At least since the events of September 11th, 2001, the media and the blogosphere have reported on individuals and factions they regard as extremists – like those responsible for the attacks.  Most prominent in the reporting was mention of the religion of these offenders, that being – at least nominally – Islam.

The terms that subsequently emerged were “Islamic radicals”, “Islamists” and most venomously “Islamofascists”.  So often was Islam – as a faith of one-fifth of the human population – tethered to the inexcusable actions of an aggressive few, that one could hardly think of one without thinking about the other.  While for some this association produced a new and profound animosity towards Islam and Muslims, I was inclined to investigate the relationship, if any, between the religion and the deviant practice of terrorism.

What I found was that in most instances of separatism, radicalism, and/or militancy, Islam was more a mere fact of their identity or culture than the inspiration for their actions.  For all that Islam really had to do with it, the aggressors might as well have been called “turbanist radicals”, if they happened to be wearing turbans.  That there is such an emphasis on religion would appear to be a rhetorical attack on Islam as a global faith.

Today, as I read extensively about the Palestine-Israel conflict and more on the background of the general tension between the so-called “Muslim world” and the west, I often run into the term Islamist.  And everytime it stands out like a beacon.  The term is taken by those knowledgeable in these matters to mean “Islamic radical”, or a person who generally perverts the foundational messages of the religion towards political ends, and often in violent ways.

There are two problems, however, with using the term.  The first is that the suffix “ist” is not an adequate substitute for “radical” or “militant”, although perhaps it could be argued – spuriously – that it is the last three letters of “terrorist”, which for all intents and purposes is what Islamist is meant to infer.  For those who know very little or nothing about Islam – which is probably the majority of non-Muslims – “ist” does absolutely nothing to separate the religion from the violent activities conducted in its name.  The uninformed person is not likely to recognize the difference between “Islamist” and “Islamicist”, the latter being a person who engages in the academic study of Islam.  Nor are they likely to know the difference between “Islamist” and “Muslim”.  And in a climate ripe with anti-Islamic sentiment, the uninformed and angry have very little incentive to make the distinction.

The second problem is that Islam is mentioned at all when discussing radical, militant, or terrorist activities.  Because as I mentioned above, a more thorough investigation into the relationship between the religion and violence is tenuous.  That an ideologue like Osama bin Laden recites – or misreads – a passage from the Qur’an does not bind the rest of his words or his actions to Islam.  In any case, he cites the Qu’ran very little in his communications, either because his knowledge of Islam is wanting, or because he does not wish to expose the dubious connection between the religion and his personal ideology.

Most Muslims – for whom Islam is an inexorable part of their cultures and lifestyles – do not associate the words or actions of a bin Laden with their faith.  And they are surprised and offended whenever that connection is made.  Imagine, if you are an average American citizen, with no involvement in politics or the military, being labeled an imperialist by others around the world simply because you live in a country which many regard as the modern day empire.

As you consider the inadequacy of that classification – unless, of course, you are an imperialist – multiply that inadequacy by about four.  America is home to about 300 million people, at least some of which certainly are imperialists.  But those few do not necessarily speak for the majority.  The same is true for Islam and radicals, except to a greater extent, since there are around 1.2 billion Muslims, and probably fewer of them who are radicals, terrorists, and militants, than there are Americans who support imperialism – if only implicitly.

So with that said, what need is there to use the term “Islamist” in discussing the actions of a Hamas or a Hezbollah or a Lashkar-e-Taiba?  For these three groups in particular, all of which with varying degrees of legitimacy are considered terrorist organizations, Islam has little to nothing to do with their stated motivations.  The actions of Hamas have everything to do with the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.  The actions of Hezbollah purport to represent the people of Lebanon, particularly in their relationship with Israel.  And Lashkar-e-Taiba – those responsible for the Mumbai attacks – acted in response to the relationship between Pakistan and India.

Regardless of how we see these organizations, whether as terrorists or radicals or a militant resistance, it is important to separate their actions – almost always politically motivated – from their religion, unless the two are truly inexorable.  Otherwise we risk maintaining an unnecessary distance and animosity between people who apart from their particular beliefs and practices, have many of the same needs and values.

It is the responsibility of a lawful and moral press to bridge that distance, to squelch that animosity, by providing the information we need to better understand our surroundings and the people who occupy them.

An example of how to provide information constructed with the appropriate cultural and/or religious context is this article by the Washington Post discussing pending peace talks between Hamas and Israel.

For the sake of peace, Israel will have to maintain its sovereignty as a nation, regardless of the conditions by which that sovereignty was acquired.  However, also for the sake of peace, something must change with regards to how Israel maintains that sovereignty.  It cannot continue to conduct its military operations and Apartheid-like practices unabated, with no accountability.

I fail to understand what seems to be the infallibility of Israel – how those voices who speak out against the country’s practices are either a quiet minority or a few violent pockets of militancy.  How is it that most of the world seems to offer either tacit approval or feign blissful ignorance as Israel has continued throughout its history to perpetrate a plethora of human rights violations and countless other offenses?

I could be wrong, and it may be that I simply cannot hear the voices speaking out against Israel because they are censored – i.e. simply not covered – by the media.  Either way, I wonder what exactly Israel would have to do before the mainstream voice becomes one of opposition to Israel rather than one of quiet complicity.

Today the Associated Press reports that the Israeli Defense Forces, in their continuing incursion into Gaza, attacked the United Nations headquarters, destroying large supplies of food intended for the suffering Palestinians.  That, along with a hospital, five high-rise apartment buildings and a media outlet, appear to be the latest in a list of targets that have nothing to do with Hamas and the stated purpose of the offensive.

This raises the question of whether or not Israel is simply incompetent – in killing more civilians than soldiers and “accidentally” destroying benign civilian infrastructure – or merely careless and arrogant in its apparent infallibility.  Interestingly enough, the associated press article goes on to reiterate the purpose of the Israeli offensive:

[A]n effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

In characteristic fashion, in the same virtual breath as it reports an obvious offense on the part of Israel, the press seems to want to justify it by overstating the causes.  “Hundreds of thousands” of Israelis are being terrorized by Hamas rockets?  Really?  The latest reports say that altogether Israel has had thirteen casualties – three of which were civilians killed by the rockets, the others Israeli soldiers who fell during the ground offensive.  Three of those were killed by friendly fire – perhaps further evidence of incompetence.

No loss of innocent life should be dismissed as insignificant, but there is a matter of proportionality to be discussed here.  Hamas, in spite of representing a legitimately aggrieved Palestinian citizenry, was misguided in launching its rockets.  However, they also appear to be quite inept, failing to hit any meaningful targets.  Israel, who has them out-manned, out-gunned, and seems to have the moral imperative of “infallibility”, has killed as many as 1,100 Palestinians, more than half of which have been civilians – and too many of which have been children.  There simply is no argument that can be made to justify Israel’s exaggerated response to the utterly ineffective actions of Hamas.

That Hamas continues to launch rockets – and continues to miss everything that matters – shows not only the kind of illogical reasoning that inspires terrorism, but the clear sense of desperation felt by the Palestinian people.  It can be only foolish pride or a sense of having nothing more to lose that an organization would invite upon itself complete annihilation.  Either that, or a desperate last ditch appeal to the world community to pay attention to the chronic injustices that continue to plague the people of the Gaza strip.

But that plea continues to be ignored due to the self-victimization of Israel – affirmed by the mainstream press corps – and the infallibility license extended by the rest of the world.  If the United States can be maligned by the global community for the ill-motivated war in Iraq, then why can’t that same sense of right and wrong be applied to Israel?  What is it about that little country that gives it carte blanche authority to violate every established moral and legal convention of the civilized world?  And what is it that makes us – the rest of the world – so complicit?

It must be the power of infallibility.

As a student of religion, I try (with varying degrees of success) to be empathetic to the beliefs of others that differ from my own. It is one of the goals of my personal philosophy to reconcile the disparate views of the many human religions towards a perennial “truth” of sorts and establish a common ground. Still, I often find myself very critical of certain practices, not just because they are alien to me, but because they fly in the face of greater principles which I see reflected in all of the worlds cultures and religions.

For example – Christians – at various times throughout history, and into the present, in spite of the principles of good will and universal love scattered throughout their holy text, have been perpetrators of some of the worst crimes ever committed – like burning women at the stake – and in the name of their religion. This is the case made against the religion by the more bull-headed atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Myopic as their views may be, it is easy to understand why someone would be cynical of any doctrine that preaches universal love on one hand and advocates murder on the other.

The truth of the matter is that where doctrine leaves room for interpretation – as it always does – and also intersects with any human deficiency – such as ignorance, fear, greed, malevolence – the interpretations that emerge are likely to be unfavorable. Papua New Guinea is currently stricken with the AIDS epidemic, a threat the likes of which their spiritual and medicinal practices (or ours for that matter) are not fully equipped to contend with. People dying in relatively large numbers for no conceivable reason would seem to have a mystical quality to it, if it were something you nor anyone else you knew had ever encountered.

Western rationality tells us to investigate where we do not understand something, to analyze and then come to a reasonable conclusion. But there are hardly any of us who can do that in every situation, because in addition to being rational animals, we humans are also very emotional. So there is hardly a doubt that the Papua New Guineans who have been burning people alive – this was not the first case, afterall – were acting on their fears. Much like the Europeans who engaged in this horrific behavior centuries earlier – and who gave the Papua New Guineans the idea in the first place.

While I do not believe that there is an onus on any people to change in a particular direction, to acquire any particular ideas or customs, there are certain abstract ideological threads that necessarily run through every culture, every religion, and of which most human beings have at least a minimal understanding. One of those is a reverence for life, which if not present would see every human society and institution fall apart.

If there is ever a reason to employ rationality, it is in making decisions that will damage or destroy the lives of others. There should be no place in this world for witch hunts. They were a travesty in Salem in 1692, post-WWII United States, Iraq in 2003, most recently in Papua New Guinea, and ongoing in the Gaza strip. The people responsible in every case should be brought to task for violating one of the essential principles that allow for humanity’s continued existence.

And when they are, we must resist any impulse to burn them alive.