Islamic State, Authoritarian Regimes and the Clash of Civilizations

We hear many generalizations about Islam these days. “Islam is the cause of fundamentalism;” “The Muslim world does not reject Islamic State;” “Muslims in Europe, in as much as they are Muslims and therefore belong to a religion that leads to degeneration and radicalism, are a threat to our society” are a few of the things I have read lately, all the way to some disciple of the “clash of civilizations” clambering among hasty conclusions that liquidate the “Arab Springs” as if they were an already finished process, which gave way to the “Arab Winter.”

“Incompatible with our civilization,” Arab societies would have come to religious fundamentalism naturally, inasmuch as they see in us — in what the West represents — “the tumor that needs to be extracted in order to be able to build a global caliphate” (this is what some neoconservatives maintain), and the world’s 2 billion Muslims would be in agreement with all this. Today, the persecution of Christians, hunted by Islamic State, is the ultimate proof that these disciples of the “Clash” — let’s define them this way — were looking for.

And so, the calls multiply themselves for a new crusade that will lead to the defeat of Islam, and if I say so myself, a conversion through “a superior, incomparable violence.” It would only be right to compare the facts with this vision, which I would call apocalyptic. The first is that Islam is not monolithic but multifaceted. A Muslim in Islamabad is different than one in Damascus. That said, neither can we maintain that a Muslim from the villages around Homs could be the same as a Muslim from Aleppo, and this is because of the different socio-religious makeups that distinguish these two Syrian cities.

Moreover, it is undeniable that the interpretation that each of us, including myself, gives to faith is different. Therefore, saying that “all Muslims are like those belonging to Islamic State” is an abomination. A while ago, from the pages of Al Hayat, an Arab newspaper based in London, more than 200 Arab intellectuals launched a call against Islamic State, which in Syria — before it got into Iraq — was persecuting the Muslim population and fighting only the revolutionary forces, having almost signed a pact with the Syrian regime. During those months, Islamic State was crucifying Muslims accused of apostasy, and imprisoning numerous activists, journalists and writers — the motor of any society. In the enlightened West, no one made a sound. There was not a single voice condemning what Islamic State was doing in Syria; on the other hand, the aerial bombardments on Assad continued, and continue, indiscriminately on all Syrian cities.

I ask myself how one can invoke hunger against a hypothetical American intervention but not against the aerial bombardments on the Syrian regime that are decimating Syria. Probably, if the half million Sunnis forced to leave Qusair, Homs and other Oronte Valley locales by the Shiite militias of Hezbollah and the regular army had been Christians or members of some minority, maybe then voices of condemnation would have arisen. Maybe we would have cared about the sectarian cleansing that went on. Well, it’s no longer important. The damage is done.

I am referring to the entire Levant — building liberal societies from fundamentalism and totalitarian regimes (which falsely profess themselves to be secular and control their populations through the instrument of the “confessionalization” of society) is our interest. The last step for us here, in this spectator Europe, would be to understand that the real victims of fundamentalism are the Muslims; they are the first to pay for choosing not to accept radical religiosity. It’s still the Muslims who are victim to a denialist rhetoric that does not recognize them as victims, but on the contrary, gathers them up for the slaughter.

At this time, we need to turn toward meetings and dialogue, even if it is easier to hate.