their resolve and reinforce their
paranoia, while appeasement, self-flaggelation, and not holding them
responsible for their actions just encourages and envigorates them.

Islam per se, in the abstract, is not the problem. Much of contemporary
Islamic culture, especially political culture, is. For Wahhabis, as is
well-known, Sufism is not Islam. Nor are Shiites Muslims, etc. All Muslim
nations agree that Kurds should just disappear from the face of the earth
(and take the damn Bahais and Parsees with them). and so on.

One might look to Sikh history for a preview of what the European wake-up
call might be like. Sikhs were initially universalists, anti-sectarian,
pacifistic, etc. A few generations of dealing with Muslims (back before
there was a US to blame for everything), and suddenly everyone's last name
was Singh (lion -- signifying a martial attitude), and a carrying a dagger
at all times became one the mandatory religious duties of every male.


> The logic of terrorism is condemnable, but it is implacable. In a
> democracy everyone is responsible. It are the people that elect their
> governments.

Here you move into another fallacy we could add to the list: Terrorism is a
political statement, merely a horrible means to a justifiable ends. There is
a reason that in Iraq, Bali, Tel Aviv, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles,
Chechniya, etc., the targets are not political leaders, but innocent
civilians. That's why it's called terrorism. It's not that the leaders are
protected behind Pope-mobiles (although that is becoming an increasing
reality), but because ordinary people, innocents, are their intended
targets. They are not surrogates, they ARE the targets. Why do you think
that is? The statement being made is always about hegemony -- and preferably
that they should have their "right" to do terror with impunity guaranteed by
the World Community [the PLO set the precedent for that; the more innocent
people they killed, the more the world insisted their demands should be met,
and the less was expected of them in return]. To the terrorists it wouldn't
matter if a Democrat or a Republican was in the White House -- 9/11 was
originally conceived during Clinton's presidency; nor whether Labor or
Conservatives ruled from 10 Downing St [the British Jihadists have said
explicitly the goal is to have a Muslim -- meaning one sharing their own
Jihadist values -- living at that address], and so on. How any of us votes
is largely irrelevant. Do you think the jihadist movement would have
evaporated with a Gore victory in 2000?

Algeria is a splendid, if somewhat ignored history lesson for all this.
While the French were debating among themselves whether to stay or leave,
the left blamed the de Gaullists for everything (much in the way Eric was
suggesting I was wrong-headed), the right insisted that anything less than a
hardline was giving comfort to the enemy and unpatriotic, while the
"intellectuals" delighted in the paradox that the Algerians made clear that
should the elections the French insisted take place before they withdraw
result in an Algerian slate triumphing, the first thing the new Algerian
leadership would do -- they promised -- would be to abolish democracy.
Should we stay, even as imperialists, for their own good, or leave the
country to them, even though they promise to make everything worse once
we're gone? -- that was the parlor chat. The Algerians were true to their
word. The first thing they did was abolish democracy, and the country has
been a mess ever since. Hundreds of thousands have died, killed by the govt.
Every time a popular protest movement begins to emerge, everyone even
marginally involved or just in the wrong place is killed. A couple of
decades back they killed 25,000 in less than a week, since protests were
starting to mass publicly. In Syria Assad senior racked up big numbers as
well, as did Saddam H in Iraq (part of that contemporary "culture" I
referred to). Pol Pot was a short-lived amateur compared to these guys, yet
Syria sits on the Security Council and Libya heads the UN committee on human
rights. Is there any wonder that some people are cynical about the UN?

Tunisia has had relatively benign and tolerant leadership for many decades,
yet jihadists from Tunisia, Algeria, etc., crisscross Europe and Asia
looking for ways to kill people most horrendously. So it's not simply
economics, nor simply oppressive regimes (since non-repressive regimes also
engender terrorists who take their show on the road), nor simply any of the
"usual suspects." France couldn't figure out what to do with Algeria then,
and it still can't figure out what to about Islam today. And instead of
figuring out what went wrong then and how it might have been done
differently, when it does come up in discussion, it simply reiterates the
old slogans (blame the DeGaullists, blame the... -- blame anybody but the
Algerians).

For this list, however, the history lesson should go back to the days when
the Silk Road, from Iran to China and everything in between was Buddhist.
And then came the Muslims. Then read the Tibetan apocalyptic literature
(Kalacakra, etc.) about what happens to Muslims during the apocalypse.

> I don't know if there is much of a left left.

Nicely phrased!

If, however, you are having trouble recognizing huge ethical distinctions
between Hiroshima and Bali, then we are all in trouble and the age of Mappo
has arrived. If the distinction escapes you, please have a long talk with
any Koreans, Chinese, Burmese, Filipinos, etc. you know. They will explain
it to you.

Dan Lusthaus