"Islam versus Western Civilization. This struggle transcends nation-states. It is one great ideology clashing with another."
Excellent.
Here's the thing... Several of the lead planners and top operatives in 9/11 were actually European Muslims, in addition to other parts of the globe, so Islamic extremists are not just limited to the Middle East, as we are now finally discovering. They're everywhere. They are large in number, but not nearly as large as many might think. (
"Jim Jones, David Koresh and Meir Kahane do not typify Christianity and Judaism in the eyes of the civilized West, but those same eyes are prone to see Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar as typifying Islam," Richard Bulliet) Look at the recent news and arrests in the UK. Those extremists were all British citizens. We've had home grown American extremists thrown into the mix.
One thing that must be understood is that part of the reason for this large movement (relatively speaking) of extremism by some Muslims is due to humiliation. Many Islamic extremists are not just some poor, dumb people who are easily influenced. Many are highly educated children of privilege who suffer from damaged pride more than anything, and it's that damaged pride and humiliation that makes their mind malleable.
Islam teaches that it is the purest form of religion, the only right, correct and proper religion (of course, many religions teach the same thing) and Islamic extremists take this to heart and are convinced that Islam is the best, better than any other religion, ergo they must be better people. But when Muslims from the Middle East or European Muslims look at other parts of the world and other cultures, they see prosperity and growth. Prosperity and growth, for the individual and for society at large, is very much lacking in the Middle East. Spain for example (former crown jewl of the Islam empire), has a higher GDP than all of the Middle East combined. How is that for a slap in the face to Muslims who think they are supposed to be the greatest people there is? Just one small example, but it's things like this that lead to lashing out at other countries, other cultures, especially the West. Islam as a whole has been left behind in globalization. The Middle East overall has been lacking in the cultural and economic reforms needed to promote acceptance and tolerance, thus they are left to eat the dust of Europe and North America (granted, while we're all eating the dust of China).
Saudi Arabia is a prime example of a major Islamic state that has refused to do anything about promoting tolerance with other cultures, or any sort of reforms. People there live under a brutal royal family, which has managed to stay in power due to the one card they can hold over all others..... oil. They own it, they control it. The classic Golden Rule, in black. With control of their oil, no one is willing to dethrone them, therefor the royal family can do whatever it likes. Several of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, which shows a lack of reforms. Nigeria is another emerging example of zero reforms and tolerance for other cultures, not to mention a total lack of prosperity.
Some small Middle Eastern countries have turned things around and become more open to the world, like Bahrain and Du Bai. Not many terrorists coming from there. Bahrain was the first Middle East country to profit from their oil, and the first to run out of it. Once their oil was gone, they woke up and realized they had to reform because in order to survive in the world, both economically and culturally, their country had to tolerate other cultures and other societies so that business could prosper in other areas unrelated to oil.
European and Western Muslims also suffer humiliation, at least in the eyes of many Muslims. Wasn't too long ago that France banned the use of traditional Islamic headwear for women in schools. That kind of thing is an example of humiliation to Muslims. It would be different if the Jewboy Beanies were banned, too, but they're not. To many Muslims, they feel they are not respected or treated properly in Europe and elsewhere throughout the West.
Bin Laden and others, et al, are masters at manipulating these feelings of anger and humiliation and transforming it into something zealous, crazy, and very dangerous (Major Nadal, for example). They say that Islam is the chosen religion and that the West is poison and must die. What does Bin Laden and others, et al, want? He/they wants the world to go back to the 7th century, when Islam was in it's prime, with an empire going from Asia through North Africa, and was united, and at the time it was the worlds greatest empire. The extremist movement is both political and religious. What the radical leaders want is religious totalitarianism. In a sense, they are like Hitler, Mussolini, and Lenin, whereby they offer a message to those people who feel frustrated, angered and desperate. What Bin Laden and others, et al, preaches is Islamism in which the personal relationship with Allah is taken out of Islam and instead it is transformed into a religious ideology like fascism or communism. It is a system to give "justice" to those Muslims who are angry, and the leaders control. It is not a religion, because religion is meant to bring inner peace, not outer destruction.
Why don't you hear of too many terrorists from Asia? Well thats not to say there are none (because there are a few) but for the most part, Asian Muslims are much more stable than Middle East or European Muslims. Why? Take India, for example. Over 1 billion people, and over 400 million of them are Muslims. Yet why are there not many Indian Islamic terrorists? Because the society there has been much different compared to other Muslim communities. Muslims are not being left behind in economic prosperity in India. They have a chance there (albeit often in the guise of
Bob of AT&T Customer Service), and with that chance they are not being humiliated, but being given hope and a chance to prosper.
From
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman:
"...when a Muslim grows up in India and he sees a man living in a big mansion high on a hill, he say, 'Father, one day, I will be that man.' And when a Muslim grows up in Pakistan and sees a man living in a big mansion high on a hill, he says, 'Father, one day I will kill that man.'"
It's a clash of cultures and ideologies.
