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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (52876)	8/6/2004 9:55:46 AM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

... throughout history, when religious fundamentalist movements have been attacked they have become more extreme. "The way we're going -- and Britain is just as culpable as the United States -- we're alienating Muslims who were initially horrified by Sept. 11 and we're strengthening al-Qaeda, which has definitely been strengthened by the Iraq war and its awful aftermath." ... complete article follows. theglobeandmail.com U.S. on dangerous course, expert warns By MICHAEL VALPY Friday, August 6, 2004 - Page A6 Advertisement GENEVA PARK, ONT. -- Misbegotten U.S. foreign policy is pushing Islamic fundamentalists closer and closer to the use of weapons of mass destruction, warns British historian Karen Armstrong, one of the world's foremost authorities on religion. "Now more and more small groups will have the capability of destruction that were formerly the prerogative of the nation-state," she said yesterday. "The prospects are extremely serious," she added. "And this is just the beginning. Certainly we're stuck with this conflict for this generation. Even to call it terrorism is a mistake. This is war, and they [the U.S. and its allies] are going about the wrong way of ending it." Ms. Armstrong, an academic specialist on Islam and fundamentalism who several times has addressed members of the U.S. Congress, was keynote speaker last night at the opening of the annual Couchiching thinkers conference north of Toronto. This year's theme is "God's Back with a Vengeance: Religion, Pluralism and the Secular State." In a lengthy interview, she spoke of how U.S. President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden parody each other with their talk of black and white, good and evil. Ms. Armstrong said that, throughout history, when religious fundamentalist movements have been attacked they have become more extreme. "The way we're going -- and Britain is just as culpable as the United States -- we're alienating Muslims who were initially horrified by Sept. 11 and we're strengthening al-Qaeda, which has definitely been strengthened by the Iraq war and its awful aftermath." The reason religious fundamentalism exists, she said, is because it is the natural byproduct that follows establishment of a secular, liberal society. The emancipation of women, she said, has fuelled fundamentalism in all major religions. "We've been the worst religion [Christianity] in the world for integrating sexuality and gender with the sacred. "So to every [secular advance of] society, there is a fundamentalist riposte. We have to be grown-up about it. All major social change is contested. It always has been. Not everyone is going to say, 'Oh boy, what a fabulous idea, let's go along with it.' " She said the 1925 Scopes trial in the United States that pitted biblical creationism against Darwinian evolution is the prime example of what happens when fundamentalism is attacked. "Before the Scopes trial, fundamentalists had been often on the left of the political spectrum and had been willing to work alongside socialists and liberal Christians in the new slums of the industrializing North American cities," she said. "After the Scopes trial, they swung to the far right where they remained." Said Ms. Armstrong: "Fundamentalism is a revolt against modernity. And one of the things that happens right across the board is that [fundamentalists] want to see religion reflected more clearly in public life in one way or another." She said the war against Islamic terrorism -- or, more accurately, she said, against Arab Islamic terrorism -- will only be won by a fundamental change to U.S. policy. "No. 1 is finding a just solution to the Palestinian conflict," the images of which, she said, have "become iconic to Arab Muslims. "No. 2 is to stop supporting appalling rulers in the region like the Saudis . . . like Saddam himself who was supported by the West," she said. And the third step is to recognize that many people "just want to be more religious in some way or another. . . . The trick is to create conditions which will make sure that it's good healthy religion and not distorted bad religion. "Religion is like any other human activity, like cooking, it can be disgusting, and the litmus test of any religiosity right across the board in all the major world religions is that it must result in practically expressed compassion." "In a society where warfare and violence becomes endemic, religion gets sucked into that. Religion comes from where our dreams come from, and our dreams become disturbed, everything about us becomes disturbed in times of war and destruction."