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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Oh, AllahHere's the short film Theo Van Gogh was murdered for. To me it was unexpected -- not crude and shrill but stylish and sensual; also a monologue, not a documentary. Imagine a Christian terrorist carving up a director in the street for something like this. At least in America our fanatics come out with pickets and megaphones. (Or bombs, in the case of abortion clinics.) (Or senators.) But Muslims who kill have the idea they're just defending Islam; to a Muslim radical this film is nothing less than a new crusade.
The travelogue I'm writing on Indonesia has brought me around to the idea that democracy, for all its virtues, is the wrong tonic for terrorism. Not that any Islamic nation shouldn't vote if it wants to. But Muslims who want shariah see democracy exactly the way they see this film -- as an insult to God's wisdom, by the west -- which is why so few of them will get around anytime soon to thanking us for their freedom. A stable democracy is just a big target, something to keep the assassins busy. And the idea that stability and wealth in a Muslim nation might reduce the number of terrorists is pretty much bunk. Radical Islam, like most radical ideologies, tends to be a middle-class phenomenon. I thought neoconservatives knew that.
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
7:16 AM
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