A Moslem Solution

Thomas Friedman echoes Bernard Lewis (and yours truly) today when he says that the terrorism problem is a Moslem problem that wants a Moslem solution.

[T]he greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The real, permanent solution, of course, is for more people to accept a rational ethical code of self-interest, making their own self-interest a positive motivation for civilized behavior. In the meantime, if the Moslems want to live for much longer, they should seriously consider what Friedman says.

[E]ither the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

If the West really does want to live, then the Moslems are going to find genuine reform to be in their best interests.

-- CAV

PS: How does Friedman echo Lewis? Lewis describes the historical development of the idea of separation of church and state as a "Christian problem with a Christian solution." In one sentence: After Christianity had splintered into many sects, all hellbent on persecuting each other, it gradually became clear that the only way to avoid constant bloodshed was to keep any one religion from wielding the power of the state. The parallel to the problem of Islamofascism is that the Moslems have to accept the idea that a pluralistic society is okay, which means not tolerating the terrorists or their goals.