Yet another column on terror, religion... as if you wouldn't have read enough already

Any written thought on terrorism today will find two words linked. Muslim terrorism. The deeds that we have witnessed -and suffered- along the past few years had produced tons of paper dedicated to the debate of this new phenomenon, muslim terrorism. But is this muslim? Truly, Islam is an expanding and militant religion. But terrorist? Even in the orthodox idea of jihad, that fairly misunderstood term, we will not find a call for the assassination of non-involved infidels. Jihad, as a matter of fact, can translate as the continuous struggle that believers follow in the road to self improvement. Today is vital to recognize that the deeds of Al Qaida and Mohamed B's as what they are. A desperate attempt of doing politics. They are not the expression of a culture that, among other things, has given to the west mathematics and Khayyam.

Recognizing that terror is the deed of the excluded of a psychotic criminal that uses death as a tool of political struggle opens the door to a much-needed debate for whatever might be called progressive west. Religions are, even today, a relevant source of ethical values. Ranging from Weber, who laid the link of the protestant ethos and the successful development of capitalism in Europe, to the theology of liberation, which in South America organizes social movements around communal solidarity, religion has played a relevant role in the creation of western societies.

Now is the moment in which the west should recognize that other ways of development are possible. Not only the Christian, or the secular are the paths to open and progressive societies. The acceptance of the other, that chooses for development within the road delineate by christians instead of the secular program, is a step that the west long ago has done. it is time then to recognize once and for all that Islam can play the same role. Tolerance for other ethos, is not only an ethic imperative in itself, but a needed development. Let people commit themselves to their own values, accorded to the law of the land. Lets focus the debate on terrorism as the threat that it actually is, a political threat.

Even the most superficial analysis of the right wing rethoric, shows that the recognized threat from terrorism is the threat to security. And that is true. Better and more efficient actions are needed to prevent the tragedy of a terrorist attack. But the ultimate threat that scarcely make it to the political debate, contradictorily enough, is the political threat. Terrorism not only faces us with the grisly view of body bags and destroyed buildings, but also with the painful alienation of our own neighbors. A tolerant, and multicultural society, is one in which their individuals live together, without the fear for the different neighbor. Beyond the potential success of their deeds, the discovery of terrorist cells in the hearth of netherlands faces us with the fear that our neighbor, that different person that goes to a mosque instead of a church, is a terrorist, and that fear is what we should fear the most. Fear of the other can only led to a dysfunctional society. That is the long term threat of terrorism that we should be able to defeat.

Rambo and Bin Laden in NL

The ghost of past mistakes desolates the conscience of any person. And as ghosts are well known to do, they haunt our dreams, threatening with invading our reality.

What else could have fueled the blockbuster of Rambo, that seminal film? How comes that a huge amount of people went to the movies to see the history of their own soldier declaring, in the sluggish voice of a crying Stallone: “there are no friendly civilians, sir”? Only a sort of penance, I believe. Perhaps the recreation of the nightmare worked as the needed exorcism, bringing the worse fear to the screen, to the hopefully unreal screen. Rambo confronted the North American public with a monster that themselves created, a monster that was eating their own entrails. A monster, among many.

How to otherwise explain the amount of attention that Osama Bin Laden and his video apparitions creates in the North American media? Is the real fear of another September eleven, or is it rather the fearful confrontation with a monster or own creation? Bin Laden has the fascination that Rambo enjoyed. The freedom fighter, the soldier feed and trained with the taxpayer money, suddenly decided to kill friendly civilians in an act of megalomaniac rapture. Rambo and Bin Laden made headlines. Not because they are a couple of sonofabitches, but because they are our sonofabitches.

The newspapers of the NL have recently discovered their own monster. This society suddenly has awakened to the fact that terrorism is not only the work of crazy soldiers, or bearded schizoids. Terrorism is also the work of well-integrated citizens, ranging from Mohamed B to the youth that throws a molotov, not anymore in the streets of A'dam to bash the birthday of a queen, but to protest against the education of Muslims children. We stare at our television screens, and slowly began to digest a new phenomenon: the progressive and tolerant Netherlands has also created her own monsters.

A question looms for the years to come. The newspapers and governments of our days produced the only answers that they are capable of. Faced with the horror, they try to move it away. Mohamed B is the sad result of an international brainwash, and the Lonsdale kids are simple pubescent misfits, misguided and perhaps dangerous, but ultimately kids that will grow out. Or so they say. But the question looms untouched. Is our society able to deal with the monsters that had created? Are we able to recognize and analyze the simple fact that Londsdaler's and Mohamed B’ers are as Dutch as Balkenende? Today is impossible to know. Our certainty, in this troubled moment, is that we are awakened to a nightmare. A nightmare of our own making. Integration is a double side issue, where the person should fit to a society and the society should fit to the person. The lack of integration is also double sided. If the Dutch society wants to awaken, in ten years or more, to a better situation, we should start to recognize our own part of blame. What is it that we have done to give Mohamed’s and londsdalers their existence? That is a question that needs not only answers, but actions.