Passions Rooted in Envy

Terrorist organizations in the Middle East are trying to bill the current crisis as a confrontation between Islam and the West - as in the Jihads and Crusades of centuries past. But there is no need for the rest of us to go along with that.

Six years ago, Professor Daniel Pipes of Harvard pointed out that terrorists described in the media as "Islamic fundamentalists" are often more Westernized than traditional Muslims. More recently, a leading scholar on the Middle East, Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton, has pointed out that what these terrorists are doing - including the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center - goes counter to the teachings of Islam.

This is not a religious war, on their side or on ours. The lives of American soldiers have been risked to try to save Muslims in Somalia and the Balkans, and American aid has been poured out to help Muslim countries around the world.

What we have witnessed among today's terrorists are some of the oldest and ugliest passions of human beings in general, based on envy and resentment, rather than on any religious teachings. Some fatuous people on college campuses, and in other enclaves of the intelligentsia and the glitterati, have tried to suggest we must have done something to cause terrorists to attack us. What we have done is have achievements that dwarf theirs.

A thousand years ago, it was the other way around. The Islamic world at that time was far more advanced than the West. It was not only militarily stronger, but also more advanced in science, mathematics and scholarship.

Contrary to the dogmas of the egalitarians, some portion of the human racehas always been far in advance of others. In earlier centuries it was China, and in later centuries it was Europe and America. The only egalitarian principle is that no one has been permanently superior.

As the human race has evolved over the millennia, some peoples have taken thelead during one era and others during other eras. Sometimes the reasons seemclear, but at other times no one really knows why. The vast majority of people in all cultures are too busy with their own personal cares and concerns to give much thought to such things. Unfortunately, the rising prosperity of the world in general has supported the rise of increasing numbers of people who have theluxury of becoming preoccupied - or even obsessed - with such imponderables.

It is not poverty, but time on their hands to brood, that has produced allsorts of fanaticisms. Many of the leaders of these fanaticisms have come from wealthy families, like Osama bin Laden today and like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. The poor can seldom spare the time or resources forsuch things.

What have Americans done to arouse such people? We have succeeded. No, ourforeign policies have not always been flawless or even always consistent - but neither has anyone else's. Still, it is not what we have done wrong that provokes their wrath. It is what we have done right, leading us to surpass them.

Nothing is easier than to blame those who lead for the problems of those who lag. "Exploitation" theories have flourished around the world, in defiance of mountains of evidence, because they say the rich are rich because the poor are poor. It is a psychological coup, even when it is economic nonsense.

Too many Americans fall for such ideological visions. Not most, but toomany. Even in the wake of the terrible catastrophe of Sept. 11, and with theprospect of still more such lethal attacks looming ahead, they cannot resist an opportunity to try to be morally one-up on their fellow Americans by suggesting that our misbehavior must have provoked these attacks. They simply cannot bringthemselves to confront the reality of deliberate evil. Two World Wars were launched in the 20th century by countries seeking to find"a place in the sun" - that is, for ego. Rationalistic excuses cannot hide thatbrutal reality.

Two centuries ago, Edmund Burke said: "There is no safety for honest menexcept by believing all possible evil of evil men." If we haven't learned thatlesson now, what will it take for us to learn it?

Incidentally, has anyone considered that, if pilots had not been forbidden tocarry guns, there might be thousands of Americans still alive today and the World Trade Center still standing?

While I do not discount the likelihood that an expansionist foriegn policy could have been part of the motive, and I long for the eventual return to a non alligned policy more fitting a Republic, Dr. Sowell certainly has a point. I think that spirit behind these attacks is derived more from "Das Kapital" than the "Koran". Today's so-called "Islamic Fundamentalists" bare no resembalance to the classical Islamic civilization of the Saracens.

Of course, such an analysis is a strikes just a little close to home for the liberal media. Better to paint this off as a religious conflict than to admit that it is an example of the politics of envy and resentment taken to its logical conclusion.

Many of the leaders of these fanaticisms have come from wealthy families, like Osama bin Laden today and like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century.

A BTT for Prof. Sowell, and a slap on the forehead for BtD, who didn't make the obvious connection. The parallel is astounding, and I'm going to have to consider this matter in detail...well, Sowell will do that to you...

I have been a fan of Thomas Sowell for years. However, I fail to grasp why cohorts of otherwise educated and yes, maybe, Westernized men would eagerly and with full intent fly to their deaths saying "there us no God but God" over and over, if they didn't have some kind of diseased religious zeal.

It may well be that the leaders are cynical narcissists who take Western success as a personal rebuke, and who, to be sure, send others to do the dying for them. If their motive isn't grounded in religious ideology, I don't know what it is, and no one else does either, because binLaden hasn't been asked that question.

But the fact remains, you don't go on a suicide mission just because you envy someone.

I think here Sowell verges on the liberal denial of religious fervor as a driving force--

it is the educated fools of the Blue Zone liberal establishment who insist that these maniacs are driven, not by religious devotion, but by a hateful rejection of Western Culture--an aversion which they, incidentally, seem to share.

And in their protected multi-culti bastions of academic malpractice, where religious faith is so contemptible and embarrassing, they find that in ruling it out as a factor, the terrorists can be made understandable--if driven by shared (anti-Western) cultural values, and not some obsolete religiosity, they are not so different after all.

Thus it is that the whores and scoundrels of CNN and Reuters can find euphemisms for "terrorist," and delete "Islamic", with a clen conscience--besides which, in the final analysis, these labels cut too close to home.

I don't think for a moment that Thomas Sowell is one of these, and it surprises me that he evades the power of religious ideology among those seeking martyrdom at civilization's expense.

I found this on a Christian website, though not mentioned in the context of the Taliban or Osama Bin Laden. I had to make the connection myself. Perhaps I am Wrong, but this is how I see it.

"O ye who believe! If any from among you turn your back from his faith, soon will Allah produce a people whom he will love as they will love him, - lowely with believers, mighty against the rejectors, fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproaches of such as find fault. That is the grace of Allah which he will bestow on whom he pleaseth. Quran [005. 054]

They believe they are the people spoken of here who Allah loves. The mighty, fighting in the way of Allah to save the backslidden Muslim world. No jealousy at all here. In fact quite the opposite. They just plain hate and despise us. They are above us, as far as they are concerned. They think they are the "chosen ones", and that motivation makes them dangerous beyond what any jealousy can.

Thank you for this article. In bin laden's most recent tirade against the US, I noticed the very expensive watch he was wearing, his excellent skin, nails and straight teeth. Doesn't he also ride around in Toyota SUV's while his Islamic lessors ride donkeys? Why is it that his underlings are stupid enough to die for ALLAH while he hides in caves? If the greatest joy is to die for ALLAH, why is he hiding? He should come out so, we can send him to ALLAH straight away.

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