I remember shortly after the 9-11 terrorist attacks three years ago a brilliant piece of PhotoShop art that made its way around the Internet showing the Statue of Liberty wrapped head-to-toe in a Taliban-style burka. It was both hilarious and sobering: sobering because it showed the stark contrast between two competing value-systems and hilarious because, even then, it seemed like it could never really happen.
And it’s not likely to happen as such: if the Taliban really were in charge they’d just do to the Statue of Liberty what they did to those two big Buddhas in Afghanistan and blow it up.
That is pretty much the jihadist response to everything: if they don’t like it, they blow it up. And just so I’m clear here, I consider Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell just as much jihadists for their cause as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are for theirs. To borrow Benjamin Barber’s theory from his classic work on the subject Jihad vs. McWorld, the jihadist is anyone who reacts against that form of Modernity he finds most threatening to some idealized – and often imagined – “pure” way of life. And while it’s fun to think about Taliban militiamen in their ancient Toyota Land Cruisers humping across some plains-state milo field trying to round up rednecks and force them into the local mosque, the more serious question remains: What sort of world do the jihadists (on both sides) actually envision? Would the Taliban even want to deal with a bunch of mossy-oak-wearing deer hunters ambushing them in the woods and ramming the slugs from .30‘06 rifles through their heads? Short of genocide, would they even know what to do with a population as diverse and unruly as that of the good ol’ U.S. of A.?
The Taliban’s experience in Afghanistan is instructive. While they did manage to control much of the country, they were never able to defeat the warlords in the north and south of the country that eventually, with U.S. help, proved their downfall. And while they did eventually manage some form of authoritarian Islamic law, it had to be enforced by severely repressing the population. In other words, this was not necessarily a way of life the Afghans, many of whom remembered when there were miniskirts worn on the streets of Kabul, would have chosen for themselves.
Indeed, as fragile as liberal democracies certainly are, fundamentalist regimes are considerably more so. Their existence relies either on the continual piety of their populations or the harsh rule of one man or regime. Iran, which ostensibly chose its own repressive Islamic government, is now showing signs of softening. Their population is young and dynamic; most grew up after the revolution of 1979. Islamic law is all they’ve known, and now they’re ready for something different. Granted, illegal satellite dishes receiving “Western” broadcasts have had an effect, but Western cultural influences had existed before the revolution of 1979. It’s just as likely that the harsh Islamism of the current leadership just isn’t working anymore.
Fundamentalism’s basic rigidity limits its usefulness as a governing principle. So it’s even harder to understand what sort of America the home-grown jihadists would like to see. They tell us that they are against abortion and gay marriage. So we can pretty much be sure they’d get rid of those if their power went unchecked. This doesn’t mean those things wouldn’t happen, of course, just that they would not be aboveboard. But since the American fundamentalists disparage gay marriage because they think homosexuality itself is a sin, would they attempt to outlaw being gay as well? Would they pass and strictly enforce new anti-sodomy laws? If so, how will they know it is taking place? Would they be more “tolerant” and force outed homosexuals into the so-called “therapy” programs meant to “cure” them of their gayness?
We also know that American jihadists want to return prayer to public schools. Do they plan for these prayers to be optional? Would young Buddhists and Jains be forced to pray? If so, to whom? Would atheist students be allowed to opt-out? Would atheist teachers be allowed to opt out of leading school prayers, or would they be drummed out of the profession entirely? Would there be a preferred form of Christianity? This could be an issue because, while evangelical Protestant fundamentalists seem to think they speak for all Christians, there are very serious differences between denominations. How will the Protestant fundamentalists deal with the conservative Catholics? Neither like abortion, but they disagree on other forms of birth control, the death penalty, and what constitutes a “just” war.
Islamic militants decry the “U.S./Zionist conspiracy” that they see as attempting to wipe them out based primarily on what is happening between Israel and Palestine. This is absurd, of course, as there are as many or more Jews in the American peace movement as in Bush’s cabinet. Likewise, the American jihadists heap curses upon the “liberal, Hollywood elite” that they view as destroying American morals. This is also silly. As Thomas Frank points out in What’s the Matter with Kansas? the real movers and shakers in Hollywood – the executives who call the shots in the first place – don’t really care one way or the other about the moral implications of what they do. They, like many other businesspeople, are beholden only to the bottom line. They’ll market The Passion of The Christ just as zealously as The Last Temptation of Christ. If it sells, so goes this theory, it’s good. Ironically, this kind of free-market theology, to borrow a concept from Kevin Phillips, is something the religious right also tends to support.
I suspect that the lack of a clear jihadist vision has more to do with the fact that Tip O’Neill was right than anything else: all politics really are local. What drives bin Laden is not really Israel vs. Palestine. That’s just a convenient recruiting tool. His real beef is with the Saudi royal family, whose corruption he traces back (and rightfully so) to its coziness with U.S. oil interests. This is why bin Laden chose sites like the World Trade Center to attack: they are symbolic representatives of U.S. commercial power, and to the jihadist mind, the military is merely an extension of that. Note also that al Qaeda’s attacks within Saudi Arabia tend to focus on housing complexes associated with the oil industry. Of course, bin Laden’s own personal wealth is indirectly related to his home country’s success in oil, and America is oil’s biggest market. If bin Laden managed to wrest control from the House of Saud, he’d still have to deal with the hated Americans if he wanted to remain solvent.
At home, American jihadists see the control they have over the thoughts and behaviors of themselves and their children dictated mote by popular culture than anything else. They see the difficulty Christianity has making inroads against Brittney’s bare midriff and Madonna’s weird kaballah bracelets. Local for an American jihadist isn’t just her city or state, though they’ve done a good job of taking many of those over. Local for an American jihadist is her home, her church, her children’s bedroom. Local to the American jihadist is the wicked temptation, the mind-noise of boobs during the Superbowl, Will and Grace, permissiveness in all its commercial pervasiveness. One wonders: if they feel so out of control, why don’t they make personal choices to avoid these things they find so offensive? But that is not the jihadist mindset: the problem is always “out there”; it always belongs to somebody else. If only we can get them to change, they think, we’ll be ok. This is more indication that the jihadists, both foreign and domestic, have no real positive notion of the world they want to create
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