Diddly-Swat

Wake up, media! While we obsess over Obama's visit to Denver and Khmer Rouge trials and GM/Chrysler revamps, only the venerable New York Times noticed - and placed on its front page -- the fact that Pakistan had reached a wide-ranging peace agreement with the Taliban, allowing the organization self-rule in Swat province.

I worry that this may be the spark that leads Obama to fulfill his campaign warning that he might directly invade Pakistan. I certainly do not favor military intervention, but I also do not adhere to the international diplomacy view that "all deserve a voice at the table." Ideological catastrophists whose philosophies require the murder of dozens, thousands or millions, be they Khmer Rouge, Sendero Luminoso, or Wahhabists, deserve no place at anyone's table. Thanks to the wisdom of the Pakistan government, Swat residents who own DVD players or satellite dishes will be beheaded, just like the wife of that TV station owner in upstate New York who urged understanding of Islamic traditions. Isn't Medieval life fun?

The Pious Youth Rebellion

As a Westerner and member of the militant Enlightenment brigade, I have to be careful about assuming that an increase in piousness and asceticism among younger people necessarily constitutes a cultural step backwards. Still, if the shoe (or burqa) fits...

I got to thinking about this in the aftermath of the Greg Mortenson visit, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of many Western women as to the pitiful treatment of women in devout Islamic nations. The trouble with such a view, as many Turkish secularists have pointed out, is that a significant number of younger women choose to wear the veil, and demand that Islamic law be carried out more vigilantly than it is in many Islamic countries. In other words, there's no better oppression than self-oppression.

This point of view is underscored in the newest Middle East Report special issue on Youth, in particular an article on blogging within the (Egyptian) Muslim Brotherhood. There is one tendency within the Brotherhood comprised of members who are active Internet users, who discuss the meanings of their faith and their interactions with the secular world openly. However, these bloggers say they represent only about 15 percent of the younger Muslim Brotherhood members. The vast majority of MB teens and 20-somethings make such an issue of their devoutness, they see any exposure to television or the Internet as being a contamination from the infidels. They pride themselves on not learning, not reading, and keeping their focus strictly on prayer and the Quran.

Sorry, I have to insist this simply is evolutionarily backward. We have Christians who are members of voluntary chastity groups, who say that they dislike reading anything other than Scripture, and yes, they're backward too, but it's hard to find something as willfully ignorant as the Salafi/Wahhabist youth movement. The fact that this super-piety trend is particularly visible among younger people should frighten us. But it should also spur us into becoming militant supporters of the Enlightenment faith. To refuse to learn and grow and read and expand your mind is to deny your humanity. This applies to all faiths in all cultures.

Benazir and the Wahhabists

RIP, Ms. Bhutto, even if you were part of that Harvard-Georgetown-CIA clique. At least you don't have to be around to see the fruits of this act for 2008. Not an auspicious way to end the year.

Jihad vs. McWorld

Remember that great 1992 book by Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld? Seven years before the anti-globalization protests erupted in Seattle, six years before the first big terror actions of al-Qaeda, Barber was warning us that, if a stark choice had to be made between globalized corporate branding led by Ronald McDonald and worldwide violent Wahhabism, most Westerners would have no trouble picking the Golden Arches. Now, thoughtful critics insisted the choice Barber gave us was no choice at all, but after witnessing the bombing of the Bhutto parade today, I continue to see his point.

I always had a problem with cheering the Westernizing tendencies of Benazir Bhutto, since she came from that Georgetown-Harvard-CIA clique responsible for so much Cold War liberalism. And even though she was set up by Musharraf, it was pretty clear that her husband was at least partially guilty of corruption charges. I'm not ruling out the possibility that one of Musharraf's friends in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency set this up as a dirty trick, but it seems likely that al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban was responsible. This not only gives Bush more fuel for pursuing his endless War on Terror, but it underscores the belief that the planet simply is too small to allow such catastrophist forms of belief as end-times Wahhabism. In fact, if we're going to get anywhere in cultural meetings of minds, I would insist in my Western-steeped ways that a baseline requirement for living on this planet is tempering one's belief system through the filter of 17th-century Enlightenment thought. Too hung up on reason? Well, a violent faith-based way of knowing allows no cross-cultural discussions outside a frame of reference. How can you talk with someone about restoring the caliphate if you don't believe Muhammad has 50 virgins in paradise? How can you talk about missionary work if you don't believe "Jesus is the way the truth and the light"? Only reason, Enlightenment, and the scientific method allow this. So let's hear it for Ronald McDonald, Isaac Newton, and Benazir Bhutto - not my favorite people, admittedly, but consider the alternative.