Terrorism: from Samson to Atta.

THERE IS AN UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE between Samson's attack on the temple of the Philistines as described in the Bible (Judges 16: 26-31) and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001. On a busy holiday when about three thousand Philistines were celebrating in the Temple, Samson decided to use his super-human strength to push away the pillars that held up the temple so that the whole edifice came crumbling down, crushing him and hundreds of innocent people in the rubble.

On 11 September 2001, Atta hijacked a plane and crashed it into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Atta's crime was more technically sophisticated and executed on a larger scale than Samson's, but morally speaking the two crimes were identical. In both cases innocent victims were buried alive in the rubble--innocent people met a gruesome death that they could not have anticipated or deserved. It is difficult not to conclude that Samson was as much of a terrorist as Atta. Yet, we regard Atta as a criminal, and the incarnation of evil, but we go along with the Bible in portraying Samson as a hero. Is there any difference between them that would justify such radically different assessments?

No one has tackled the story of Samson more honestly or more boldly than Maurice Yacowar in his delightful novel, The Bold Testament. (1) The novelis a postmodern re-telling of the story of Samson, which is told from Delilah's point of view--which is to say, from the Philistine point of view. This has the effect of revealing some of the truth that is glossed over in the Bible. Delilah makes it clear that the Promised Land was heavily populated, and that the Philistines were eventually wiped out by the Hebrews. On the postmodern view, as represented by Michel Foucault and others, every group has its own truth and its own knowledge. The victors have their truth and the vanquished have theirs. It is also a fact that the victors generally write the histories. The Bible is therefore written from the Hebrew point of view--the point of view of the victors. The postmodern project consists in the liberation of the "subjugated knowledges," (2) which is to say, the vanquished perspectives. However, postmodernism is skeptical about truth. It denies that there is such a thing as truth independent of perspective. And that is precisely its problem. If there is no such thing as truth, if all of life and especially politics, is a war of mutually conflicting propagandas, then there is no sense telling the story from the point of view of the subjugated--the Philistine point of view. The new story simply replaces one set of lies with another.

But clearly, this is not the case. Telling the story from more than one perspective brings us closer to the truth, even if we cannot have the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yacowar's retelling of the story accomplishes just that. It gets us closer to the truth, not just by inverting the Bible, but by allowing us to see in the canonical text what is never denied, but is quickly glossed over. The Biblical propaganda does not totally conceal the fact that the Promised Land was heavily populated, but it brushes it aside as if to say it was an insignificant fact. The Biblical propaganda makes Samson out to be the hero who was responsible for "liberating" his people from their oppressors. But the Bible does not deny that Samson was a brute whose super-human strength was criminally out of control For the sake of basic law and order, Samson had to be put behind bars to make the community--any community--safe. This is the side of the story that Delilah (i.e., Yacowar) brings out. It is not a matter of replacing one set of lies with another. The story that Delilah tells is totally recognizable. It is not an inversion of the tale as we know it. It brings us closer to the truth because it highlights aspects of the canonical interpretation that are glossed over, and therefore allows us to see the Bible, that sacred text, as a text like any other--a flawed and one-sided account of historical events told by the victors.

It may be argued that Samson was a hero because he did not act independently; he was merely an instrument of God's will. And God wished to punish the Philistines for their idolatry and their iniquity. Besides, Samson sacrificed his own life in order to carry out the justice of God. But if we accept this excuse for Samson, we must also accept it for Arm. It can equally well be argued that Atta was an instrument of God's will; and that God wanted to punish the Americans for their arrogance and iniquities. So Atta gave up his own life to carry out the will of God. But what is all this talk about God's will? Is that not a way of concealing our own iniquities by attributing them to God? The trouble is that this Biblical way of thinking and speaking remains prevalent, not only among the Islamic fundamentalists, but also among the Christian fundamentalists that dominate the Republican Party--and that includes President George W. Bush.

After 11 September, the leader of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, and the founder of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, declared that the terrorist attack was a deserved punishment from God for America's sins. In particular, they suggested that feminists, gays, and lesbians were the reason that God allowed this to happen. Many Americans were shocked and dismayed at the vulgarity of this public statement at a time of national grief. This candid expression of their true sentiments turned out to be a public relations nightmare. Besides, such candid comments are antithetical to the "stealth campaigning" to which Ralph Reed, the executive director of the Christian Coalition, is committed. This savvy tactic requires the concealment of the real goals and beliefs of Christian Coalition candidates running for office. A prudent candidate would run a campaign emphasizing balanced budgets, but once in office, focus on the criminalization of abortion, prayer in the schools, and dismantling Planned Parenthood at home and abroad. In light of the Christian Coalition's commitment to these Machiavellian tactics, the candid remarks by Falwell and Robertson were imprudent, at the very least. Falwell and Robertson had to apologize publicly to limit the damages. But in truth, Falwell and Robertson's interpretation of the events of 11 September are perfectly compatible with the Christian tradition of divine Providence, from Augustine to Luther. The Islamic tradition is no different; everything depends on the will of God; everywhere the hand of God is at work. So, if we accept the view that Samson was an instrument of God, then we must also accept the view that Atta was also an instrument of God.

We are living in an age that can rightly be described as a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Two dualistic philosophies confront one another. Each one claims to be privy to the one true revelation. Each one claims to be the representative of the one true God. Each one regards the other as the incarnation of evil. These shared assumptions make both civilizations adverse to diplomacy and compromise. That is another way of saying that they are not capable of politics understood as a domain of dialogue, concession, compromise, or cooperation. Instead, they speak the language of religion--the language of jihad or struggle against the cosmic forces of evil. The root of the problem is the dualistic Biblical morality at the heart of the self-understanding of these two antagonists.

Contrary to Samuel Huntington and others, I believe that it is the sameness and not the difference between Islamic and American civilizations that explains the fierce nature of the conflict between them. (3) In what follows, I will argue that this clash of civilizations has its source in the fact that the two civilizations are inspired by the same Biblical God. It is my contention that the problem of the modern world is thoroughly Biblical. The dualistic Biblical morality is at the root of the problem. This view of the world--this "morality"--needs to be critically examined.

We must remember that the God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims is the same Biblical God. To skeptics, this God may appear wrathful and cruel, but to believers, He is just. That may be. But what is disturbing is the nature of His justice and its heroes. There are two features of this divine justice to which I would like to draw attention.

First, what we cannot help noticing in the story of Samson and the Philistines is that there are no innocent Philistines. The Philistines are evil by virtue of being Philistines. There is no such thing as innocent Philistines. The Biblical God seems to be indifferent to the innocence of individuals. God punishes the Philistines as a people. But surely, whatever the sins of the Philistines, they cannot be all equally culpable. Yet, the whole community is punished for the iniquities of some. Nor does God deny that this is indeed His brand of justice. On the contrary, he prides himself on the fact: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Exodus 20:5). Time and again we bear that "the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel" (Joshua 7:1). Time and again, the anger falls on the whole community for the transgressions of some.

Both the Jews and the Puritans who settled North America understood this well. When misfortune befell their community--they surmised that God was punishing them collectively for the sins that some of them might have committed. This tends to encourage a degree of communitarian nosiness. Everyone's affairs become everyone's business, because the private conduct of individuals is pertinent to collective well being. It explains why the Christian Right is so adverse to the liberal distinction between public and private. The liberal idea that law and society should leave the private domain free from interference, while setting limits only on public conduct, seems oblivious to the Biblical conception of sin and its disastrous social consequences.

Just as there are no innocent Philistines, so, from the fundamentalist Islamic perspective, there are no innocent Americans. All Americans deserve to suffer for the greed and injustice of their government's social policies. And this means that the terrorist attack was morally justified. Islamic scholars are divided on the matter. But it would be disingenuous to think that those who think the attack on the United States was morally justified are just an extremist fringe group. Nor are the Americans in a position to condemn this position as morally reprehensible and barbaric.

From the American point of view, there are no innocent Taliban fighters. It is useless to protest that you were abducted and forced to fight. All Taliban fighters are terrorists. The United States has denied the status of POWs to young men found fighting on the side of the Taliban. Nor has the American government denied reports of the inhumane treatment that these prisoners have received. Government officials never cease to remind us that this is not an ordinary war; this is a war against evil; the foe has no right to be treated according to the ordinary rules of war; they are not soldiers acting under orders; they are terrorists acting on their own wicked convictions. It is useless for prisoners to protest that they were coerced into fighting for the Taliban.

Deny it as much as they may, American officials suspect all Arabs of being terrorists. In clear violation of the American Constitution, the American government has imprisoned countless Arab men without charge and without trial. Even in a supposedly individualistic culture, it is difficult to transcend the Biblical inclination to think of individuals in terms of their national and racial identities.

The second aspect of the Biblical conception of justice to which I would like to draw attention is its profound dualism. The world is divided into those who are with Him, and those who are against Him. We are on the side of God, and our enemies are allied with Satan. The world is organized into two tidy categories--us and them, good and evil, God and Satan. The political struggle against our enemies is therefore part and parcel of the cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil. Once the world is understood in these terms, it becomes clear why Samson is a hero and Atta is a villain. Samson is on our side. That is all.

The upshot of the matter is that we have two equally arrogant and self-righteous civilizations confronting one another. But the radical nature of the conflict is not due to the difference between them, but the similarity. Each is convinced that it is on the side of God, truth and justice, while its enemy is allied with Satan, wickedness, and barbarism. The trouble with this dualistic posture is that it radicalizes and polarizes the world; it denies plurality, and it precludes self-criticism and self-understanding. (4)

POLARIZING THE WORLD

Understanding the world in dualistic terms has the effect of replacing politics with religion. The language of diplomacy and compromise is replaced by the language of jihad or the snuggle against evil. Life is radicalized; and all choices are polarized. Politics properly understood is eclipsed; it is disabled; it is removed from the equation; it cannot diffuse the conflict. Political conflicts are not necessarily, or even primarily, conflicts between good and evil. More often than not, they are conflicts between competing and incompatible "goods." The function of politics is to create order in the midst of plurality and diversity. Politics is the art of devising means by which people can live peacefully without necessarily agreeing about the nature of ultimate reality. Politics is the art of finding ways of allowing people to live together even when their conceptions of the good come into conflict. The supreme political virtues are moderation and a certain degree of tolerance--not tolerance of tyranny and gross injustice--but tolerance of the plurality of the good, and the plurality of beliefs about ultimate reality.

Politics presupposes the recognition that there are many roads to righteousness. This is not a relativistic posture. This is not a denial of truth and justice. This is not a postmodern claim that all truth is someone's truth, and all justice is someone's justice. The distinction between good and evil, justice and injustice is fundamental to politics. But the self-righteous attitude that leads one to imagine that our own interests are identical with cosmic good, has the effect of blinding us to the injustices we inflict in the pursuit of that single good. Recognition that there are a plurality of goods, and that there is more than one righteous way of life, is a prerequisite to the cultivation of the moderation that is critical to the art of politics.

When our enemies are the incarnation of evil, there is nothing that we can do to them that is off-limits. No amount of pain and suffering that we can inflict is illegitimate. The ultimate goal is the total annihilation of the enemy, which amounts to the eradication of evil from the world. The language of George W. Bush clearly reflects this dualistic Biblical sensibility--and so does the language of Osama bin Laden.

Bush has declared a war on terrorism. He is determined to eradicate the terrorists in every corner of the globe. Again and again, he has declared that those who are not with us are against us; those who are not with us are with the terrorists. Needless to say, God is on our side; we are the representatives of justice, truth, and civilization--no matter what we do or how we behave! Meanwhile, our enemies are the incarnation of evil, barbarism, and terror. Every country that is not an ally in the war on terrorism, every country that is not an ally of the United States, every country that is resentful of America's global dominance, is an enemy, and is therefore likely to harbor terrorists. After bombing Afghanistan, the Bush administration has been trying to decide which country to bomb next. It has warned its citizens that the war on terror will be a long war.

It would have been more honest to tell the American people that it will be an endless war. R must be pointed out that nothing could gladden the heart of a neo-conservative government than the prospect of endless war. As I have argued elsewhere, neo-conservative political philosophy is cynical about human nature. It assumes that only the looming threat of a common enemy can unite a people into a cohesive social order. If no such enemy exists, it must be invented. (5)

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the America Right despaired. Luckily, Osama bin Laden came to the rescue. The trouble is that the new enemy has no army, no air force, no tanks, and no nuclear weapons. It is a challenge to keep such an enemy looking menacing relative to the only super-power in the world--the only nation whose military might is unmatched. But luckily the enemy is wily and unpredictable, and it has penetrated deep into Canadian, if not also America territory; so, it is poised to strike at any time.

From the neo-conservative point of view, the situation could not be more advantageous. (6) The presence of a constant threat is believed to be the best way to unite people behind their government; it also allows government to amass powers that a free people would not normally tolerate.

It must be kept in mind that fear is the greatest ally of tyranny. As long as Americans are kept in a state of trepidation and apprehension, they will not worry about the loss of their freedom. In short, by insuring the endless nature of the struggle against evil, Biblical dualism lends support to neo-conservative assumptions. And as I have argued elsewhere, exaggerating evil in general has the effect of undermining freedom and justifying tyranny. (7) Because Christianity has a tendency to exaggerate the evil of human nature, it is generally the enemy of freedom and the ally of repression where politics are concerned. The alliance between the Christian Coalition and the American Right is therefore no coincidence. They are both equally hostile to America's liberal heritage. The rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network is no less dualistic, absolutistic, immoderate, and polarizing. The views of Islamic fundamentalists do not differ significantly from the views of the Christian Coalition.

THE WHORE OF BABYLON

Looking at the protagonists from each other's point of view helps us to get closer to the truth. It helps to undermine the self-righteousness on both sides. It helps to make the two protagonists see just how similar they are.

Islamic fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden and his followers regard America as the incarnation of Satan. No. She is even more interesting and seductive than Satan. She is more akin to the Whore of Babylon. She has invented a new and more insidious form of colonialism. She is not satisfied with amassing wealth and power. Her goal is to conquer the hearts and minds of Muslim men and women around the globe. She will settle for nothing short of global dominance. She aims to create a global culture. Global capitalism is the instrument of American colonialism. Her goal is not just to sell Coke or Reeboks; she aims to sell a particular way of life--a hedonistic way of life devoted to the pursuit of wealth and pleasure. The new colonialism subjugates the soul; it conquers not with the sword, but with seductive, sexy advertising. Muslim souls are more at risk than they have ever been before. So the Islamic rhetoric goes.

The new world order is armed with a powerful new religion and new gods. It is devoted to the worship of Mammon and Dionysus--the god of wine, sex, and revelry. The new global culture thrives on vice. The endless pursuit of pleasure, luxury, and self-indulgence, churns the wheels of the capitalist economy and augments its profits. This satanic religion has conquered the globe in the name of universal prosperity. But Satan lies; no universal prosperity is at hand. (8) Global capitalism will make America richer, while leaving the poorest of the poor more impoverished than they were before, not only materially, but spiritually.

And again: Islam is in greater danger than it has ever been before. It is the duty of all the Muslims to defend the faith against the infidels. It is role that the Quran talks of jihad as an inner struggle, a spiritual struggle against the forces of evil within. But it also condones another kind of jihad--taking up arms to defend the faith. And the faith is clearly threatened as it has never been before. No doubt Christians will point to the militancy of Islam with self-congratulation. They will proudly invoke the name of God the Son--a God of love and self-sacrifice. But as soon as they are in positions of power, they behave in the cruel and as vengeful ways of God the Father. But we Muslims do not have two or three deities, but only one God. And the only authority available to interpret his word is the sacred text. There is no clergy, no Church hierarchy, and no official interpretation of the Quran. (9) And those of us who think that it is acceptable to use every means to defend the faith when it is threatened are not simply fringe lunatics.

It behooves Muslim fundamentalists to see themselves and their societies through American eyes, if they hope to aspire to intelligent self-criticism or self-understanding. From an American liberal perspective, it must be admitted that Islamic societies are so repressive that the Whore of Babylon is bound to have unmistakable appeal. Societies that are so oppressive and authoritarian destroy the capacity of individuals for self-restrain. The hijab is the ultimate symbol of Islamic repression. It is no longer an expression of piety or the love of God. With the defeat of the Taliban, Afghani women are now allowed to walk the streets of Kabul, unveiled. But most of them do not dare, because they fear that their men are too wild and unrestrained. What Islamic societies fear most is themselves. They fear theft own incapacity to deal with freedom; they fear the seductive appeal of American liberty. Islamic culture must confess that its populace is not educated for freedom. That is why it is so easily seduced by the Whore of Babylon. It is time to stop blaming the evil empire for all its troubles; it is time to look inward for the source of its difficulties.

MUTUAL ENVY

It seems to me that underneath all the mutual hatred and mutual denunciation, there is also mutual envy. The two antagonists are not only moved by mutual fear and revulsion, but also by a mutual attraction. There is no doubt that Arab hatred of the United States has its source in envy and resentment of America's success and prosperity, as well as its enviable capacity to sustain social order under conditions of freedom. In contrast, the Islamic world is riddled by internal division, economic collapse, turmoil, confusion, tyranny, repression, and helplessness.

It may sound surprising to suggest that Americans also suffer from envy of the Arab world. This is especially true in the most powerful circles, which is to say, among American conservatives, neo-conservatives, and the Religious Right. What the Bush administration fears the most is that the Islamic fundamentalist view of America is not far off the mark. The truth is that the Whore of Babylon has a fundamentalist heart. Forty eight per cent of Americans claim to be born-again Christians, including President George W. Bush. As a result, America suffers from a profound self-loathing.

On the surface, American society appears to be the model of liberal modernity gone mad. Pornography is her biggest export. She cannot sell chewing gum or cars without relying on sex. There was a time when the Islamic world could look to the West to satisfy its hunger for scientific knowledge. But now, it sees the West as providing mainly pornography and gadgets such as computers, which make the pornography even more accessible. And one does not have to be a fundamentalist Christian to recognize that AI Gore's ambition of linking every child to the internet is like connecting them to the gutter. America hates the Islamic world because it speaks with the voice of its own conscience. The enemy is a reminder that America is Faustian--that she has sold her soul to the Devil for oil and wealth.

American self-contempt and envy of the Islamic world is particularly evident in the writings of conservatives and neoconservatives. Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations is a case in point. At first blush, the book appears to be a diatribe against the Muslim enemy. But on closer examination, the denunciation of the Islamic enemy is laced with envy. In particular, Huntington envies them their unliberated women, their high birth rate, their youthful population, their religiosity, and their close-knit communitarianism. In short, he envies their illiberality. Like other American conservatives and neoconservatives, Huntington regards liberalism as the greatest threat to American well-being and success. Liberalism has given birth to feminism, and the latter has turned American women against childbearing and child-rearing. They are no longer busy making soldiers. Meanwhile, our population continues to age. How long can we keep the Islamic menace at bay? That is the gist of his real-politick thinking. And that is the source of his envy.

BEYOND POLITICAL REALISM 

In my view, this political realism is seriously flawed. It is based on the distinction between hard power and soft power. Hard power is military might--tanks, planes, nuclear warheads, submarines, and soldiers--lots of soldiers. Soft power is culture, communication, films, books, music, and entertainment. Political realists, such as Huntington, assume that hard power is critical for achieving hegemony and dominance in the world. They tend to overlook the force of soft power. But this flies in the face of historical experience. One of Friedrich Nietzsche's greatest insights is the recognition that those who win the wars rarely succeed in imposing the yoke of their own culture on the defeated. The Greeks are a classic case in point. They lost militarily to the Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans. But their culture continued to dominate.

By the same token, America has not acquired its current world dominance through military conquest. It did not defeat the Soviets. The Soviet Union collapsed of its own accord. American hegemony has its source in its economic and cultural supremacy. Ironically it has decided to rely more and more on its military might--and this may be its undoing. But it is also a result of the real-politick mentality that characterizes the current administration. But its enemies know better. They know that the formidable strength of the United States is cultural. The World Trade Towers were clear symbols of that cultural supremacy. It is the latter that the Islamic enemies of the Unites States fear more than its military might.

In conclusion, the conflict between America and the Islamic world has its source in their similarity and not their difference. It is not primarily a military conflict. It is a war of propaganda--a cultural war in which each of the antagonists is determined to win the sympathy, admiration, and moral approval of the world. Each is claiming to be the victim; each is claiming to be on the side of God, truth, and justice. Each is relying on the same Biblical dualism, which makes the antagonists equally intransigent, immoderate, and intolerant. It is unlikely that they will abandon this Biblical rhetoric and move in the direction era more moderate and pluralistic politics.

One question remains: which one is likely to win the contest for world opinion? Which one is likely to be more persuasive or credible? I dare say that for all its power and resources, the United States is at a serious disadvantage. With the creation of Al-Jazeera, the Arab super-network, the Americans no longer have a monopoly over the information media, as they did during the Gulf War. But that is not the real source of their difficulty. Ironically, the reason that they are at a disadvantage is due to their extraordinary military might, and their inability to use it wisely or with restraint. The administration has moved to an openly aggressive policy of pre-emptive strikes. And this will undermine it further in the culture war.

The Biblical imagery of good and evil (on which both parties rely) does not favor a super-power. The Biblical narrative favors the oppressed and persecuted and not the powerful--the enslaved Hebrews, not their Egyptian overlords, David not Goliath, the Christians not their Roman tormentors. The world's only super-power does not fit the Biblical imagery; it cannot play the role of the persecuted for long. It may have gotten away with it briefly after 11 September, but it cannot continue to do this alter the bombing of Afghanistan, and its indiscriminate support of Israel's war on the Palestinians. The more it flexes its military muscle, the more its looks like the oppressor, the more it risks losing the war of propaganda--even among its own citizens. Witness the young man from California who converted to Islam and fought on the side of the Taliban.

There is reason to believe the statistics that indicate more people in America and around the world have converted to Islam since 11 September than in the last decade. What the Americans must not be forget is that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a religion that thrives on persecution. How can Islam fail to win the war of world opinion when it can utilize the powerful Biblical imagery? How can Muslims fail to present themselves as the oppressed people of God in the face of a world tyranny? One does not have to succumb to the appeal of Biblical imagery to find the prospect of a single super-power pushing its weight around the globe reprehensible. Unless the United States starts to use its power wisely, it will lose the propaganda war. But it will not be the only loser. Israel will also be a loser--and so will the world. As long as American foreign policy remains unchanged, as long as the global institutions remain rapacious, the anti-globalization forces will unite with the anti-Semitic forces to elect more and more immoderate politicians in Europe and elsewhere. The United States can turn the tide only if it is wiling to abandon the Biblical rhetoric of good and evil in favor of a secular rhetoric of diplomacy and compromise. But this is not likely as long as the current administration is in power.

ENDNOTES

(1.) Maurice Yacowar, The Bold Testament (Calgary, Alberta: Bayeux Arts Incorporated, 1999).

(2.) Michel Foucault, Power-Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings 1972-1977. Colin Gordon, (ed.), translated by Colin Gordon, et. al. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1950).

(3.) Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

(4.) Like Maurice Yacowar, Rick Salutin of The Globe and Mail has recognized the importance of self-criticism; with brilliance and courage, he has provided an unflagging critique of the United States and Israel. It is to the credit of both these men that they are Jewish.

(5.) Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).

(6.) It is important to recognize that Samuel Huntington is one of the leading neo-conservative intellectuals. From the neo-conservative point of view, declaring that America still has formidable enemies is good news. This is especially the case after the dark tidings of Francis Fukuyama in his The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). Fukuyama declared that America had won the Cold War and had defeated all her enemies. The book was received as symptom of American triumphalism. But nothing could be further from the truth. Fukuyama was a student of Huntington and had imbibed the neo-conservative values. He could not reasonably gloat in the absence of enemies. A civilization that has defeated all its enemies can look forward only to cultural decay and decline. The title of Fukuyama's book alone indicates this. The concept of the "last man" is borrowed from Nietzche's prognostications of the decay of Western civilization.

(7.) See my forthcoming work, Terror and Civilization: From Christianity to Postmodernism (St. Martin's Press).

(8.) For the best and most penetrating critique of global capitalism, see Linda Mcquaig, All You Can Eat: Greed Lust and the New Capitalism (Toronto, Ontario: Penguin Books, 2001).

(9.) Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Gellner argues that Islam is more suited to the modern world because it is more democratic and more egalitarian than Christianity. Any man who is willing to apply himself and study the Quran can become one of the ulema or scholars who interpret the Quran. But it must also be admitted that the situation can also be anarchic--with one scholar claiming that certain tactics and practices are permissible and another denying that they are. Moreover, the fact that there is no clerical hierarchy means that there is nothing to rebel against, and the prospect of a revolutionary transformation of the faith by a rebel reformer such as Martin Luther, is highly unlikely.

Shadia Drury is Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.