CULTURES OF TERROR
By MARK GOLDBLATT
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December 3, 2002 --
IBRAHIM Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, is incensed at derogatory statements about Muhammad made by Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson - the former referred to the prophet as a
"terrorist," the latter as an "absolute wild-eyed fanatic."
Hooper responded in kind, comparing the reverends to Osama bin Laden on the
grounds that they seek to "divide the world into a religious war." The
entire exchange would hardly be worth noting except for a final dig by Mr.
Hooper: "Conservative evangelical leaders," he said, "would kill Muslims if
given the chance."
The assertion is ludicrous. Regardless of whether Falwell's and Robertson's
remarks are distasteful, or even factually correct, there's no logical
connection between insulting Islam's founder and slaughtering his followers.
Still, Hooper's charge is worth dwelling on. Note those final four words: if
given the chance. For even if Falwell and Robertson did harbor genocidal
impulses towards Muslims (which, of course, they don't), they could never
act on them.
Consider: American citizens enjoy mind-boggling freedoms compared with those
of Muslim nations, yet apparently feel constrained from waging rogue wars
against foreign interests. Citizens of Muslim nations, on the other hand,
where individual liberties are tightly circumscribed by repressive,
tyrannical regimes, apparently feel free to hatch, organize and carry out
homicidal assaults against whatever infidel targets present themselves.
The contrast is instructive. Notwithstanding Mr. Hooper's evangelical
paranoia, hundreds of Americans surely have the maniacal will, the technical
expertise and even the financial wherewithal to, say, arrange the hijacking
of an Air Jordan passenger flight in order to dive it straight into the Dome
of the Rock. But they will not get the chance.
Their friends and families would hear them planning it, their neighbors and
co-workers would observe them coordinating it . . . and someone, somewhere
would drop that dime. Law-enforcement agencies would be tipped off, and the
operation snuffed out before it ever got off the ground.
This imperative seems lost among Muslim cultures. Americans might not squeal
on their countrymen for lying, cheating or stealing, but few of us would
fail to report a plot to murder innocent civilians.
Think of it as the Code of the Unabomber's Brother. Where, in the Muslim
world, are the Unabomber's brothers?
That, indeed, is another sign of the superiority of our culture to Islamic
culture: We keep a lid on our lunatics.
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