The countries and people of Islam - barbarians or not?
- Szczegóły
- Nadrzędna kategoria: Wypracowania
- Kategoria: Pozostałe wypracowania
The recent events concerning the tragic disaster on September 11 and its aftermath -
something that could be called the Afghan War or at least the Afghan Expedition, led many
people to conduct an at least superficial study of the Muslim ways and culture. In most cases,
the study was based on watching documentaries shown in CNN and other western news
stations, sometimes it involved reading articles in "Time" or similar magazines. Few people
actually tried to study the situations of the people in Islam in more detail, and most of them
probably got discouraged by uniform representation of the Muslims in newspapers and TV
alike - as primitive barbarians, or in the most positive cases - enlightened barbarians. This
attitude towards Islam has manifested itself in various publications, but the one that is
probably the most known (and arguably the most influencial) is "The anger and the pride" by
Oriana Fallaci.
The known Italian publicist, who has not written a single work in ten years, makes her
great comeback with this extremely passionate and very well written article. In this article,
she directly blames Islam and the Muslim culture for the atrocities commited by the terrorists
on September 11. What's more, she raises a huge barrier between the Euro-American culture
and the Middle East culture, treating the people living there as inferior and primitive. She
outlines the achievements of European philosophy, arts and science and compares them to
the, in her opinion, vastly inferior achievements in corresponding areas in the Middle East.
She shows some really drastic examples to uphold her view, and throughout the entire article
she seems to convey her hatred towards Islam on to the reader. Now, this kind of attitude is
justifiable. It is, however, very sad. It is very easy to outline extremism in any culture and
show it as a general view of that culture. It is also quite simple for a skilled writer to
deprecate another culture's achievements while glorifying her own culture's ones. The tone
of the article is also understandable, since many people react to drastic events in a drastic
manner. But one thing is certainly not justifiable - the call for crusade. What Oriana Fallaci
effectively does is call on a crusade against the muslims - after admitting herself in the article
that the crusades and the Inquisition was a mistake on part of the Catholic Church that
shouldn't happen again. The way I see it, Fallaci's article does not differ in any way from
Osama Bin Laden's speeches on European and American culture as "the great devil", except
that perhaps Fallaci, being a publicist, uses more sophisticated examples and arguments.
If I am to objectively judge the facts that Fallaci presents in her article, I cannot admit
that, in some areas, she is right. Women indeed are opressed in some islamic countries, other
religions are not tolerated and terrorism is present everywhere as a way of solving problems.
But if you look at Europe, you could find the same problems there. Can you tell me, for
example, how do the terrorist acts commited by Jihad and Hamas differ from these done by
IRA or ETA? The similarities exist even on the religious ground - members of IRA are also
religious zealots that fight a fight between Catholics and Protestants - the same way Jihad
Hamas fights against "heretics". And all of this is done in the name of the Christian religion -
which Oriana Fallaci regards as so much superior to Islam.
To make things clear - I do not consider myself anticlerical. In fact, I am a Catholic -
at least I try to be one. But what I really don't like is religious zealousness, and I just can't
bear people who say, to quote Carlin: "My God has a bigger dick than yours". Because there
is no more sense in that type of behavior than there is in Carlin's "reinterpretation" of it. You
just can't simply say one religion is better than another just by judging a small fraction of its
believers. If you analyzed the Polish "orthodox" Catholics, mainly the ones associated with
"Radio Maryja", you could make an assumption that Catholics are a bunch of untolerant,
primitive people that see nothing but their church and the priest that preaches in it every
Sunday. It is easy to imagine a muslim publicist writing an article similar to the one written
by Oriana Fallaci, only directed against Christianity and the European culture. It is easy to
write a one-sided essay. It is much more difficult to write a balanced essay, but one that
nevertheless encompasses your view on a subject. This is why I believe Oriana Fallaci has
failed - for an article of a self-proclaimed enlightened person, this one is surely too
imbalanced and biased.
Does that mean I agree to the rule of non-engagement, ie. a country's internal affairs
are its own matter and other nations should not intervene in any way? Of course not. That's
what brought Hitler to power - the passiveness of European political leaders, who were too
afraid to be accused of meddling in another country's affairs to take any radical steps to
overthrow the tyran. But intervention only goes so far. You cannot, under absolutely any
circumstances, dictate someone their way of life. If you have a society whose laws are based
on The Koran, you have absolutely no right to tell them it that is wrong, that their ways are
barbarian and they should change. Of course, in an ideal world, countries shouldn't be
theocracies at all, but let's face it - we do not live in an ideal world.
What can we do, then? Well, of course, there are certain cases in which other
countries may interfere with another country's politics. One of such cases is aggressive
behavior - one that threatens the safety of that country's neighbors for no apparent reason. If a
country suddenly states that it wants free trade through another country's sea ports or it will
attack it, this is no more than robbery on a country-wide basis. There is simply no difference
between this situation and a man sticking a gun to someone's head on the street and saying:
"Hand me your money over or I will kill you". This situation is obvious and it should cause
immediate international response. Thus, the American operation in Afghanistan to overthrow
the Taliban is, for me, absolutely justified - if a mass murderer hides in a private flat, the
police are free to break the door and even use explosives in order to get in.
Other situations are less obvious. A change of government, for example, even a coup
d'etat, is absolutely no reason for an international intervention (unless the country has access
to nuclear weapons, in case the attack is more of a preemptive strike). However, in my
opinion, harassment of national groups is. This may be controversial, especially to people in
Poland, who remember USSR's excuse for invading Poland on 17.IX.1939 - that the Polish
government no longer exists and the Red Army is entering Poland only to provide safe cover
for endangered Belarussian and Ukrainian citizens. But I believe it is justified, but only if
strict international supervision is present. By "strict international supervision" I mean an
organization no lesser than NATO or UN.
How is this related to the main problem - the situation of islamic countries? Because
there is no islamic superpower, and even Pakistan, who is the closest to meet the definition
because it has nuclear weapons, is loosely allied with USA, there is no way Islam can defend
against Uncle Sam saying what is right and what isn't. Unfortunately, Americans have
something which one could call a "national illness" - they think that their being a superpower
grants them the right to tell others what to do without studying their customs first. And, if
they don't understand another country's customs, they try to enforce their own instead. What
comes from that behavior can often be distastrous. Such was for example the American land
intervention in Kosovo, where Americans, sternly believing that all Serbians are mass-
murderers and all Kosovans are valiant warriors, allowed the Kosovans to practically take
over the matters in Kosovo. The result was disastrous - many Serbians were killed, thousands
were driven out their houses, all their possesions destroyed or plundered.
There is a very clear example of this kind of attitude during the Afghan Expedition - it
is the case of Al-Jazeera, the "CNN of the Arab world". The Arabs trust Al-Jazeera much
more than they trust any of their home televisions, and more than they trust any western ones.
Thus, they consider it the most reliable source of information on the war and on the
motivations of both sides. Al-Jazeera reporters are trained by CNN, as they are leftovers of a
CNN agency in the Arab Emirates. They try to be as objective as they can, and to convey
information from both sides and not just one. Therefore, they show interviews with Osama
Bin Laden as well as with American officials. The Americans, offended that they are shown
together with the arch-terrorist, demanded that Al-Jazeera stopped showing Bin Laden, and
even resorted to sending a formal diplomatic note to the Arab Emirates' government to stop
the broadcast of pro-taliban broadcasts by Al-Jazeera. While the Americans' concern towards
the negative influence Bin Laden exerts over Arabs, this act was nothing less and nothing
more but censorship. Only if one has access to both sides' statements can he make up his own
mind, and what the Americans are trying to do is effectively block Arabs from hearing the
other side out.
This kind of American attitude is dangerous, because others feel authorized to do the
same thing and to tell others how to behave. An example of this is Oriana Fallaci, who, living
in the States, has been greatly influenced by this attitude. Therefore, she thinks that she has
the right to call muslims barbarians because they have not succumbed to the will of almighty
USA. Cultural uniformity is usually a bad thing, and that's what the American government is
trying to establish. While Americans claim to accept diversity, they accept it only if it is
confined within the boundaries established by them. So, islam is o.k. as long as it is
politically correct, etc.
Of course, as I said before, the CNN documentaries are true. Weapons are freely sold
in Afghanistan, women are discriminated there, people are killed there for crimes they didn't
commit. Those atrocities are a fact, no one denies that. But this is no reason for
generalization. You can easily make a documentary about relative easiness of buying
weapons, as well as you could show many cases of the discrimination of Blacks - pardon,
Afroamericans - in the USA. So, before you think that the people somewhere are barbarians
because of one documentary you saw, think again. Those people could very well be thinking
the same think about you (and often they do, because of spoken propaganda). They are not
barbarians. They are human beings, more or less like you are. If they are illiterate, it is
because of their government, not because of their culture. They are not barbarians just
because they are governed by people who tend to hide behide a paravan with "Islam" written
on it and kill people from behind it. The Talibans may be barbarians, but the people they rule
over are not. They are just plain, ordinary people, and they are tired. Tired of ongoing wars,
tribal quarrels and terrorists making training camps on their home ground. So please, if you
read Fallaci's article and start to think that she is right, think again.
Piotr Wilkin 4a