As I see it, there are three kinds of people, depending on how strong is their faith in their ideas. In two cases, their beliefs arenīt strong enough:
- Some of them, at least unconsciously, feel their ideas canīt compete with others in equal conditions, so they feel threatened, and usually fight back, violently. That, taken to the extreme, leads them to kill, even at the cost of getting killed too. Since their mistake is the same, the only difference is how far theyīll go, although they tend to escalate too. In short, I include in this group terrorists, religious fundamentalists, some nationalists, and everyone with a totalitarian political view, even in a democratic system. The end justifies the means.
- Others, under a misunderstood tolerance, donīt have a strong faith in any ideas, and despise people who do. Itīs easy not to defend your ideas with the argument that no one should. And even easier when tagging your opponentīs ideas as totalitarian seems to inmediately legitimate your own. Nothing is right or wrong, so the end justifies the means. Spanish Government has been a great example this last weekend, criticizing victims of terrorism and their supporters, around one million people, who peacefully demonstrated in Madrid against negotiation with ETA murderers. They donīt seem to understand that some people would rather be killed by terrorists than live in a treacherous peace at the cost of giving in to the terrorists totalitarian goals.
This two positions arenīt as far apart as it seems. Some people even combine them: you shouldnīt have strong ideas if theyīre different from mine, but I have every right to impose mine. Thatīs what do some of the nationalists in Spain, especially Basque and Catalan ones. Their very narrow view of the world is the following: Everyone against nationalism is a "dictatorial fascist", but they are entitled to say who is/isnīt a true Basque/Catalan based on their political ideas, impose a language in a bilingual region, verbally and physically attack their oponents, and so on.
- The third group of people, the one weīd all like to belong to, or the one we fight to belong to (weīre human and usually fall to one or both of the temptations above), itīs the people who have such faith in what they defend that they think it almost defends itself. Well, of course you have to defend it, and donīt hesitate to do such, but you donīt have to do it "against" anyone. You strongly believe itīs the truth and know that, in the end, truth shall prevail. So you donīt worry if youīre attacked, discriminated, killed... And you donīt go to extreme means like those to defend it because you are sure your ideas are true and right enough not to need it. Examples? Well, everyone who ever gave their life for a cause in an innocent way, everyone who thinks it could happen and are ready, and everyone (like me) who likes to think theyīd be ready.
Wow, look what a drabble from such a small idea!
It's funny, the word "fundamentalist" wasn't really part of the English vocabulary until the late 1970s. Until then, the enemies were Fascism and Communism. Then the strongly islamist Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the moderate Islam of the Shahs in Iran, and a new kind of war started in the world. Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth by America (he represented the "acceptable", moderate/secular face of a predominantly ismalic country) to fight the fundamentalism of Iran's totalitarianism.
Until that time, the Ku Klux Klan or the Bible-belt inhabitants of Tenessee etc etc in the US weren't called "fundamentalists". Instead, they were "evangelicals".
A lot of what these bible-bashers (apologies for the terminology, its not supposed to be offensive to those belonging to Maria's "group 3" above. It's just a term used in Britain for fundamentalist Christians, aggressively preaching their particular brand of religion over all others) say is, frankly, silly. They too often confuse religion with nationalism and patriotism.
There was a program on TV yesterday about these lunatics (there are apparently 200,000 such evangelical churches in America out of 700,000 in total, and the OVERWHELMING majority of devotees are Republican and voted Bush). One woman was wearing a "holster apron". So while she's in kitchen, she has a little pouch for keeping a gun. Why? Apparently, there's too many foreigners coming in and attacking them and trying to burn down their churches. Apparently, it was self-defence for a woman feeling persecuted. The irony is I myself, as a mild Hindu and a humanist, would be shit-scared of going to Tennessee because of these crazy mamas thinking I'm gonna eat their children and steal their apple pies. It seemed she was upset against globalisation eroding her type of America.
Problem was, she saw this being equivalent to the whole world attacking her religion.
To compound matters, they showed her going to her evangelical church for a service. There they had a big cinema-type TV screen. Bill Frist, leader of the Senate, relayed a message to everyone there. In it he said he had been coming to this church all his life, and that he thought the reverend was just super and that everyone there should listen to him. The whole church was filled with people like my holster apron granny.
What I don't get is, religion and politics is as inherently linked in the US as it is in many islamist countries around the world. So why is it that when the US gives $3 bn a year to Israel (making this "aid" as the largest sngle component of their GDP...almost all of which is used to buys arms, predominanly from teh US) this is morally ok, but when Iran and Syria give Hamas money to buy arms, its that nasty islamic fundamentalism at work that no-one likes???