Let me start by stating that I am very, very English. I drink tea. When I'm not drinking tea, I drink gin and tonic. I am strongly in favour of free trade. I believe that laws are there for the benefit of all and should be respected (except silly ones involving foxes). I think professionalism has ruined sport. In the face of angry confrontation, I may raise an eyebrow (just the one, mind). My response to a crisis is to put the kettle on. I have been known to fix my car using my shoelace.
So how can I be surprised by the attraction of the idea of international brotherhood, which Islam has so successfully promoted? Why should I be surprised if it is more attractive than the uncertain benefits of patriotism towards a poky little nation which even its most eloquent natives have difficulty in describing?
I also think there is something deeply English about living with uncertainty. We are, after all, one of the most agnostic nations in the world (not necessarily secular; just agnostic). We have a long history of scientific and technological advancement, and what is more fundamental to science than uncertainty? Even our parliamentary system enshrines enormous powers to a government which may have only won by the tiniest of margins (in other words, we may not trust them but we'll let them get on with it). And let's not get on to talking about the weather.
So how can I be surprised when young Muslims, seeking to make sense of their lives - seeking to create their own narratives, in the style of the narratives that they know, which are from Hollywood and Bollywood and are simple and black-and-white, turn away from being English?
And finally, if we're talking about narratives - who'd want to pin their colours to the mast of a country which seems to export villainy, in all its forms - movie baddies, imperialist history, or military equipment?
29 comments:
Great feeling, feeling cosmopolitan. I always used to feel that way in the Winter Garden in NYC. Walking on its steps, bright colors, people from all over the world, I always used to get a Star Trek:NG feeling -- a peaceful future civilization.
Course the glass ceiling was broken by the falling WTC. I've been since. Not the same feeling.
Blind patriotism can be dangerous. But if you fail to indoctrinate the young generation in your own values, how would you expect them to honor any of them? Why value democracy? Why value freedom of speech? Some level of group unity is actually necessary for a civil society.
It is fair to expect immigrants to want to be part of that society -- after all, you're not just renting the place out, you're accepting people into your home.
And finally -- it's ok to strive to understand why people are dissaffected. But don't forget to survive.
Therefore, I propose the republic of Bakuria!
No, I'm just being silly.
Although I grew up in England, I always regarded myself as "British" rather than "English" - I was born abroad, after all, but I also found those who regarded themselves as "English" to be Home Counties insular and smug, happy in their class-ridden humdrum ruts.
Great observations, Moom. (BTW, the Haynes manual for my MG BGT states that the lace should be from a pair of Brogue's, others (e.g. DMs, and Nike's) just won't do!)
I thought it was strange how differently this government treats the threat of terrorism... Remember when the IRA where doing their damnedest in London? People were weary, but mostly just went about their business. There was none of the current headless chicken behaviour... Or at least if there was, it wasn't widely reported.
What also struck me was that a lot of the funding for the IRA came from the US in those days. I wonder what those fund raisers are making of the War on Terrorism now?...
I also wonder if they did a poll, on who voted for Dubya, who'd admit they voted him in? All those hanging chads
Sorry, went all political, I didn't mean to.
Oh my god! I might be related to Peter.
here's one who voted for him twice.
I do not regret my vote, though I certainly regret that McCain didn't win in 2000.
Most of these people I'm talking about aren't immigrants, they're third- or fourth-generation. Their great-grandparents were immigrants; they're british, by whatever definition you care to name.
I agree absolutely that some level of group unity is necessary for civil society to function. To turn it around, though, people need to feel that they belong - and I find myself with a greater affinity for international and transnational groups than I do for my own nation. Even you would probably claim to be fighting for something greater than your nation, Arthur, something like democracy, or freedom of speech. What does this mean? I don't know. But there seemed to be some considerable fuss about how young Muslims felt alienated from the nation they grew up in. And I wanted to make the case that maybe thier closer affinity to something international is maybe not so unusual.
Sorry TC, it's just that I can't see that W's helped. McCain (just looked him up, I'd never heard of him) looks like he might be just past it for the next one
were you voting for the party or the man?
Oh, have no doubt that I absolutely DO have an international vision of the world. However, in the end, I didn't shatter their peace, their Winter Garden -- they shattered mine. I was living in that world, and they took it away.
"They'd" probably say the same... Only "They" happened to be sitting on vast oil reserves
I agree, btw, that W didn't help. And yes, Chris, i voted more for the party.
We discussed the lack of great leaders recently. I agree that W. is a very limited man, and clearly we would have done much better with someone that wasn't.
Well. if you mean colonial times, sure. But you gotta stop feeling guilty somewhere, and remind yourself that with your money Dubai has become a wonder of the world.
And the recent conflicts, from the Iranian revolution onward, are of THEIR choosing.
OT but related, so I won't post it - It just popped up on my RSS feed
this http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/54409
sort of thing - it's a reminder of the terrible thing that happened, yes - but it's not so much about the memory, but rather the financial aspects which is what's brought it into the limelight - That same distorted view of the World is what's key to the problem
[EDIT]and this http://monkeyfilter.com/link.php/12594
for pity's sake!
//And I wanted to make the case that maybe their closer affinity to something international is maybe not so unusual.//
I'm not convinced that their affinity is to something international - as such.
Affinity is an expression of identity - whether it's towards a national, racial or sexual stereo(archi?)type, a global ideal, other people who share common experiences or opinions. I'd say that nationalism/patriotism is a specific example of that affinity.
Whether we like it or not, our primary allegiances are towards those we are closest to - it might be our friends, our families, people we associate with, those in our immediate communities. Change the people a person feels close to, and you change their allegiances.
I personally think that the closest example we find that might shed light on the extreme behaviour of a tiny minority of people is that of the religious cult. Many of us have seen, read, heard, or even had direct experience with cults of one kind or another. In fact, cultism doesn't have to be religious - similar forces are at work in basic army training (break'em down and build'em up) or in some of the strangely organised pyramid selling operations(in fact, almost any organisation that employs hard-selling techniques).
People fall victim to the hard sell every day. Some organisations are better than others at recruiting disaffected young teenagers, giving them a sense of identity, pride, kinship, duty, belonging, and power.
In the process, they also implant ideas, principles, doctrines and whatever else might be appropriate. (American children go through a daily ritual of pledging allegiance to a flag - that's a classic example of some pretty hard selling - psychologically it's scary - linking in people's minds a set of lofty ideals, and a symbol of the state - from age 5!) Similarly sinister Pavlovian techniques are employed both in China, North Korea, Israel and Palestine (as well as, I'm sure, across various nations across the world). But that's by the by - the kind of indoctrination I believe is at work here is more closely related to the classic view of the charismatic cult. We have charming and personable preachers going through the young Islamic population, picking out those susceptible and grooming them into what we find today.
Yes, the ideals are global, international ideals - but the transmission of them, the amount of personal importance that might resonate within an individual, where it's not done by the state (as in the example case of the US flag ceremony) is down to the close personal bonds between the recruiter and the recruitee.
In exactly the same way, those people who died in Waco, or one of a number of suicide cults that have existed throughout time, have had strong, personal relationships with someone who acted as some kind of belief 'node' around whom, people tend to congregate. How do you stop that without implementing a (morally questionable) counter indoctrination system of your own? Who knows.
The whole of Islam seems to me to boil down into a substantive issue shared by all faiths and by their derelicts, is the answer to our human belief system found by living in the tombs?
England made its mark on the world and sealed its historical seat many years ago. Her accomplishments will never be repeated. There is little glory to be gained by giving one's heart and soul to the cause of Great Britain and colonial ideals. I doubt even the new recruits in England's armed forces believe intimations made to an antiquated imperialist world view. The US is once again asserting itself around the world; the foray that was WWII impressed US intentions abroad and the world will seek to hold the US to its treaties and enactments made then, regardless of what threats have evolved since. Review the histories of France, Spain, Germany, Japan, The Dutch, Persia, Cuba, Rome, ...
Ah. Rome: the counterweight to Islam. Rome is the eternal city, home to legions, ruler and conqueror to the known world, the rock upon which Peter would found his church. Much of humanity seeks guidance and inspiration from the Holy See of Rome, and does so without reprise. There were dark periods in the early church that compare to events that sealed the fates of empire builders of the past, but the Catholic church has remained organic and adaptive to misfortune. One can only speculate that church has passed her zenith, and that moderns fail to attain both her highest ideals and her deepest passions in their quest to support her.
Islam makes an appearance in recorded history, a flaw to other belief systems. Great empires seem to be founded on myth, rather than history. If common perception has a place in Islam's development, what everyday people may have been saying about the up and coming doctrinaires is a mystery -- perhaps myth enough, but nonetheless open to intense speculation. Transcendence, the keystone of Muslim faith, arises to satisfy what must have been common mutterings around hearths of the day. Regardless of the patriotism of citizens, empires have detractors and their subjects concern themselves more with how life will be better after this or that leader passes on. An adage that 'the great give freely' may apply to what some perceive as wildly fanatic popular support for ideas that are past their time and unlikely to be reprised.
The very old idea that to die in the service of one's betters is a grand end is expressed fully in both old imperialism and in Islam. No one desires to die in shame and poverty, to be shunned by one's family and strangers alike, to have no memory of ideals lived or died by. In a sense, Islamic transcendence is today expressed almost as a taunt, i.e., "You can talk about us when we're gone." In that, the founders of Islam sealed their nobility and created the man, the myth, and the legend. In practice, the modernist of Muslim indoctrination fail at aspiration to that nobility inasmuch as modernist Catholics fail at attaining to the highest ideals and passions of their church. Hence, the overall effect inculcated in the reach of Islam is to provoke the taunts of repressed youth and to provide a dogma which enhances their alienation, thereby giving free rein to them as they plot dominating and destructive courses for themselves.
I needn't go into what I hope will be eventual surrender of power by radical factions worldwide. World economic and religious terrorists share blind faith that a higher world order will somehow, someday, ascend to unify disparate elements and blend their good features while eliminating their irrationality. They are living in the tombs.
Religion as faith is a flaw in the pattern recognition engine.
Religion as social and moral movement depends largely on the quality of its leaders, and yes, its followers. Thus the Church of the Middle Ages could strive to prosecute Jews and non believers, and later to justify anything from slavery to colonialism.
But the church NOW is headed by people like John Paul, who forgave the man who shot him and quite possibly made a key contribution to the fall of Communism, and who by and large, when they interfere in politics, appear to interfere on the side of the oppressed.
Islam is of course highly distributed, so direct comparison's are difficult. But Iran's Ayatollah's and Saudi's Imams, be they Holocaust deniers or martyrdom glorifiers or what have you, do NOT appear to be motivated by a desire for social justice in any Western sense of the world -- nor is that shocking, of course.
All of which doesn't change the fact that WE are to be motivated by it, and should be sufficiently motivated by it to actually survive, and maintain our way of life.
Ho-hum. This argument is growing whiskers.
Agreed. Let's suppose we did the John Lennon thing, and abandoned all religion. We would soon enough develop new rituals, new areas of uncertainty that we filled with firm beliefs, and new schisms between different camps of beliefs. The human robot needsa) rituals;
b) beliefs; and
c) schismsIt's how we function.
Whereas I predict The Age Of Reason :)
Yes, but would you detonate yourself, matthew, to "make sense of your life? there's brotherhood and then there's insanity.
yes! but don't leave blame and ignorance out of that list
Ksrasr, "detonate yourself" or children or women, Yes, K they believe strongly that is the way to a higher existence, It's their religion that drives that behavior.
It's salutory to watch Kingdom of Heaven - the bellicose Knights Templar, baying for war because "God wills it," are a dramatic representation that (some) Christians used to act that way too. Whether all these people actually believe that God wants them to go and kill people, or are merely mouthing a convenient excuse to mask their own murderous desires, religion and genocide are linked altogether too often for it to be coincidence.
There will always be young men itching for a fight - it's the way we are designed - but for old men to use them to settle scores with each other is absolutely unpardonable, whatever their professed state of grace.
Exactly. It ends up that old women impose the "wedding they wanted but didn't have" on their daughters, successively, while od men do the same with sport and war.
What a fucking shambles we have created for ourselves.
But education is the answer, isn't it? I don't mean anti-religious education, just a more rounded one.
There's a built in resistance impulse in the West -- don't I know it, sitting here :) Can you imagine if Bush was to say we need a draft?
But there are no demonstrations to speak of in the Muslim world against what some of their leaders are bringing onto them.
It goes back to the billions of dollars in oil money that is actually spent indoctrinating in fundamentalist Islam and anti-Western attitudes. The Saudis, the emirates, even in the face of Iran, have the power to start changing things. But they are afraid.
The political model in those countries is a large part of the problem, Arthur. Most Islamic nations also harbour dynastic, tribal political systems that make it difficult to break with tradition. Having said that, so do Singapore and the US, at the moment.
Chelsea is not running until 2012, Hector :)
I've seen the pretty boy the Bush dynasty is grooming at the moment. One of Jeb's nephews?
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