Skip to comments.

Posted on 10/09/2001 8:47:57 PM PDT by Mercuria

For years in America little skirmishes have taken place between different religious factions and their fundacrat representatives. Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews, Jews for Jesus and Hasidim, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Catholics and cranks, Baptists and born-agains and pagans and pluralists, atheists and secularists and humanists and narcissists, the selfish, the selfless and the self-important.

Silly, silly us.

On Sunday, October 7th, 2001 the common enemy of all of the above was given the global tele-opportunity to lump all of us together, erase those pesky nuances and distinctions, and label the whole darned lot.

"These events have divided the world into two sides", said Bin Laden. "The side of believers and the side of infidels."

Well, gee, Osama, thanks for the update. All along people in the Western world were thinking they had such diverse and representative cultures, and all along they were mere infidels. One word. No more definition needed. Interesting. Also, it seemed that these events had divided most people into one very large side who think murdering thousands of people to get one's point across is reprehensible, to put it mildly, and one very teeny tiny small side who don't.

But all sarcasm aside, perhaps he does have a point about the existence of two sides. It is in the choice of name tags where issue needs to be taken.

Those skirmishes mentioned earlier, the domestic theological saber rattling... except for the lonely fringes, the adversaries generally share an important commonality. Conscious of, and at times obsessed with, our differences, some verbal missiles have been lobbed. But in truth the battles have been anemic. Bound somewhere underneath the bluster of these barbs has consistently lurked a shared truth and common grasp -- the ideal of Liberty in religious choice and interpretation. The deeper the faith, it has seemed at the best of times, the deeper the respect. Likewise, the more shallow the motive the more strident the shouting. Conviction and peace. Passion and chaos.

And so it truly becomes a war of worldviews, dictated by one, and, if heeded by millions, ignored by those who seem dog-less in the fight at their peril. Not an ideological war as in some recent altercations, but a war on the order of the darkest of ages, based on the most unenlightened of views. Mocking the inability to bomb back to the Stone Age those who have never left it amuses, but it overlooks the possibility of the rubble spreading, of new deserts created in a flash, of the 21st century falling back towards the 12th, instead of that favorite American pastime -- "moving forward".

The war may end up being between religious freedom and its current antithesis, between Liberty and Shari'a. Regardless of the root of its conception. Few people chose it, but if it is here, few will be unaffected by it.

President Bush said "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists". But Bin Laden has told a billion people that if they're with us, they're against Allah. Conscious of the narrowness in scope of his own personal jihad, and desperate to rally mobs to his side, he also disingenuously brought the Palestinian plight into his equation -- a mark, it seems, of far too many wannabe tyrants and despots, the "blame it on the Jews" ploy, a tired tirade tho' near-guaranteed blood boiler of the ignorant.

Time will tell if he has the power to make it so. (Although, hint to networks, televising these types of statements do help spread the word.) Meanwhile, I reflect on the current fate of Christians in, among other places, the Molucca Islands of Indonesia. "Convert or die!" is the rallying cry. "Allahu Akbar", the refrain. I think of little girls and wrinkled women brought under the rusted blade of circumcision, unprotected by a stultified government, at the mercy of a dark and merciless regime.

They say that if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything. In a world as diverse as ours the choice has been made quite clear. And although standing for what makes us different seems so trite a statement, it is the hallmark of America and the dividing line of this conflict. Not what makes us different as groups, but as individuals, neither Christians nor Jews nor Muslims nor nothings and no-names, but free to be any, or all, or absolutely none of the above.

The other side does not wish to afford us such choices. Eventually.

Mercurial Times exclusive commentary. Reprints must credit the author and Mercurial Times.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.