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Radical Islam or Fundamentalist Christianity!

Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File
By Dickson Igwe

The recent burst of murderous terror: The Sinai, Beirut, Paris, and now Mali, in which hundreds of innocents have lost their lives, men women and children, asks the questions: is freedom becoming a bad word? Is freedom under attack? And if so: why?

OK. Roger Cohen writing in the New York Times on August 13, 2015, stated that a hatred of freedom was driving global extremism.

And understand this: the acceptance of gay marriage, minority rights and protections, then add free speech, free association, and gender equality, require a high level of social tolerance that can only truly exist in a free democracy, with strong institutions, that protect these freedoms.

Now, after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, that culture of freedom the fall signified has been in retreat around the world. And this is especially so this early 21st Century. Why?

Interestingly, even Vladimir Putin has attacked the culture of freedom in the west, describing freedom as, “irreligious, decadent, relativist, and intent on globalising subversive values.” A new decadence is being promoted, “under the cover of democracy, freedom, and human rights,” according to the Russian strongman.

Now, both Radical Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity feature a similar culture. Both promote aggressively a focus on strong families, moral education, social order, place, meaningful death, and the will to persist as dominant cultures.

Both comprise of cultures that, “despise the present, and dream of stepping back in history, to recover what they imagine is lost.”

Radical Islam, like Fundamental Christianity offers salvation. However, Islam offers its own version of salvation, unlike the salvation through Jesus Christ that Christianity offers.

Islam offers purpose. Moral parameters are strictly set. Daily habits are prescribed. Every day needs are assured. Arguably, Islam is more disciplined and rigorous than Christianity.

Islamic State, by taking away freedom, “lifts a psychological weight off its young followers adrift on the margins of European society.” The burden of freedom is removed. In its place there is assurance, faith, structure. Freedom, with its rationalisation, reason, and culture of doubt is discarded.

Islamic State is tapping into something deep. This is a yearning to be released from the “burden of freedom.”

Freedom in the West has meant a release from ties of tradition or religion. Freedom in religion is the polar opposite. Tradition, custom, and religion are the pathways to true freedom. Secular freedom is different from religious freedom.

Some argue that it is actually harder to live the secular life than the life of faith. Secular freedom is more difficult to follow than religious freedom. Religious freedom demands rules and decrees set in stone.

In the West, an avant garde culture of freedom has allowed people to marry whom they want, and divorce as often as they want, have sex with whom they want, die when they want, do what they want, with few moral boundaries. Some would argue that this is a new form of slavery: a life that is much more difficult to live than the religious life.  

On the other hand, Radical Islam offers “true freedom,” and this is manifested in a violent rejection of modernity.

It is a culture that pursues the establishment of Allah’s rule on earth through his chosen Caliph and in accordance with Shariah Law.

Radical Islam has been adept in exploiting the alienation felt by many young Muslims from the ‘Quartiers of Paris’ to the ‘back streets of Bradford.’ Radical Islam offers to give meaning to meaningless lives. That is very attractive to the petty thief from Algeria and the Moroccan prostitute holed up in a ghetto in Paris.

Radical Islam has used anger over America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, over Shia ascendancy in the Middle East, over bleak existences on the margins of European society.

It offers escape from these evils, and their ultimate vanquishing. Fundamentalist Christianity may not be as radical, but it too offers certainties that cannot be obtained in a secular culture.

Ultimately, no one can understand why a 20 something Briton with a degree in computer engineering or a young Frenchman from a Norman village reaches a psychological tipping point where he is willing to die for what he perceives as a great cause.

Zealotry of any kind subsumes the difficulty of individual choices. Zealotry promotes the exalted collective submission of dedication to a cause. The mission is set. The mission is presented as a great one. The rewards for successfully completing the mission are great. There are none of the tough calls, despairing loneliness, and final goodbyes, that are part of the culture of freedom.

There is only a life of dedication.

In the case of Radical Islam or aspects of the radical culture, it offers a Caliphate backed by digital propaganda. 

Living in a free democracy requires an acceptance of the “burden of freedom.” That burden of freedom allows a happiness that in a free society requires adapting to a set of nuances, norms, traditions, and rules, that lead to a cosmopolitan way of life.

The cosmopolitan culture is one that accepts and tolerates a multitude of cultural subsets, albeit within the parameters set by the dominant culture in a specific geographic space.

A refusal to accept the burden of freedom brings a susceptibility to go to the other extreme. It places the individual much more easily in the jaws of intolerance, and even radical extremism.

Bear in mind that extremism can be political. From the radical right to the radical left, both political types are reactions to the dominant political culture which in most societies is moderate, and sits right to left of center.

That is the great paradox. Western Freedom is a form of slavery. It is slavery to the culture of tolerance. It is slavery to the acceptance of the cultures and values of others who are unlike oneself, or who differ from the dominant culture.

True freedom is actually the tougher choice!

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