My post bag had already had a significant flow of letters about Islamist terrorism before the news broke that the New Forest was being used as training ground, now it has become a flood. Most of my correspondents try and diagnose the problem and, I believe, are as mistaken in their diagnosis as I think the Pope himself was when he strayed into this territory a fortnight so ago in his seminar at Regensburg University.
My correspondents are in no doubt that the source of Islamic terror lies within the very nature of Islam itself, a subject about which they claim to have acquired a good deal of knowledge – even quoting to Koran to me. The Pope did not say anything like this but, if I am not mistaken, he did appear to be treading, even if ever so slightly, in the same general direction.
I just do not believe that the source of Islamist terrorism is in any way a proper expression of the Muslim faith. I get rather irritated with people who, on the basis of a couple of quotes from the Koran, announce exactly what Muslims understand by them, without any grounding in the scholarship and tradition of that religion. It is like someone just plucking a verse out of the Bible and , quite out of context and without any kind of informed exegesis, using it to justify some preoccupation of their own. Of course this is exactly what heretics have done throughout the ages.
The argument is put to me that Islam is more prone to violent expression, or at least 'enforcement', because there is no separation of the private and public expression of the faith, in the way that 'church and state' are explicitly separated in Christianity by Christ's teaching that his followers should “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's”. Well, I agree that in theory this may be strictly true, but the practical reality has been very different with almost every Muslim state -with perhaps the exception of modern Iran (and that is arguable)- enjoying a secular power exercised separate from the clerics and a legal code separate from Sharia law.
Anyway, notwithstanding Christ's instruction, Christian princes and prelates have hijacked the coercive power of the state from the conversion of Constantine until well into the modern era. Christian countries are as familiar with a history of religious intolerance and oppression as Muslim ones, if not rather more so (Moorish Spain was certainly more tolerant than the Christian regime that conquered it). It is precisely because of our bitter experience in western Christianity of a history of wars of religion; inquisitions; official disqualifications and discrimination; burnings; defenestrations and massacres that our modern constitutions increasingly eschewed any official role for the Christian religion within the state at all. The lesson of history was that the Christian church simply could not be trusted with any temporal power.
Not only are these speculations about Islam misguided and ill informed, they are also most unhelpful. By attempting to look for an explanation of the propensity to violence within the nature of Islam, the effect is to scapegoat all its adherents however blameless and peaceful. And to do that is to act as a recruiting sergeant for the terrorists.
We certainly must not underestimate the very dangerous and violent threat that we face from Islamist terrorism. If anyone has been in any doubt about the nature of that threat then all they need do is listen to the chilling interview by John Humphrys last week of Abu Izzadeen, the fanatic who barracked the Home Secretary's speech to Muslim parents. The chilling reality is that the objective of Islamist terrorism is to use indiscriminate violence to extinguish our liberty, our way of life, and subject us all to Sharia law. In this battle it is vital to have the enthusiastic support of the Muslim community. To blame Muslims and their religion as the problem is to isolate them in a way that will be entirely counter productive. The terrorists have set out to make Muslims feel isolated, vulnerable, threatened and different. We must not do their terrorists work for them.
Muslims and Christians had rubbed along together peacefully for most of our history;Muslims have been loyal servants of the Empire; they have served and continue to serve with distinction in our armed forces. I just did not accept that their faith has now become a threat to us.
At least part of the problem has been the way we failed to identify it soon enough; failed to act when we did so; and continue a policy of appeasement. For years the Government tolerated foreign clerics preaching hate whilst all the time living on benefit paid for by the taxpayer, instead of simply deporting them. In addition ministers have been far too ready to listen to spokesmen from the Muslim community who, in reality, have no legitimacy: they are elected by no one, but claim to speak for all Muslins whilst pursuing their own agenda which promotes the separateness of their faith and community. If we are to succeed we now have to put this into reverse and it will require the enthusiastic support of Muslims. Ill informed comments about their religion will not help. |
