Ah yes, the innocuous Bin Laden with his cultural themes and motifs!
As a grand narrative, Islam has time and again been invoked, especially during the past two centuries, to provide the symbols that are the points of reference for a variety of political choices and programmes of action.
I'll say it's been invoked! ALLAH AKBAR ! As the planes hit the buildings. But I guess that's a political choice and programme of action.
For long, nonetheless, it was the political meaning and orientation -- rather than the ideological content -- which determined the nature of relations between the Western powers and the Arabs and Muslims. Wasn't Wahhabi/Salafi Islam the great, courageous instrument of the West against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan?
And didn't you Wahhabis eat our food in your tent in Afghanistan ? So why the backstab ?
How, then, did it become such an evil in Western eyes, only a decade after the Soviet defeat?
See planes into buildings, above.
Perhaps, then, the vilification of Sufism and Salafism tells us more about the crisis of imperialism than about a crisis in Islam.
Crisis in imperialism ? We're the ones with the functioning societies, where the world streams to experience our educational systems, medicine, science, freedoms, and prosperity. I would say a religion now praising children for committing suicide and homicide is having a crisis.
With their absolute sense of self-righteousness, imperialists are never sure of what to make of the resistance they are faced with by the "lesser" peoples.
You'll find out soon what we make of it.
The marathon- like conflict between Western imperialist powers and the world of Islam was caused neither by 20th-century Sufism nor by 20th-century Salafism. This conflict is rooted in a dominant set of international relations, known simply, in university textbooks, as the imperialist system.
NO, once again, let me explain it to you: PLANES INTO BUILDINGS.
It is no doubt imperative for Islam to confront and deal with the forces of pathetic radicalism and nihilist violence that are trying to speak on its behalf -- a task that Islam has successfully engaged in on numerous occasions during its historical venture.Well get on with it then.
Yet, this is will not put an end to the conflict. An end to the conflict and the development of normal relations between Western powers and the world of Islam are contingent upon an end to imperialist relations in our world.
This is not about imperialism. This is about a set of religionists who will not get over their supposed HUMILIATION and take responsibility for building themselves a modern society. No one's holding you back but yourselves.