Every cloud has a silver lining. This, munchkins, is also true of Radical Islam. Because RI has vomited up...er, what I mean, is...spawned a shiny new profession that gainfully employs many. That is the benefit. These professionals proudly call themselves the Apologists for Radical Islam, or ARIs for short. This is not quite the same as dhimmis. Dhimmitude is lowly and passe; ARI gets you spots on TV shows.
Skeptics should note that being an ARI can be quite profitable. Witness the wise and noble Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek and one of my absolute favourite heroes (hey, there's no accounting for taste, to each his own and all that), who recently appeared on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and forwarded a rather interesting theory of why exactly British Muslims are inclined to terrorism. He said that we must keep in mind the general underprivileged condition of the Muslims in Britain before pointing our forefingers in their direction and jumping up and down like we have a colony of fire-ants in our pants.
Another ARI: Richard Bennett commented on rediff.com about the cause and effect between the London bombings and the war in Iraq. "If in Iraq you play, London must pay." He didn't write that pome, I did. Nice, no?
Or take another personal favourite apologist of mine called Ms. Teesta Setalvad, who heads a very liberal (and I use the word "liberal" in the sense of "illiberal bigoted fundamentialist") organization called Sabrang Communications or somesuch. This is the person who wagged her carefully manicured finger at us after the Godhra train-burning and reminded us that yes, fifty-nine innocent people were incinerated including women and small children, but we must not forget the provocation. Exactly what sort of provocation this was that justified the barbecuing of sixty-odd human beings, she did not say. I guess I am slow so I still don't quite get it.
I would request all to note at this point that all ARIs are not necessarily Muslims. In fact, some of the biggest and loudest ARIs are often non-Muslim.
The more illiberal of us like to point out that these ARIs are--either knowingly or simply because they are logically-challenged cretins--bearing out the unfortunate law of unintended consequences.
Good intentions don't always lead to desirable consequences. The unintended consequence in this case is that the ARIs are doing the very large section of average moderate Muslims a huge disfavour by attempting to rationalize the behaviour of a deranged minority. They are also contributing to the fog of war by distracting us with non-issues and therefore shielding Islam itself from critical examination and reform.
Most ARIs suffer from a peculiar kind of hubris. They don't consider the rest of us to be too bright. Hence, out of the goodness of their tender hearts and strictly for our edification, they point out a few "root causes" that sometimes cause Islamic terrorists to lovingly place powerful explosives within easy reach of children.
Let us consider some of these causes that are cast about hither and thither.
(1) Yes, what the terrorists did in London was wrong, but they were simply acting out of the sense of outrage that they felt about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now far be it from me to question the general intelligence behind that reasoning, but my limited grasp of logic leads me to conclude that the speaker of that above sentence is kinda...like...you know...saying that a British Muslim identifies more with a Muslim in Iraq than with his own British countrymen.
Or put another way, religious identity takes precedence over national identity. And that we should be understanding of this.
Now I always try to revere wise men and imbibe their wisdom. And the best way to do that is to imitate them devotedly. I will be more than simply understanding about this.
So thus, without further ado, and purely in the spirit of emulation, I sincerely request all my fellow Hindus in India to start identifying with our Hindu brothers in Bangladesh more than our own Muslim Indian citizens. In fact, I would ask them to lovingly displace one Muslim from India for each Hindu displaced from Bangladesh. I would request them to gently and thoughtfully dishonour exactly one Muslim woman for each Hindu woman abducted in Bangladesh. I would also like them to, with tender care, level exactly one mosque for each temple desecrated in Bangladesh.
I would also like to apply this guiding model of Hindu behaviour retroactively, so that we take into account all Hindus brutalized in and displaced from Bangladesh (and oh by the way, Pakistan) since 1947. And when my dear Hindu brothers reach this stage of evolution, I would request the likes of Mr. Zakaria and Ms. Setalvad and other assorted liberal folkses to kindly be understanding about this.
There is a lot one can learn by simply paying attention to these clever ARIs, no?
(2) We must understand and empathize with the fact that the general poverty of the Muslims in Britain and elsewhere leads to their radicalization.
Yes, of course. And once again, having internalized that sage piece of observation, I would like to make an observation of my own. I have noticed that there are a lot of poor Hindus in India. And to these poor oppressed brethren of mine, I would like to extend a call to arms. Any Christian in India who is richer than you is fair game, my poor Hindu friend. Every Muslim who is more prosperous must be stripped of his wealth and made poor (so that he, in turn, can take up arms against you).
Yes, I like this logic. Very appealing. And I am, as the days go by, filled with admiration for these ARIs who take such pains to educate us about the finer points of liberalism and go to such lengths to keep us honest.
Fucking worm-infested, regressive cretins.
Postscript and Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that Hindus actually do any of the things that are suggested above. That would be stupid. My intent is to point out, with a parallel, the utter ridiculousness of suggesting that anybody should be understanding of terrorism.
Second, it should be noted that when people of the likes of Zakaria--who is a high-profile editor of an influential magazine--make excuses for radical Islam by appealing to poverty or when someone else brings up Iraq to justify terrorism, it sets a dangerous mood. Because it implies that terrorism is a justified policy tool for expressing social or economic dissatisfaction and political disagreement. It implies that I am within my rights to go blow up uninvolved bystanders simply because I disagree with my government's foreign policy, or because I don't have a job. No right-thinking person would do this. These are not root causes; these are dangerous cop-outs.
Most ARIs suffer from a peculiar kind of hubris. They don't consider the rest of us to be too bright. Hence, out of the goodness of their tender hearts and strictly for our edification, they point out a few "root causes" that sometimes cause Islamic terrorists to lovingly place powerful explosives within easy reach of children.
Let us consider some of these causes that are cast about hither and thither.
(1) Yes, what the terrorists did in London was wrong, but they were simply acting out of the sense of outrage that they felt about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now far be it from me to question the general intelligence behind that reasoning, but my limited grasp of logic leads me to conclude that the speaker of that above sentence is kinda...like...you know...saying that a British Muslim identifies more with a Muslim in Iraq than with his own British countrymen.
Or put another way, religious identity takes precedence over national identity. And that we should be understanding of this.
Now I always try to revere wise men and imbibe their wisdom. And the best way to do that is to imitate them devotedly. I will be more than simply understanding about this.
So thus, without further ado, and purely in the spirit of emulation, I sincerely request all my fellow Hindus in India to start identifying with our Hindu brothers in Bangladesh more than our own Muslim Indian citizens. In fact, I would ask them to lovingly displace one Muslim from India for each Hindu displaced from Bangladesh. I would request them to gently and thoughtfully dishonour exactly one Muslim woman for each Hindu woman abducted in Bangladesh. I would also like them to, with tender care, level exactly one mosque for each temple desecrated in Bangladesh.
I would also like to apply this guiding model of Hindu behaviour retroactively, so that we take into account all Hindus brutalized in and displaced from Bangladesh (and oh by the way, Pakistan) since 1947. And when my dear Hindu brothers reach this stage of evolution, I would request the likes of Mr. Zakaria and Ms. Setalvad and other assorted liberal folkses to kindly be understanding about this.
There is a lot one can learn by simply paying attention to these clever ARIs, no?
(2) We must understand and empathize with the fact that the general poverty of the Muslims in Britain and elsewhere leads to their radicalization.
Yes, of course. And once again, having internalized that sage piece of observation, I would like to make an observation of my own. I have noticed that there are a lot of poor Hindus in India. And to these poor oppressed brethren of mine, I would like to extend a call to arms. Any Christian in India who is richer than you is fair game, my poor Hindu friend. Every Muslim who is more prosperous must be stripped of his wealth and made poor (so that he, in turn, can take up arms against you).
Yes, I like this logic. Very appealing. And I am, as the days go by, filled with admiration for these ARIs who take such pains to educate us about the finer points of liberalism and go to such lengths to keep us honest.
Fucking worm-infested, regressive cretins.
Postscript and Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that Hindus actually do any of the things that are suggested above. That would be stupid. My intent is to point out, with a parallel, the utter ridiculousness of suggesting that anybody should be understanding of terrorism.
Second, it should be noted that when people of the likes of Zakaria--who is a high-profile editor of an influential magazine--make excuses for radical Islam by appealing to poverty or when someone else brings up Iraq to justify terrorism, it sets a dangerous mood. Because it implies that terrorism is a justified policy tool for expressing social or economic dissatisfaction and political disagreement. It implies that I am within my rights to go blow up uninvolved bystanders simply because I disagree with my government's foreign policy, or because I don't have a job. No right-thinking person would do this. These are not root causes; these are dangerous cop-outs.
Third, it occurs to me that ARIs often ignore Occam's Razor. One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. Poverty and outrage over Iraq are needlessly contrived explanations for radical Islam. The insight that a statistically significant section of Islamic folks preach virulence against non-Muslims, coupled with the fact that the much larger section of moderate, educated, peaceful, spineless, yellow-to-the-core Muslims sits there with its head stuck firmly up its ass in fear of fatwas and such, is the simplest explanation for radical Islam that I would personally buy.
1 comment:
Interesting piece. I have some thoughts around this. I'll try to compose that a little bit and post it here.
Post a Comment