Jay Currie

Other than a few cheap shots at Bush, Jason Burke’s Guardian review of four books on al Qaeda is well worth reading right the way through. But he brings up a structural argument which has always struck me as sensible,

This all seems to suggest that contemporary radical “Islamic” militancy might share more than just structure and language with more secular ideologies. Rather than being rooted in “Islam”, as many maintain, it might, at least in part, be a product of very major shifts on a worldwide scale that have provoked a sense of alienation and uncertainty among hundreds of millions of people as well as, crucially, a simultaneous sense of grievance and anger at what is perceived to be the unjust nature of the distribution of power in the contemporary world. If radical leftwing thought was a product of the massive changes in the late 19th century, and rightwing extremism a consequence of the political, social and cultural instability of the early and middle decades of the 20th century, then radical Islam, as well as the resurgent fundamentalisms elsewhere across the globe, might be a function of the inherent instability, both creative and destructive, of our own era.
the guardian

For decently educated, relatively hip, Westerners the last thirty years have been a blur of creative destruction. From landline telephones to pornographic advertising, the end of childhood to the complete emancipation of women, the death of network TV, the rise of broadband internet, the emptying of the traditional churches: the future is here in a rush.

Now, imagine this from the perspective of a village elder in Yemen or Pakistan or Iran. Your young people want the ‘net and cellphones but those bring with them the emancipation of women and lots and lots of porn. For generations you and the mullah have been the only source of authority in your wee patch. None of the kids could even think of challenging you because they didn’t know anything and could find out. The traditional education – memorizing the Koran in Arabic – equiped the kids for no role at all in a modern world. But, let one internet wired computer into the village and the madrassa will have serious competition.

Worse, not being an ignorant man, you are well aware that the technology carries with it the values of the people who made the technology. Their assumptions, not yours. From the Godless DVDs to the quick adoption of rap and hip hop by urban Muslim kids, you realize that the village way of life is under assault by the minnions of the Great Satan.

Then there is the awful fact that if you want your people and your nation to get ahead, or even stay even, you have to learn these technologies. Which will make your children un-Islamic. Which will make them question your authority and their submission to your God. It is not hard to see the consequences: you have only to look at the drug addiction and whorishness of the West.

And, as you retire for the evening you are left with the other, awful, thought: perhaps there is something about Islam which makes it impossible for real Muslims to live in the modern world. What the Prophet revealed seems not to travel all that well once out of the desert and the 7th century. But it is the law.

When law collides with a changed reality, slowly, but surely, the law changes. It is interpreted to fit the new circumstances. Or, and here is the seed of a thought which begins the radical journey: if reality is not in accord with the law then it is reality which must be changed.

It is not at all difficult to imagine tens of thousands of village elders and local imams, powers in their own five square miles, coming to the conclusion that the reality of the modern age is simply against all the Koran dictates. As the Koran is seen by the faithful as the inerrant Word of God that means that modern reality must be, in itself, a heresy.

From there it is not too many steps to the idea that the proper object of jihad is nothing less than the destruction of the heretical reality and a return to a world in which the proper life of a Muslim is to worship Allah and, only then, seek his way in the world.

It is a position which had a tremendous appeal in the 17th century Christian World with Puritan sects demanding a rigorous Protestantism in England and other Protestant nations. Words like heretic, ungodly and unrightous carried penalties every bit as barbaric as the excesses of todays Muslim Puritians. Being burnt at the stake for heresy or witchcraft or Catholicism was no picnic and happened regularly. Not that Catholic Europe was any less savage: the Inquisition was bureaucratically barbaric in an equally unenlightend cause.

In the end the analysis suggesting a clash of civilizations may be slightly beside the point: it may be that the village elder is sending his most promising boys off on their jihad against a point in time rather than a particular civilization. The sad fact is that while a civilization may be defeated or changed, time is a relentless enemy. It cannot be defeated. The 7th century or the 13th century or last week is over. it cannot be changed and it cannot be brought back. The car, the atomic bomb, the computer and the internet cannot be uninvented.

Time’s arrow points in only one direction which terrifies the elders and the imams and the jihadis – they know it is already too late.

Update: Now this is just mean: Here are the patents granted numbers:

We have added data from China, India and Japan in another piece above. Our thesis remains unchanged. Final score: Infidels 250,000, Umma 20.
dinocrat

And Tigerhawk piles on with “The Muslims of invention” My ex-mother in law has more patents than the Muslim world – no, really, she has about fifty in chemistry.