“They hate our freedoms – our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
This is a primary reason, according to President Bush, why America was attacked on Sept. 11. Since then many regard this to be a fraudulent claim used only to rally the American people to war.
Is al-Qaida really fighting us because of our freedoms? There is a two-part answer to this question. First, simply put, yes. Al-Qaida’s underlying motive for fighting the U.S. is to stop the spread of American freedoms. However, it is not the elections process, nor the freedoms themselves al-Qaida is concerned with. It is the culture they believe our freedoms promote that al-Qaida does not want reaching the Middle East.
Our culture is abhorred by many Muslims, extremists and moderates. The difference is that moderates understand America is shaped by the people, and therefore can be molded to satisfy its constituency, while extremists feel that democracy itself is enough to destroy their culture and therefore must be wholly rejected.
Can Osama bin Laden and others sympathetic to him be blamed for fighting a war over culture? Let’s reflect on what American culture has become. While you read this, I would like you to apply these cultural truths to the Muslim world and take into account how different we are from them. In their world, religion is absolute. So, it is important to understand their customs from a non-ethnocentric point of view. While we may perceive that a free society is shaped by one’s traditions, al-Qaida sees a deteriorating culture in the American lifestyle and wants nothing to do with it.
You may not agree that these cultural values fully represent America, but outsiders certainly do. Having said this, a taste of our culture is as follows:
Religion is found nowhere in our society. If one atheist doesn’t want a nativity scene downtown, then it must be confiscated. Instead of saying Merry Christmas, we now say Happy Holidays. Almost yearly there are court challenges to the line “One nation under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance. Not only do we celebrate the “public art” of Jesus floating in urine and the Virgin Mary stained in elephant feces, the taxpayers fund it!
Divorce is the new marriage. The divorce rate has been steadily increasing since the 1950s, and is now between 40 and 50 percent. The religious aspect seems negotiable.
Planned Parenthood travels the world throwing condoms at kids’ faces. Middle school students take field trips to abortion clinics. Still, every year more and more kids are having kids of their own. I don’t suspect it’s caused by a shortage of condoms or the pill.
Both parents are encouraged to work full-time, leaving their children at a daycare center. The idea that having a family is not synonymous with more responsibility has become widely accepted.
Americans have created a society in which moral relativism dominates, and a mentality that no one can be judged for their actions is prevalent. This has caused us to care more about what drug Lindsay Lohan is putting up her nose than the increasing and illegitimate dynamism of the UN, or the power trip that Vladimir Putin is on in Russia.
These developments in our culture have primarily ridden on the Trojan horse of freedom. And while we may know that these cultural phenomenons are voluntarily subscribed to by some citizens, other countries – particularly Middle Eastern ones – disagree. And the extremists are willing to fight to stop it, for Islamic religion calls on its followers to die in order to halt the believed destruction of their religious values. Those who are deemed martyrs are people who sacrifice themselves in order to prevent what they conclude to be an infringement on their religion.
For these reasons our politicians need to stop using the term “democracy.” When Biden, Huckabee, Giuliani, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Obama and President Bush call for a promotion of democracy in the Middle East they only rally al-Qaida’s troops, and upset some moderate Muslims. Democracy has an entirely different meaning to bin Laden and his followers than it does to us. For them it means they can’t practice their religion in public, and even more disturbing, that religion cannot be invoked by any government official. And who says they are wrong? All we have to do is reference our own culture.
Instead, President Bush and other western leaders need only to designate and emphasize elections as a satisfactory governing process. Let the people of the country at issue decide what freedoms and immoral values they will pursue, if any. Muslims are not opposed to electing their own representatives. They just don’t want to turn on the television – which exaggerates but still influences American culture – and find Desperate Housewives, Friends, Tila Tequila or The Real World.
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