Thinking

I've been trying, without much luck, to get my mind around the idea of those professional people in England being terrorists. I know it hasn't been proven, but I'm assuming its true. I would have as easily assumed that the priest on the altar would whip out a weapon and start shooting as I would have expected that people who were in professional positions would want to commit acts of carnage and mayhem. It doesn't match up with my image of the people who can be expected to want to do this. It weakens, somewhat, my understanding of what drives people like this -- and that understanding was not all that substantial to begin with.

An article on the International Herald Tribune web site makes the point that this is the result of two intersecting attitudes - one, that there are Muslims who are professionals who believe that either a substantial amount of or all knowledge can be derived from the Koran, and, to that end, they will disregard or gainsay anything that does not come from that source, particularly if it contradicts the findings that they develop using it, and two, that there are Muslims who have a deep distrust of the West, which they believe has taken over or polluted their culture, and they fiercely resent that alteration. When these attitudes merge, it generates the belief that, essentially, 'If its not in or from the Koran, I don't accept it, and if you don't accept it, you're either an apostate or an enemy'. In most cases, this stays at the 'attitude' level, encouraging a rigid Islamic-oriented orthodoxy of thought. In others, it goes further, to the belief that they must act to eliminate these enemies because their existence and their society is a threat to what they believe. This is, apparently, the source of the attitudes in these two men.

If this is true, what should be done about it, and what can be done about it?

I don't believe that we should discourage people who want to find their scientific underpinnings in the Koran. I don't agree with that approach, just as I don't agree with Christian fundamentalists who say that if it isn't in the Bible, they don't believe it, but, if they want to use that as their basis, fine. They may be on to something.

But we need to become aware when that attitude of constrained inquiry mutates into the second part of the equation - ' If you don't accept it, you're ... an enemy'. Is it possible to generate that awareness without becoming the kind of police state that Bush and company advocate?