With liberals struggling to figure out ways to say bad things about Boko Haram without at same time saying 'bad' things about Islam or even just mentioning the word 'Islamists' at all [although kudos to Bill Maher for being one of the few lefty types willing to publicly go negative viz the problems with Islam - there's a lot he says I'm no fan of but have to give him credit for being quite possibly the only opinionist in the left leaning media still holding firm to enough objective integrity to actually speak hard truths about a subject the liberal elite has decreed taboo and never to be raised amongst polite illuminati] - anyway, with liberals squirming under the unpleasant inability to employ reality squashing doublespeak like 'workplace violence' or tie the madness to an absurd video or simply banish the inconvenient vulgarity as if it were an address being given at Brandeis by an untouchable [ie anyone who does not think exactly the way we do] I was reminded of this fine essay taking to task Tony Blair for trying to warn of the dangers of Islamist extremism while holding fast to the delusion that extremism is somehow unnatural to religious convictions. Blair's countryman, John Locke, a very pious man, wrote four hundred years ago about the harmful uses religious conviction can be put to and therefore of why separation of church and state and the avid protection of personal liberty, private property and a private conscience were so important - and yet here's Blair all these centuries later trying to talk about Islam as if those thoughts were irrelevant to its practice.
All religious convictions, by the very nature of their guiding parameters and modes of believing, are liable to the allure of extremism - in other words, extremism is a natural by-product of faith if that tendency or potentiality is not mitigated or balanced out by external factors - this is especially true of religious convictions buttressed by an inherent political component - that four hundred years after Locke the Muslim world is still not free nor willing it seems to allow others the freedom to talk about their faith the way Locke and those that followed him did of theirs is proof of how strong and pronounced an influence the political component of Islam is - and an apt demonstration of why Blair's inability or refusal to recognize that reality is naively foolish or delusional - indeed, in trying to appease the diktats of correct speech as defined by the autocratic left and the ever eager to be aggrieved Muslims by artificially attempting to separate legitimate from illegitimate when it comes to religious ideology and convictions Blair is essentially proving the point he's trying so hard to avoid talking about - namely, that religion and extremism go hand in hand - hell, that's true of any doctrinal belief system that is held together and sustains itself through blind faith - given the right circumstances, extremist abuse is always just a step or two away because fear and failure are always just a step or two away - control becomes paramount - and if economic and political evolution cannot wrest that control from out of the oppressors hands, then cultural stagnation, extremism and autocratic abuse are the natural result - and thus you have the Muslim world. I mean, we would never argue [well, some would] about whether it was Philip's Armada or Elizabeth's protestantism that was the legitimate expression of Christianity - we realise that'd be a silly argument to have - we would recognise rather that Philip's vision was of a Europe that was slowly fading and Elizabeth's ramparts a new world that was rising to the fore - and this was four hundred and thirty some odd years ago!! Could any Muslim leader today say what Elizabeth said all those years ago - "I would not open windows into men's souls" - and survive? And yet Blair et al want to talk as if that isn't the real problem here?
Look, I give Blair credit for trying to engage on an important subject and I understand that given the repressive idiocy of political correctness he has to couch his language in falsehoods and obfuscations - indeed, given that England with its debate killing 'hate speech' laws has bent over backwards to try and appease Muslim sensitivities, if he didn't couch his language in deceptions he might find himself in jail - still, please tell me he as a former PM of England who obviously knows well its fraught religious history with its Bloody Marys and Tyndales and Cromwells etc etc, please tell me a man like that doesn't actually believe that when it comes to religion extremism is somehow a perverse aberration and not an abuse entirely to be expected given the right circumstances, nor believe that when it comes to the backward looking nature of Islam and the encroaching modern world that those circumstances do not exist aplenty.
All religious convictions, by the very nature of their guiding parameters and modes of believing, are liable to the allure of extremism - in other words, extremism is a natural by-product of faith if that tendency or potentiality is not mitigated or balanced out by external factors - this is especially true of religious convictions buttressed by an inherent political component - that four hundred years after Locke the Muslim world is still not free nor willing it seems to allow others the freedom to talk about their faith the way Locke and those that followed him did of theirs is proof of how strong and pronounced an influence the political component of Islam is - and an apt demonstration of why Blair's inability or refusal to recognize that reality is naively foolish or delusional - indeed, in trying to appease the diktats of correct speech as defined by the autocratic left and the ever eager to be aggrieved Muslims by artificially attempting to separate legitimate from illegitimate when it comes to religious ideology and convictions Blair is essentially proving the point he's trying so hard to avoid talking about - namely, that religion and extremism go hand in hand - hell, that's true of any doctrinal belief system that is held together and sustains itself through blind faith - given the right circumstances, extremist abuse is always just a step or two away because fear and failure are always just a step or two away - control becomes paramount - and if economic and political evolution cannot wrest that control from out of the oppressors hands, then cultural stagnation, extremism and autocratic abuse are the natural result - and thus you have the Muslim world. I mean, we would never argue [well, some would] about whether it was Philip's Armada or Elizabeth's protestantism that was the legitimate expression of Christianity - we realise that'd be a silly argument to have - we would recognise rather that Philip's vision was of a Europe that was slowly fading and Elizabeth's ramparts a new world that was rising to the fore - and this was four hundred and thirty some odd years ago!! Could any Muslim leader today say what Elizabeth said all those years ago - "I would not open windows into men's souls" - and survive? And yet Blair et al want to talk as if that isn't the real problem here?
Look, I give Blair credit for trying to engage on an important subject and I understand that given the repressive idiocy of political correctness he has to couch his language in falsehoods and obfuscations - indeed, given that England with its debate killing 'hate speech' laws has bent over backwards to try and appease Muslim sensitivities, if he didn't couch his language in deceptions he might find himself in jail - still, please tell me he as a former PM of England who obviously knows well its fraught religious history with its Bloody Marys and Tyndales and Cromwells etc etc, please tell me a man like that doesn't actually believe that when it comes to religion extremism is somehow a perverse aberration and not an abuse entirely to be expected given the right circumstances, nor believe that when it comes to the backward looking nature of Islam and the encroaching modern world that those circumstances do not exist aplenty.