London experienced the new terrorism on 7 July 2005 when four bombs were detonated around the city. In the debate and discussion that followed I noticed that there was too much focus on Islam as a religion and Muslims as a community, as if each deserved examination as a likely pathology.
... what caused the terrorism was not Islam as a religion or even the lifestyle and culture of Muslims in Britain but an ideology, Global Islamism, whose nature had to be grasped if we were to fight terrorism.
... the ideology bin Ladin has fashioned, Global Islamism, remains a powerful force that will outlive him. Al-Qaeda is a threat not because it has training camps, finance and bombs, but because it is a brand of ideology which, like a virus, can spread globally ... [I]n fighting terrorism, we need to grasp the nature of the ideology, which is easy to spread and difficult to counter.
Meghnad Desai, Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror (2007) IB Tauris, London; Preface.
1 comment:
Start focusing on Presbyterians! And what about those Lutherans eh?
All the heat on Muslims has meant that Buddhists, Quakers and Wiccans have been getting away with thousands of suicide bombings and beheadings, without anyone even noticing.
Ahem.
How about we start focussing on Islam, rather than on vague references to "terrorists".
There is a pretty obvious reason why terrorists shout "Allah is great" (in Arabic) before comitting their atrocities - they are Muslim.
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