[anti-american] or myopic intolerance

Ruthie Zaftig has touched on the whole trouble with debate today - polarization of opinion:

There’s a divisive conflict. There’s a conflict that has people all over the world lining up on one side or the other, declaring one side to be the “good” side, and the other side to be the “evil” side, arguing that the evil side subjects the good side to any number of atrocities, and that the good side deserves to prevail.

I have friends on campus who are rigidly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli. They will list Israel’s crimes all day, but turn a blind eye to the equally egregious misdeeds of extremist Palestinian groups like Hamas.

She mentions an incident at her local Christian church:

One church member—a very intelligent, artistic, compassionate sort of man—spent two weeks explaining the central tenets of Islam so that we might better understand our Muslim neighbors. The presentation had a pleasant tone—he explained, for example, why zakat is important to Muslims. He talked about the different sects within Islam and how their beliefs differed. He talked quite a bit about history and the spread of Islam in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

When he was done speaking, another member of the congregation criticized him for looking at Islam through “rose-colored glasses.” He berated him for failing to focus on Islamic extremism, for failing to be alarmed at what he perceived as a dangerous religion. He characterized Muslims as wanting to appear virtuous, but not wanting to actually be virtuous.

Now many of my readers know I'm involved in a Muslim community of bloggers and with one in particular with whom many progressive discussions have taken place over this. I also live in a Muslim republic and deal with Muslims each and every day. Most just go about their day to day lives as most westerners do, with an added sense of personal and societal morality a possible distinction from many of my mates.

The real problem is that the concept of jihad is so misunderstood, even by nominal Muslims. It should be to "struggle in the way of G-d" or "to struggle to improve one's self and/or society." Jihad is directed against the devil's inducements, aspects of one's own self, or against a visible enemy of the word of G-d.

Now just look at this post and the way I rail against societal evils. One of my Jakarta friends would say to me: "That's jihad, James." Well, if it is, then I'm a mujahid 'cause I'm going to continue railing against those things.

Looking at the real evil in the west which this blog is basically all about [see the micro-control series of posts for an overview - don't google but type "micro control" into the blogsearch top left - 1, 3 and 7 are perhaps the best of them], this, by definition, transcends national boundaries and leads to the completely erroneous conclusion of most Muslims that "America" per se is evil - the Great Satan - and the equally erroneous conclusion of patriotic Americans that blind loyalty to their leaders, e.g. Bush and Co., whom even Alan Greenspan criticized, is the gung-ho way to truth and really good things.

Thus we have a blogger called Great Satan's Girlfriend and that's just craziness. The average American is no more satanic than bambi but he is patriotic and he is loyal to the constitution and the flag. Nor am I anti-American for saying these things and nor is Ruthie anti-American for her post. This is garbage. For myself, over 40% of my readers in the morning are American and you don't get that by being anti-American.

It's the intolerant debate, the non-debate, the polarized, entrenched positions which are the problem. It's the lack of real understanding, esp by the Beslan murderers, the 911 gang, the throat slitters and so on and also by our own side, entrenched in our narrow focus, which is the key issue.

You know that I am an English nationalist but many blogfriends are Scottish. I'm a Christian but hobnob with two Muslim communities. I'm western but live in Russia. This does not make me a relativist or multi-culturalist. I'm still a conservative in values and libertarian in outlook.

But I sure as hell am not going to turn up my nose at good friends in other communities.

Will his vision prevail?