Steyn has a way of saying things that no one else is saying. You read it and think about it and then you realize there is something to it.
What if we've already had the reformation of Islam and jihadism is it? It wasn't just Seventies Bryn Mawr Muslims who were "moderates". So were, comparatively, Muslims all over the world. The Sudan's always been a nutty joint but you'd have had a harder time convincing anyone to jail an English schoolmarm over a teddy bear 50 years ago: The Prophet's authoritative cuddly-toy suras date back all of 20 minutes. In 1950, a young Pakistani emigrating to Scotland or Canada would have received an education different only in degree, not (as now) wholly foreign in kind and ever more resistant even to the possibility of assimilation. One can detect similar trends in Indonesia, Singapore, the Central Asian stans, the Balkans - and among the de-assimilationist third generation Muslims in western Europe.
The Islamic "reformation" is, in a sense, the opposite of Christianity's. The Saudis have used their vast oil enrichment to promote themselves as a kind of Holy See for Muslims, and the Wahhabization of previously low-key syncretic localized Islams in almost every corner of the planet is testament to their success. I look at the gazillions of dollars tossed into the great sucking maw of US "intelligence" agencies and I wonder why somewhere in the budget we couldn't put something aside to promote a bit of covert ideological rollback in Chechnya or Bosnia or Pakistan. But we're not that savvy, and God knows what unintended consequences would blow up in our faces.
And at one level the Islamist "reformation" makes perfect sense. After all, they look at Christianity's reformation and see that everywhere but the United States it led to the ebbing of faith and its banishment to the fringes of life. The jihadist reformation is, as they see it, a rational response to the Christian one.
1 comment:
Yes. Progressive Christianity lacks the meaning, purpose, hard tenets and practical outworking of what used to be called faith. Not wanting progressive Islam to look like the same bowl of mush, they are determined to stand for something, and jihad is it. Meaning and purpose for my life by ending yours. It makes perfect sense within its own context. In large part, it is because we no longer understand what Christianity is that we have such a hard time understanding Islam and Islamists. We as a nation no longer share a common vernacular and worldview rooted in faith and the practice of that faith. It makes it virtually impossible to discuss what our enemies are allah bout. Which is not necessarily good or bad but just the way it is.
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