Thomas Friedman is amazing...
bthav
1,538 Posts
from the nytimeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08friedman.html?hp----------------------------------------------------------------July 8, 2005If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim SolutionBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMANYesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own country. In part, it's because one assault may have involved a suicide bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into the heart of a major Western capital. That would be deeply troubling because open societies depend on trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of our open societies, our societies are never again quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little freedom yesterday.But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.
Comments
Guy is completely ignorant of cause and effect.
Right. So the best we can hope for is that these people stop killing not because it's wrong but because it's against their self-interest. How pathetic.
Am I to understand that this thread favors the extralegal assasinations of potential bombers to preempt future 7-7s? I think it's a combination of bolstering the life affirming majority of Muslims who categorically reject the neo-fascist interpretation of the Koran espoused by the bombers yesterday and hunting down and killing the more dangerous leaders of the movement.
You're not in some weird kind of vortex. It is called SoulStrut!
I think what the rest of us are responding to is the "why don't you towelheads get yourselves in line and fall in behind us righteous whities" tone of Friedman's article. It's completely detached from any kind of responsibility of his side in this mess.
This is not blaming the victim. When Vitamin says we have to "hunt down and kill the more dangerous leaders of the movement", the first thing I think of is 9 dead Afghani children killed last week from an airstrike on their village trying to take out a suspected Al Quaeda (Taliban?) leader. You want to stop terror? Stop terrorizing.
What's the answer? Hey, man. At this epoch of the human story, I can't think of any. There is just what it is. And it ain't looking pretty.
Give a roomful of monkeys an M-16 and they'll learn how to fire it.
I don't think its as simple as that, issuing fatwas and imprisoning terrorists. Its about changing a culture of vengance and intolerance. In a way the article is somewhat hypocritical, because western actions after 9/11 were just that, vengeful and intolerable. Its also irressponsible to say "Muslims, you have to change and expose the violent factions in your religion because the only ones that can do this is you." Westerners have a role to play in this as well, agree with me or not, we are also part of the problem. I do agree with the overall point of the article, which I took to be that cultural change is the only way to ensure peace in the future, change that includes, tolerance, respect, and non-violence, as the main values of a society.
I believe his article was attempting to focus in on a piece of the puzzle, not blame Muslims for all the problems between East and West.
I didn't notice a self-rightious tone, either. I think it's true that part of the solution is for the Muslim world to denounce indiscriminate killing of foreigners.
And likewise, Western actions after 9/11 have contributed to discrimination against Westerners in Muslim countries. Perhaps Mr. Friedman doesn't want to own up to the US's responsibilities, I don't know, but that doesn't negate his point.
I'm not trying to negate his point, I actually agre with it, but I don't think its just a muslim problem, which I think he believes too, seeing that the title of the article begins with "If..."
Also I don't think there is too much discrimination against westerners in Islamic countries, more like reinforcing prejudices. Not a lot of Westerners in those areas to discriminate against.
What's a mad monkey? Let me explain.
Some years ago I was in Bali and spent an afternoon in a little preserve they call the 'Monkey Forest'. As you'd expect, it's a stand of trees and bamboo filled with cute monkeys. The little fellows waddle up around you and twitch their noses and look cute while you take pictures for the in-laws back home. I don't have any in-laws and so there was no picture snapping for me; instead, I found another way to commune with the fauna.
The sunlight in the forest reflected off my watchface so that I could focus a beam on the ground. The monkeys liked this. I'd move the lightbeam around to catch the monkey's attention, they would lunge for it, and then I would shift the beam out of their reach. This was great fun for about five minutes. Then one monkey got tired of my teasing and instead of moving for the beam he went right for my calf. The little bugger dug his teeth into me and wouldn't give up until I kicked him off. Miraculously, I didn't get any weird, insidious monkey-born disease (that I know of).
So there you have it: a mad monkey.