I can understand "fundamentalists" perspectives, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, whatever. There is a lot of biblical text that references  the evils of one's culture allowing itself to be perverted by outside influences; this may be taken as support for an ideology of societal purity.  Like communism and socialism, the idea of a society that conforms to a belief system and is pure and unadulterated can be intellectually appealing, regardless of how unworkable it might be in reality.

Now, we can say "don't like it, don't buy it", and that works generally well in the framework of our western culture (which is full of drug addicts, child molesters,.... ah, the price of freedom is dear, but worth it.). It does not work for a lot of cultures because (come on, admit it) western culture is very seductive. If your belief system states that humankind is corruptible, and there exists an outside corrupting influence, then one might want to protect his own culture from that influence. Like, it only takes one microbe to give you a disease, so perhaps western culture is, to a Muslim, a poison that once sipped, tastes like the finest wine. In our Judeo-Christian realm, and in Islam, evil seeks to corrupt by temptation and rationalization.

Now both the bible and the Koran can be taken to instruct us to keep our "people" on the right track, not allowing ourselves to be corrupted by other cultures. So *&^% what that we have a culture that says OUR government ought not be run on religious principle - that's our choice and our culture. There are a lot of cultures where the state and the religion are one and the same, and we cannot invalidate their system based on our value set.

So my point is, I don't fault Islam in general or Islamic leaders or laity for viewing western culture as a pollutant, a poison, or an evil. Those cultures did not get the chance up front to deny our culture entry into their systems. Once they realized the adulterating effects our culture had on theirs, all they could do is damage control. Western culture was originally forced upon them, and naturally seemed intriguing.

Disclaimer: nothing I have said herein implies that I approve of  terrorism or murder; nor does it mean that I approve even of the methods used in any of those foreign lands. It only means that I can understand the position of the Islamic purist or isolationist, and we are damned conceited to say "we didn't force it on them".

Dave "MPE or no HP" Darnell
not my employer's opinion

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