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February 3, 2009
Aid and Radical Islam
I recently attended a meeting in New York devoted to the proposition that terrorist acts be thwarted with economic development projects. One bien pensant after another waxed lyrical about the benefits of an improved standard of living as a means of modifying radical sentiment. As the chairman of the event noted: “People who have jobs and a decent standard of living are less inclined to commit violent acts against others.”
Surely, I thought, these educated and experienced policy analysts might consider empirical evidence which belies the economic determinist position. After all, the terrorists on 9/11 were not desperately poor or impoverished. In fact, the leader of hijacked flight 93 came from one of the wealthiest families in Lebanon.
It was also the case that the British nationals who were trained in the terrorist activity that led to the devastation of 7/7 were ostensibly middle class Muslims living in a suburb of London.
Similarly, the bloodshed in Mumbai, in which at least 170 people were wantonly murdered and close to 400 injured, was conducted by young men who, from all accounts, were not economically impoverished.
In a desperate attempt to postulate a cause for what are seemingly irrational acts many in the West assume that violence is a function of despair, a reaction to poor conditions. It seems implausible that rational people acting out of religious conviction would murder because it advances their faith. Surely there must be another explanation. As a consequence, they have seized on the idea that if the West transferred capital in an effort to improve economic conditions, the reason for acts of desperation would evaporate.
But suppose violence is wound deeply into a fanatical religious belief system that no amount of capital transfer can ameliorate. Suppose as well that these cash outlays are regarded as Western guilt and a sign of weakness.
Winston Churchill, after fighting a war in the Sudan, described Mohammedanism (his word for Islam) as a fever that could not be addressed through rational discourse or improved living conditions. He analogized this fanatical faith to hydrophobia in which the lack of water leads to madness.
It is natural for a rational people to search for rational answers to the international plague of our time. But it is foolish, arguably insane, to keep applying the same policy prescriptions to a problem and expecting a different outcome.
Radical Islam must be defeated on every battle field it establishes. Its ideas must be vanquished as well. And most significantly, the West must separate itself from this malignant force before it metastasizes throughout the globe.
It is patently naïve, in my judgment, to contend that if only the unemployment rate were lower, if only apartments could be built, the radicals will abandon their dreams of conquest and the establishment of caliphates across the globe.
There may indeed be a justification for philanthropy. Helping others is what a nation built on principles of justice and fair play is bound to do. In some instances it may help to mitigate poor conditions.
But philanthropy to help the poor should not be conflated with philanthropy to dissuade radical thought. No matter how many dollars are thrown at Muslim fanaticism, it will still be fanatical. To assume any other result flies in the face of historical experience. Until the radicals are defeated with arms and ideas, a threat will persist. There is no getting around this fact, however unpleasant it may seem.
Admittedly I have lost patience with the do-gooders who believe money is the magic elixir for peace. As I see it, peace in our time comes with a very high price tag in blood and confrontation. If we believe there is an easy way out of this war, Americans may be shocked by the ultimate outcome.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001) and America's Secular Challenge (Encounter Books).
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