The Muslim Impasse

A little more than a week ago, I was following up on the attacks against Canadian troops in Afghanistan. I was gathering some information on the net and came across the typical small 300-word article as to what happened, and about 6000 worth of opinions below it.

Most of these opinions weren’t related to the article, but simply to the subject in general, and not even related to Canadian troops at all.

One American reader voiced an opinion about how Muslims should all be lumped together and that we, as Christians, shouldn’t bother to differentiate between the extremists and not. He said this in about as many words, and nothing else. I will call him “our hero”.

Since I’d already expressed my thoughts on this, I re-examined my stance just in case I was totally off the ball. It doesn’t happen often, but I will admit it does occur, well, at least some times. So I abstracted the fact that there are factions of Christianity that we Christians have already disavowed point blank. I started with a clean slate.

If the world at large gets a good hate on for the Muslims, as per the recommendation of our hero, I see two possibilities happening and they aren’t mutually exclusive.

We can bank that the extremists will become more violent. I don’t see how they’d become less so.

On the one hand, the enlightened Muslims could dissociate themselves with the extremists, while remaining true to their dogma, assuming it really is one of non-violence. I’ve not studied their religion, I have no intention of doing so, but I will also not believe lopsided media reporting that the Muslim faith is one that is inherently vindictive or genocidal.

So we might see a fissure between the extremists and the overall cause. I’m not saying Muslims will secede en-bloc, not at all, but a definite departure from the all-encompassing support touted in the media, among their different selves.

The second thing that can happen is that they decide to close ranks. Now this would be a serious bitch. As if we didn’t have enough violence with the extremists as it is, our hero would certainly have his wish. Not something I’m inclined to agree with.

Obviously our hero is one of those convinced of his own superiority and has an irrational desire to go to war. As I see it, one goes to war for two reasons: the first, for a presumably just cause, and the second is if you are convinced you will win. Obviously, our hero is convinced.

I think I’ll stand by my original position, which is recommending dissociating from the extremists. And in order to lead by example, I will be the first to dissociate from our hero.

PS. “Our hero” is a phrase from one of my favourite movies Kelly’s Heroes. Telly Savalas, may he rest-in-peace, playing Master Sergeant Big Joe disgustedly calls an aircraft “our hero”. The aircraft in question, also American, had just finished wiping out all of Kelly’s platoon vehicles with rockets and machine gun fire.