giorgiob8
03-02-2006, 07:07 PM
Observations by the light of bonfires
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
(FIRMAS PRESS. Madrid) First observation. Flames are rising. The spectacle is increasingly more frequent. In a dozen European and Middle East cities, Islamic fundamentalists have taken to the streets anew. They shout, attack passers-by, torch buildings, cars and flags. The excuse this time are 12 cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper. Tomorrow it will be some other ridiculous anecdote. To try to rationally explain the behavior of fanatical mobs is useless. What logic existed in the pogroms committed by the Nazi brownshirts? It was pure barbarity, stage-managed from some seat of power.
My first surprise comes from the other end of the conflict. I try to understand the serene attitude of the Islamic community in the United States. Wonderful. Among the five million observers of that religion in the U.S. there have been barely a few expressions of violence. It seems that among them there are not many fanatics crazed by hatred. Why? Perhaps the key factor is a characteristic of American culture that may have seeped into the attitude of Muslim communities in the U.S. -- they have learned to coexist with something they detest. That's the essence of tolerance. American Christians and Jews also are hurt by the bitter attacks against their religious beliefs, or by distasteful ethnic jokes, but they swallow hard or protest peacefully. That is the price paid for living in a free society.
Where does that enviable spirit of tolerance come from? Maybe from an episode that shook the nation almost from its start: the incoporation of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the permanent battle for preserving its validity. The constant struggle to keep state and religion separate and prevent any form of public control over the expression of thought and the right to assemble for lawful purposes led to the creation of a society where all positions have space, because no belief or dogma is official. Nobody is acknowledged to hold absolute truths. All people have and defend debatable opinions. Only thus can one understand that 300 million people, fragmented into thousands of different groups many of which are antagonistic, manage to live in reasonable harmony.
Second observation. Violent fanatics cannot be reasoned with. They must be defeated. Faced with a banshee willing to kill in order to avenge an alleged moral offense, such as the innocent Danish cartoons, the only reaction possible is to tie him down, sedate him, try him, and sentence him to a long prison term. Every time a politician appears before the public and tries to pacify the mutineers with explanations of understanding, he only stimulates more disorders. If the laws are not sufficiently punitive, the solution is obvious: they must be hardened. The Ku Klux Klan, which had only four million members, began to reduce its size and virulence only after the U.S. government crushed it with the weight of the law.
Third observation. This one can be expressed with a mathematical formula: the dangerousness of fanatics is in direct proportion to their capacity for destruction, multiplied exponentially by the intensity of the passion that fills them. When Hitler amassed enough tanks, he plunged into the conquest of Europe and the extermination of Jews and other minorities, driven by his infinite hatred.
In addition, fanatics are usually willing to die for the cause in which they believe. As Churchill warned in the 1930s, it's not enough to threaten an armed fanatic; he has to be disarmed or defeated before he can act. This also applies to the behavior of Iran. That government is attempting to build nuclear weapons to defend itself. But no one is threatening it. On the contrary, the U.S. invasion of Iraq removed an old enemy that had killed hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers and ended up empowering a team of fellow Shiites. Never in recent decades has Iran been more secure and protected.
Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is preparing to go to war. He deeply despises the impure Western world. He is willing to wipe Israel off the map, as he stated recently, and he is unfazed by the cost that adventure may have. A good fanatic never ponders the consequences of his acts. He doesn't care if half of Iran ends up in ashes. He feels an ecstatic admiration for the suicidal terrorists who strap on a belt loaded with explosives and sacrifice themselves while butchering the Jews around him. Ahmadinejad is going to do the same, except that -- if the world lets him -- he will wear a belt loaded with nuclear bombs.
February 12, 2006
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
(FIRMAS PRESS. Madrid) First observation. Flames are rising. The spectacle is increasingly more frequent. In a dozen European and Middle East cities, Islamic fundamentalists have taken to the streets anew. They shout, attack passers-by, torch buildings, cars and flags. The excuse this time are 12 cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper. Tomorrow it will be some other ridiculous anecdote. To try to rationally explain the behavior of fanatical mobs is useless. What logic existed in the pogroms committed by the Nazi brownshirts? It was pure barbarity, stage-managed from some seat of power.
My first surprise comes from the other end of the conflict. I try to understand the serene attitude of the Islamic community in the United States. Wonderful. Among the five million observers of that religion in the U.S. there have been barely a few expressions of violence. It seems that among them there are not many fanatics crazed by hatred. Why? Perhaps the key factor is a characteristic of American culture that may have seeped into the attitude of Muslim communities in the U.S. -- they have learned to coexist with something they detest. That's the essence of tolerance. American Christians and Jews also are hurt by the bitter attacks against their religious beliefs, or by distasteful ethnic jokes, but they swallow hard or protest peacefully. That is the price paid for living in a free society.
Where does that enviable spirit of tolerance come from? Maybe from an episode that shook the nation almost from its start: the incoporation of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the permanent battle for preserving its validity. The constant struggle to keep state and religion separate and prevent any form of public control over the expression of thought and the right to assemble for lawful purposes led to the creation of a society where all positions have space, because no belief or dogma is official. Nobody is acknowledged to hold absolute truths. All people have and defend debatable opinions. Only thus can one understand that 300 million people, fragmented into thousands of different groups many of which are antagonistic, manage to live in reasonable harmony.
Second observation. Violent fanatics cannot be reasoned with. They must be defeated. Faced with a banshee willing to kill in order to avenge an alleged moral offense, such as the innocent Danish cartoons, the only reaction possible is to tie him down, sedate him, try him, and sentence him to a long prison term. Every time a politician appears before the public and tries to pacify the mutineers with explanations of understanding, he only stimulates more disorders. If the laws are not sufficiently punitive, the solution is obvious: they must be hardened. The Ku Klux Klan, which had only four million members, began to reduce its size and virulence only after the U.S. government crushed it with the weight of the law.
Third observation. This one can be expressed with a mathematical formula: the dangerousness of fanatics is in direct proportion to their capacity for destruction, multiplied exponentially by the intensity of the passion that fills them. When Hitler amassed enough tanks, he plunged into the conquest of Europe and the extermination of Jews and other minorities, driven by his infinite hatred.
In addition, fanatics are usually willing to die for the cause in which they believe. As Churchill warned in the 1930s, it's not enough to threaten an armed fanatic; he has to be disarmed or defeated before he can act. This also applies to the behavior of Iran. That government is attempting to build nuclear weapons to defend itself. But no one is threatening it. On the contrary, the U.S. invasion of Iraq removed an old enemy that had killed hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers and ended up empowering a team of fellow Shiites. Never in recent decades has Iran been more secure and protected.
Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is preparing to go to war. He deeply despises the impure Western world. He is willing to wipe Israel off the map, as he stated recently, and he is unfazed by the cost that adventure may have. A good fanatic never ponders the consequences of his acts. He doesn't care if half of Iran ends up in ashes. He feels an ecstatic admiration for the suicidal terrorists who strap on a belt loaded with explosives and sacrifice themselves while butchering the Jews around him. Ahmadinejad is going to do the same, except that -- if the world lets him -- he will wear a belt loaded with nuclear bombs.
February 12, 2006