Islamophobia
I mentioned Oswald Spengler the German philosopher in a previous post. His namesake is a columnist on the Asia Times On Line, and a pleasure to read: reasonable reactionary intellectuals are even rarer than the left wing variety. This post is an intellectual tour de force, but like most theology, misses the point.
Islamofascism has nothing to do with religion. People will believe in any rubbish if they think it is a winning cause. The previous generation of Middle Eastern pin-up fanatics were secular marxist-fascists in the Baathist/Al Fatah mode. Extremist Islam is totalitarian nonsense just like Marxism or Fascism (or fundamentalist Christianity)
The niqab is not traditional Islamic wear over most of the Muslim world, and nor did any of the previous generation of immigrants wear it. It is an in-your-face (sorry about the pun) badge of rebellion and contempt for the host society. Meanwhile it is up to moderate Muslims to fight Islamists just as the democratic left fought Communism, and the democratic right fought Fascism.
Meanwhile the Islamists have one legitimate gripe: the decadence of the secular West. The combination of work-all-hours Capitalism and radical feminism means that the family is devalued and people will not or cannot have children. European demographics, as shown in the previous but one post, are a disaster. If secular society is finally overcoming its PC taboos on multiculturalism, thank goodness, then it also needs to reclaim the primacy of the family, and to stop uncontrolled immigration, and not leave them to the reactionary right.
Labels: Religion
posted by Total Issues at 9:56 pm
1 Comments:
I also think that islamism or whatever you want to call it is an opportunistic ideology that piggybacks on religion to advance its causes. Yet these men do believe that the scriptures they venerate provide an answer to rampant secularism.
If you look at qutab's writing, he sees the separation of church and sate as the most evil abstraction perpetrated by Christendom and its decline. Yet, someone like Shirin Abadi, following the pietistic Shia tradition, sees secularism as a guarantee that people can voice their diverse interpretations of scripture, as they will always do. Abadi does not take up the issue of how secular society can destroy religiosity but perhaps that is a testament to her belief in the inner light of faith?
My take on all of this is to follow Kierkegaard who secularism as the bane it is, but also sees its course as preparing the ground for a truer religiosity--whatever that might be. I am not sure that you address the positive side of levelling--as Kierkegaard would call it--an issue that Heidegger takes up in his essay on technology.
Post a Comment
<< Home