So even Muslims v (your team here) doesn't quite cover it. You don't have to have a team or even be aware that you belong to any side. You can be a hippie-dippy hey-man-I-love-everybody-whatever-your-bag-is-cool backpacking Dutch stoner, and they'll blow you up with as much enthusiasm as if you were Dick Cheney. As a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden put it in 2002, explaining why they bombed a French oil tanker: "We would have preferred to hit a US frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels."
No problem. In our time, even the most fascistic ideologies have been savvy enough to cover their darker impulses in sappy labels. The Soviet bloc was comprised of wall-to-wall "people's republics", which is the precise opposite of what they were: a stylistic audacity Orwell caught perfectly in 1984, with its Ministry of Truth (that is, official lies). But the Islamists don't even bother going through the traditional rhetorical feints. They say what they mean and they mean what they say. "We are here as on a darkling plain ..." wrote Matthew Arnold in the famous concluding lines to Dover Beach, "where ignorant armies clash by night".
But we choose in large part to stay in ignorance. Blow up the London Underground during a G8 summit and the world's leaders twitter about how tragic and ironic it is that this should have happened just as they're taking steps to deal with the issues, as though the terrorists are upset about poverty in Africa and global warming.
So, even in a great blinding flash of clarity, we can't wait to switch the lights off and go back to fumbling around on the darkling plain. Bali three years ago and Bali three days ago light up the sky: they make unavoidable the truth that Islamism is a classic "armed doctrine"; it exists to destroy.
Re: Bali hit by blasts
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks