A Clash of Fundamentalisms

Pastor Terry Jones's Koran book-burning, scheduled for the 9-11 anniversary, was cancelled yesterday.

This war of fundamentalisms is always a product of politics and history, rather than a natural attribute of human cultures which have often co-existed and intermingled.

The threat to burn any book (especially if considered sacred) is despicable in the same way as it was despicable when the Taliban used explosives to demolish the Bamyan Bhuddas. 

This act is different from, say the cartoons of the Prophet depicted by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which unleashed a fundamentalist, unacceptable and illiberal reaction from a large segment of the Muslim world, which revealed an inherent weakness of societies crippled by regimes who let their people let off steam against the west while holding an iron grip on their own people.

While the greatest atrocities are perpetrated by Islamic regimes on their equally Islamic subjects, it is always the great Satan of western culture which is blamed, rather than these governments or western political imperialism, which has for decades connived with a number of these regimes. Ironically in many instances fundamentalist regimes or movements were co-opted to fight their jihads against secular Arab socialists or nationalists.

Although the act of burning a Koran is an act of greater gravity than, say the depiction of the Prophet in a newspaper cartoon, even in this case, the counter-threat of terrorism and violence represents a weakness of societies, whose repressive institutions have prevented the emergence of a liberal and open minded Islam that is able to condemn such acts without threatening hell on earth.

One major weakness of a large segment of Islamic societies is that of expecting western governments to behave in the same way as the illiberal regimes which rule over them. For many in the Islamic world who are brought up under totalitarian regimes, they are unable to distinguish between acts of crazy individuals and the acts of governments.

Still, we should be wary of associating anti liberalism exclusively with Islam.

I suspect that even a repressed western society like Malta many would call on the state to intervene if someone threatens to burn the Holy Bible in a public square. Let's not forget that the Catholic lobby at the university had the power to bring an artist to court, simply for publishing a short story which offended their sick morality. In my opinion, expecting the state to repress individual opinions is always despicable as long as the individual is not openly calling for violence against others. 

But we should not forget that there is another side in this story. There is also a growing number of islamophobes who openly challenge western liberal values by advocating the curtailment of civil, cultural and religious rights of Muslims. 

Dangerously Islamophobia is a sentiment shared by a wide range of people, from liberals who fear their way of life threatened by Islamic conservatism, to arch-traditionalists whose values are not that different from those of Muslim traditionalists. 

In whatever form, Islamophobia is irrational and undermines the very western values it sometimes promotes.

But ultimately the only way to confront Islamophobia is too consistently advocate  and apply secular liberal values in our decisions, be they allowing mosques in New York or defending the rights of cartoonists to portray Mohammed.