What She Saw from the Tower

Last night I went to a talk by Emile Nakhleh, ex. CIA . . . he believes that we need more dialogue with Islamic organizations. Some of his more noteworthy quotes are listed below:

"We've interviewed hundreds of Islamists worldwide . . . in how to engage the Muslim world"

"Religious nationalist ideology is a driving . . .force in Muslim countries."

" . . the phenomena of Islamization after 9/11 . . . ."

"99% of Muslims do not support terrorism"

"Different religious interpretations have contributed to diversity in religious nationalist ideology"

"Painting the whole Islamic world with broad brush of terrorism is wrong"

"Implementation of Shari'a not incompatible to democratic governments and countries"

and the list goes on and on and on ad nauseum.

"There is no one interpretation of Islam." Great.

He also believes that engagement between the Muslim world and other worlds must be done at the highest levels of government. Why must we bend over just for Muslims? Why not Animists? Why is Islam such a problem? Why do they wish to kill a former Muslim for converting to another religion?

Now this is strange talk from a Catholic born in Nazareth. Why must there be two worlds anyway? Why must we "engage" the American Islamic community in order to engage the larger world community? Are we not on the same planet? As my grandmother said, "Everyone puts their pants on the same way." Very wise words.

Obviously Mr. Nakhleh believes that Muslims should be set apart as a special breed of human being---are we not all created in God's image? Have we "engaged" the Jewish community or the Christian community or the Buddhist . . . .???

My understanding of this is just another Kumbayah gathering, all of us holding hands, singing "Let There Be Peace On Earth."

Someone I know said something very very wise: "Understand and accept the other's ways, for in this lies happiness." Not so true in everything, however. We do not understand everything in the universe, it is impossible. We do not understand why some cultures consider "honor killings" (the very word "honor" combined with "killings" is appalling) honorable; it is simply an excuse for murder. We do not understand a mother maming their child to garner more sympathy while they do their daily begging on the streets of Karachi. And we do not understand every different religious belief in the world. And why should we? In our own private, insular worlds, we have problems enough to deal with, let alone trying to understand everything else going on.

A comment was raised by a member of the audience: He stated that Islam is intolerant of other religions, as opposed to another member of the audience who stated that Islam is the most tolerant religion. I happen to agree with the former statment, but the history of religion will show that other religions, i.e. Catholicism and the so-called Christians of the Crusades, were also intolerant. Remember the Spanish Inquisition: anyone who would not accept Catholicism was tortured in the most horrific ways. The Crusaders killed thousands of those who refused to become Christians. This is not what Christ preached. So we can conclude that these people and the Inquisitors were not really religious at all--or were they? Did they really think that oppression would make people respect them and accept their religions?

"Religion. . .It is the opium of the people." Thank you, Mr. Marx, it certainly is. Religion is created by man, therefore makes the partaker of it mesmerized with the drug of mindlessness. Belief in God, however, without the religious trappings created by man, is something altogether different.

But I digress. In conclusion, I will say that Mr. Nakleh's ideas seem to make sense on paper, but in reality will never work. Dialogue with organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood cannot work. Two groups--them and us---engaging in dialogue about what? Organizations that use violence and killing to gain acceptance in the world will never be considered legitimate. Unless everyone in the world realizes that the heart has to change first, then there will never be peace, which is the ultimate goal of the world, and unfortunately, something that has been, so far, elusive in this life.