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15. Sep 2005

'Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are'

 
Analytikeren Timothy Garton Ash præsenter i en artikel i The Guardian seks udbredte syn på Islam i den moderne verden, og kommenterer dem med den pointe, at hvert enkelt synspunkt siger mindst lige så meget om dets bærer som om Islam.

Til ære for den fremmeddjendske højrefløj kan vi f.eks. tage nr. to, med en indvending, der burde være så oplagt selv for fremmedhaderne, at det gør ondt:
The fundamental problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion of Islam. Islam, unlike western Christianity, does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that my Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth. With its systematic discrimination against women, its barbaric punishments for homosexuality and its militant intolerance, Islam is stuck in the middle ages. What it needs is its Reformation.

A very widespread view. Two objections are that such a view encourages a monolithic, essentialist understanding of Islam, and tries to understand its history too much in western terms (middle ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do", there is a huge spectrum of different realities.
Om terrorisme i Vesten og dens støtte blandt et meget lille mindretal blandt de muslimer, der bor her (selv indvandrere tager, som det vil være bekendt, offentlige transportmidler, bliver bange og føler også ved umotiveret nedslagtning), hedder det:
...alienated by the reality of their marginalised lives in the west or feeling themselves rejected by it, a few - a tiny minority - embrace a fierce, extreme, warlike new version of the faith of their fathers. From Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida, through the bombers of Madrid to those of London, this has become a depressingly familiar story.
Et problem, hvis betydning i parantes bemærket overdrives noget. Terror bør selvfølgelig bekæmpes, opklares og forhindres, som alle andre alvorlige forbrydelser. Men højeste prioritet bør den lidt latterlige "krig" mod "terror" ikke have.

De vestlige lande har langt større og mere aktuelle problemer at slås med.

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