[Politics] The Fundamentalist Wars

Radical fundamentalism.

Like a moderately radioactive material, this ideology has mutated the things around it so rapidly and so subtly that while we can already see some effects, we will be feeling this scourge for generations to come. Hatred and dissonance grown like cancerous cells are cropping up in pockets across the world. These growths, as useless and insidious as tumors, are frequently lethal, and often strike in misunderstood and unnoticed ways. Often times we attempt to stem the tide of this debilitating movement as though it were the cancer, treating it topically, medicating it with reform, or alternately the scalpel or barage of our military for that which we call malignant. But fundamentalism is not the cancer, it is the cause, and while we treat the cancer caused, we must also seek to isolate the carcinogen. Hatred will spring eternal from this source and the discord it brings will never die, so long as we fail to recognize the source.

Most readers will rightly assume that I speak of Islamic radical fundamentalism. It has proven to be a wildly deadly force, mutating the often placid middle-road person to a state of militant opposition. The tragic losses as a result of this carcinogen are abundant, and easily sighted. Perhaps too frequently we remember September 11th, The USS Cole, the Embassy bombings, The London Underground, The Madrid Bombings. Americans have grown resentful and furious at this constant barage of life changing events. The cancer of hatred has spread. The identical cells of this cancer have grown in the lymphatic system of our country, and our immunue system is choked up with fury. Our systems are shocked, and the remaining functional bits scurry around trying to survive while the whole of the American body lies prone and wracked with pain. We know this reactionary cancer exists, but we remain powerless to stop its growth, instead focusing on our other ailments, and trying to conduct business as usual. Like a uniquely relapsing remitting case of lymphoma, we struggle to survive in the face of this carcinogenic force.

And yet to treat this radicalized cancer, we have resorted to a Fundamentalism of our own. West against East, Non-muslim against muslim, Amercian-Israeli-British (et al.) against Arab, we have drawn lines in foreign sands. Mobilizing for war against these fundamentalists, we have become zealous and hardened into our philosophy. But while we seek to destroy this threat with our new American fundamentalist movement, irradiating these cells as a doctor would, in a cancer patient, what mutations are we spawning? When a doctor treats a patient with controled radiation, he invariably runs the risk of inadvertantly creating new cancers. Shock and Awe, Occupation, Abu Ghraib, Faluja, what radioactive remnants will we leave behind in this region we are seeking to treat? And should we scourge every last foreign mutant cell that this movement has created, what wreckage will we leave behind to poison the future?

It is not enough to say that we will fight the effects of fundamentalism, we must do so without becoming fundamentalists ourselves. Islamic fundamentalism has altered the American body, poisoning our political and social landscape. American reactionary fundamentalism has attacked and leaves behind an unseen cancerous growth in a foreign land. But in our own regions, an auto-immune response has begun, and we are tearing ourselves apart. Radical evangelism, Fundamentalist Islamism, Zealoutous and separatist Zionists. I believe when historians review our era, the chapter will be titled The Fundamentalist Wars, and the questions will be asked over and again, 'Where was the tempering voice of compassion?', 'How did so much misunderstanding go unadressed?'.

Let us hope, however, that the following chapter is written in the words of reconciliation, not new heights of isolation. Let us hope that this period ends with renewed compassion, not words of vile rancor. Let us hope that the Christian loves his neighbor, the Jew embraces his brother, and the Muslim remembers a legacy of monumental plurality. Vital organs of the world are suffering the cancers wrought from exposure to these Fundamentalist Wars. We are past the early stages, and tumors have sprouted the world over. We must hope that the world-body handles this ailment better than the human-body, or else we must develop, quickly, a treatment yet undiscovered.

[Personal] By Way of Introduction.

I have not, as yet, decided precicely the purpose of this forum. In creating this vehicle, as with any other, I have grandiose visions of idealistic results. Tempered with the lessons of experience, however, I am inclined toward the humble hope that it will become a forum wherein we may discuss, with informed opinion, the world as it relates to us.

I am a student of many things, always willing to listen to new theories. I have oft been accused of patriotism, a slander among my more liberal contemporaries. I have, every time, plead guilty. But it is not the country to which I am ever loyal, or even the government as established. It is, rather, the ideal, the concept, the heart of our nation that is for me a truly inspirational and awe invoking doctrine. I do not, like so many of my academic peers, deify The Founders, knowing that even those stalwart and intellectual giants were simply men. I will however praise the divinity of the words they breathed to life. Concepts like Freedom, Equality, and Justice trancend ages and compose a symphony of the truly sublime within we mundane creatures. And so, even as they composed those lofty and preserved documents that founded our nation, we know that they had yet not concieved of the things which may come of their own creation. The pilgrim could not have envisioned a vast and sprawling web of information that spanned the globe. Hamilton could not have forseen this forum of freely shared thoughts. Even the architechts of that great lost library of Alexandria could not have imagined the enourmous collection of human knowledge with which we are now presented.

So, our actions today will effect the world of tomorrow, though not all so vividly as those above. But, when guided by the mentor of sublime inclination, we act upon mundane need, our actions propell us toward that divine spark of which we have heard tell in so many doctrines of faith. Whether the tiny community of our own home, or the greater congregation of an entire dioscese, or the vast and sprawling umma, we are now interconnected in ways previously unknown, and before us is presented a task greater than the sum of our parts. In most every doctrine of faith, the union of two into one, through mutually held love and respect, is sacrosanct. How much greater, therefore, is the synthesis of many through shared knowledge and respect? And now, in a world where geographic division has lost the power to separate, how much closer have we grown to a shared human experience?

Perhaps this introduction was loftier than intended, heady and conceptual, but it is difficult to discuss hopes and dreams in mundane terms. Not all my entries will be so embelished; not all our discussions will be idealistic or encompassing; but it is this lofty ideal that inspired the creation of this forum, and therefore it is fitting to introduce it in such a fashion. So I humbly submit this inaugural entry with the hope of creating a seed from which will grow the roots that will give succor and sustanance to future blooms of insight.