The Return of History
I have to recommend a book, "The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity" by Tariq Ali. I've really just started the book but a quote from the last chapter, titled "Letter to a young Muslim," points to central theme:
"Dear Friend:
Remember when you approached me after the big antiwar meeting in November 2001 (I think it was Glasgow) and asked whether I was a believer? I have not forgotten the shock you registered when I replied 'no', or the comment of your friend ('our parents warned us against you'), or the angry questions which the pair of you then began to hurl at me like darts. All of that made me think, and this little book is my reply for you and all the others like you who asked similar questions elsewhere in Europe and North America. It's heavily interlarded with history, but I hope it will suffice. When we spoke, I told you that my criticism of religion and those who use it for political ends was not a case of being diplomatic in public. Exploiters and manipulators have always used religion self-righteously to further their own selfish ends . . ."
. . . as we appear to be doing right now in Iraq. Are President Bush and Osama bin
Laden both pointing to the same end, the end of modernity and the horrific return of wars of fundamentalisms? Let's hope not . . . I'm not a pacifist. I've always suspected that the US would find smoking guns pointing to chemical weapons in Iraq. I've been fearful of the trajectory on which Saddam was headed. But the American subtext of religious fundamentalism is unavoidable. Will it stay submerged and subserviant to very different, secular ends? Or will it emerge as the real master?
8:55:05 PM 
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