[lit-ideas] Re: Five Years Ago
- From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:20:38 +0100
>LH: Well, why not go all the way and say I disagree with
>the parts of the writing I disagree with?
because what I think is being said here (not only by me) is this;
you don't only read the people you agree with but when you read
others -- whose views you may, as you say, not know in
advance -- you appear to ignore the aspects of their work with
which you disagree. "Scholar after scholar", you say, tell us
"the root causes of 9/11" "is a virulent Jihadist ideology
formulated by Sayyid Qutb". Well now, it may indeed be the
case that many "scholars" think that and say it. But many "scholars"
do not, many have either a different monocausal explanation or
a more nuanced multi-causal one. I would call the last
group, the ones who offer a multi-causal analysis, the true
scholars*.
I accept that historians often place emphasis on
the narrative and the authorial voice. That habit of theirs
may, Lawrence, have misled you into thinking an authoritative-
sounding account with which you happen to agree is "history",
is *the* history. People who don't know much about the
discipline of history do tend to make that mistake.
*I would add, those writers who don't offer an overall analysis but
do carry out research that illuminates our view; e.g. Richard
Pape, and his work on suicide bombers.
Judy
*
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 5:34 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Five Years Ago
JE: it's my quaint way of saying you ignore the parts of their writing with
which you disagree
LH: Well, why not go all the way and say I disagree with the parts of the
writing I disagree with? I have to read the passages before I can tell
whether I agree or disagree with them; so "ignore" makes no sense. Also, I
have read so that much of what I read is material I am already familiar with.
I especially enjoy writers who introduce me to something new as Bowman is with
his Honor.
JE: >Is the ideology influenced by Qutb a necessary condition for terrorism
and in particular, suicide attacks?
JE: >Is that ideology a sufficient condition?
JE: which were aimed at your
LH>the "root causes of 9/11" which scholar after scholar (del) tell us is a
virulent Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb.
JE: if you don't want to answer the questions, how about defining "root
cause"?
LH: Ah, I didn't realize that you intended a quibble. I thought you were
asking a legitimate question. So you are quibbling about what sort of cause
Sayyid Qutb was. Well, without Qutb there would not be Islamism as we know it
today; so he is a necessary cause. I am not a determinist (as Barnett and
Fukuyama are, by the way); so I have a problem with applying the term
sufficient cause to social events. Qutb didn't create Islamism out of whole
cloth. He was preceded by Wahhabism, Salafism, and in the Muslim Brothers he
was preceded by Al Banna. In Pakistan he was preceded by Maududi. And then in
regard to Khomeini, there are some who argue that even though Qutb seems to
have preceded the Islamist teachings of Khomeini, Khomeini came up with them
independently. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. I don't know.
Could a modern day Jihadist become militant without ever having heard of
Qutb? Probably. The thing about Fundamentalist teachers is that they are
quickly set aside. They teach that one should have a literal belief in the
teachings of Christianity or Islam; so someone who accepts that isn't going to
say that they believe in Darby-Christianity or Qutb-Islam. They are going to
say that they have the one true interpretation of Christianity or Islam and
they are going to forget Darby and Qutb. I have argued with very few
Dispensationalists who knew that the theologian who founded Dispensationalism
was John Nelson Darby. It may be (but I don't know) that there are more
Islamists who know of Qutb than Dispensationalists who know of Darby, but if
they got their Islamism from the Friday sermons they may not have heard of Qutb.
But back to your quibble: does the term "Root Cause" really fit Qutb's place
in Islamism? Well, let's look at how Mike intended the term "root cause." He
didn't specify, but I took him to be using the old Leftist idea that Capitalism
causes proletarian revolutions, and the "so-called" Islamist unrest is at root
just such an one. The U.S. was out in the world plying its greedy Capitalistic
trade and on 9/11, the chickens came home to roost. While some Islamists do
give lip-service to the Marxists paradigm, it goes counter to their religious
beliefs. They do not attack the infidel because he is greedy or represents
capitalism. They attack him because he is an infidel and their literalistic
Islamic views declare that he should be exterminated. So I was intending to
counter the assumption I thought Mike was making, i.e., that the Root Cause was
economic in nature, with the one I believe to be true, that the Root Cause is
religious in nature. Qutb developed or in some cases put the final touches on
the Islamism that is behind the virulent Jihadist ideology that all nations in
the Middle East as well as Western and many other nations are being plagued
with today.
Lawrence
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 8:41 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Five Years Ago
>Well, if Judy is any example, the assertion that I read only those
>who agree with me is morphing
d'you mean spreading?
> That seems to be her quaint way of saying that I don't accept everything I
read,
it's my quaint way of saying you ignore the parts of their writing
with which you disagree
>The thing about Qutb and the suicide attacks is that he took
> the Jihad into new regions.
this doesn't really answer my
>Is the ideology influenced by Qutb a necessary condition for
>terrorism and in particular, suicide attacks?
>Is that ideology a sufficient condition?
which were aimed at your
LH>the "root causes of 9/11" which scholar after scholar (del) tell
LH>us is a virulent Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb.
if you don't want to answer the questions, how about defining
"root cause"?
LH>Perhaps all Islamist Muslims do not become Jihadists
no "perhaps" about it. So:
why do people adopt the beliefs they do?
why do they act upon them?
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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