Smiting the other cheek of fundamentalism

Hugh Caldwell writes today in the forum on Terrorism:

Perhaps you should consider the notion of religion as the fancy dress which people put on their motivations and not the motivation itself. Otherwise, the co-operation between Islam and Christianity would be perfect. One lot would be turning its cheek and the other lot would be smiting it and both would feel highly religious.

And I, in another part, put this forward:

Fundamentalism is one of the drivers of terrorism. In a world dominated by change, uncertainty and superficiality, some individuals find certainty in total absorption in an ideology, religion, or nationalism. Their certainty affirms their being-in-the-world. The exist versus their enemies, find their identity in their struggle with their opponents, as paranoid schizophrenics finds identity versus their persecutors; paranoid schizophrenics do not undergo the ego-fragmentation that characterises other forms of schizophrenia. If Roger Scruton is more comfortable in describing this state of mind as resentment at others' success, I can live with that, although I find it a little constrained, and light on the oppression that provokes the resentment.

The terrorists find intense fellowship and comradeship with others in their group - although they are also liable to disagreements and schism. This kind of fundamentalism, when armed, is dangerous. One good thing about it is that the very intensity cannot be sustained for long, and tends to burn out, especially if they are sidelined, and denied the oxygen of publicity and the hydrogen of unjust treatment.

This is a pattern that is not restricted to al-Qaeda, but can be found throughout human society, through the RAF (Red Army Faction) and Baader Meinhof, the IRA etc, right up to the neo-cons in the Bush White House.

And yes, OK, I admit that there is a tendency in some parts of the Green movement to a kind of fundamentalism, but it is well offset by true ecologists in the movement. And I totally reject the slanders of eco-terrorism and eco-fascism that are carelessly tossed at us by extremists on the Right and the Left.

But as ever, the real question is - what is to be done about this fundamentalism? It cannot be reasoned with. (Or can it?).

Here is my personal summary, after five weeks of obsessive activity on this forum:

Moderates within the same community can distance themselves from extremist actions more clearly, and work with moderates in other communities to address with non-violent methods the grievances that drive the fundamentalists.

We must defend ourselves from the violent acts of the fundamentalists, using intelligence, the police and law, but not violent military repression (the "War on Terror") as this only exacerbates the problem.

We need action everywhere, especially in the Middle East to reduce repression and increase democracy, (democracy in its widest sense understood as feedback loops in the body politic enabling the ruled to influence the rulers). This must be enabled especially in Israel, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Egypt, and Libya - but the USA and the UK also need to look at serious deficits in their democratic processes.

Action to address economic and ecological problems in the region - primarily water resources, solar power re-afforestation, and other first rank stuff like housing and employment, will divert attention and energy from destruction to construction.

This is how I see the solution. It is necessarily incomplete and flawed, because I am not a fundamentalist. What else do we need to cure the problem?

Same Difference?

A member of the Open Democracy discussion forum on terrorism puts this question:
Are there immense cultural differences or many many core similarities among the various peoples in our world?

Like the terrorist/freedom fighter question, the question of which is greater, our similarities or our differences, has no fixed and final answer, because it depends on a judgment. If we look for differences, we will find differences, and if we look for similarities we will find similarities.

Someone who bases their identity in their nationality or their religion will be able to see only differences, and this will predispose to conflict. Someone who is secure in their identity as a human being, and moreover as a human being in harmony with their social and natural environment will be able to see the similarities. IMHO

Whose freedom, and from what, George?

The presenters tell us that Dubya's charm offensive in Europe is going well. His speeches centre on freedom. There is hardly any mention of motherhood, and apple pie may be mentioned later, but has not come up yet.

George is big on freedom. The attack on 9/11 was clearly an atack on freedom. Why? Because it was an attack on America, and Americal is symbolised (a) by the Statue of Liberty (Liberty = Freedom, geddit?) and (b) by the eagle, which is a symbol of freedom, because it can fly really high, and Dubya's envirnomental policies have not yet wiped it out.

Thing is, unlike apple pie, freedom is not a self existent thing. Not that apple pie is self existent - it needs a bowl, for instance, and a table to sit on, but at least you can hold and eat an apple pie. You cannot touch or eat freedom. Freedom, to be meningful, must be freedom-from-something. What is pure freedom? Could anyone be more purely free than a nudist in space? Free from all restraints of clothing and gravity, yes. But dead.

So freedom as a word is only meaningful if it comes with the object from which one is free. Dubya is a politician. Freedom in a democratic political setting means a wide set of political freedoms. Freedom from vote rigging. Dubya fails here (Votergate). Freedom from imprisonment without trial Dubya fails here(Camp X-Ray). Freedom of political dissent. Dubya fails here (peace groups subject to spying). Freedom from being lied to. Dubya fails here (most everything he says). Freedom of Speech and thought (Patriot Act).

What he does stand for is a market free of regulation. That's what freedom means for Dubya. "Free market, free lunch", as his friend Tony would say. Or, "How do we spell schmeedom, Mr Bush, sir?" as journalists of the Free Western Press would say.

Storm Shelter

They say that rain’s like tears.
What do they know?

I’ve seen real rain
run down the faces of my friends

while they laughed and cried
with playful happiness

to greet the huge warm drops
splashed down from
- not clouds

if these grey slops are clouds -
from bulging
dizzy uproarious pregnant
white blue-black grey light-shot
sky mountains. How do they know

there are no gods in there?
What does a man of any colour know of gods?

Those trembling raindrops
turned tawny dust a bloody brown

and in a lightning flash (it seemed to us )
the magic world turned green.

That’s rain. This isn’t rain.
It’s more like a cold sweat

one drawn out moment when you
wake from nightmare

and fear to sleep again
in case you go back in.

But this is worse, the nightmare carries on
under the sun. You’re caught both ways.

Instead of thunder
we got bombs

instead of flames from dry thorn sticks
crackling to warm a calabash of stew

we got the spitting fire
of small-arms battle noise

and all that sunlit
brown skin life joy stopped.

This cold thin silver greyness
is not tears. Tears are hot.

Faces that shone with rain
went still as stones, eyes now forever dry,

open in blank surprise,
and dead teeth shining

cloud white in faces pillowed
in brown skin mother mud.

The sun forever left my land
only the burning stayed.

Dreamlike we travelled,
ran, hid and waited until

somehow that moment
when the big bird roared and pushed

and I was born again
borne off the rumbling roughness of the ground

smooth into sunlit white-cloud world
where gods live for a day

to wake up
here

stood on a tarry Bristol road
polished with streetlights

crashing with cars
cold water running down my face

caught here alone, alive
but in a cold dark hell.

Of course, it doesn’t always rain.
Sometimes I see a spark of good in someone’s eyes.








© Richard Lawson

A Question for Free Marketeers

I once had the chance to put a question to William Waldegrave, a Tory Minister (back in the days when we had such things):-

How come that free market capitalism, which consists of sinful men (he is a Catholic, and Tories seem to believe in original sin anyway, but it sti;ll works without original sin) competing against each other for filthy lucre, which is the root of all evil, can produce the best of all possible economic worlds?

He wriggled briefly, than said "Well , that is just the way it is."

Me, I think the market needs to be guided with regulations and tax incentives and disincentives which reflect social and ecological realities.