Fanatismo

Yo sigo temando sobre si existe o no un Islam moderado. David Warren sostiene que el fanatismo se puede dar en cualquier sociedad, pero la cuestión central es qué hace el resto de la sociedad para suprimirlo.

Yo vuelvo a repetir lo que dije hace unos días, el problema no es la afiliación religiosa de tal o cual persona. El problema surge cuando lo religioso trasciende el ámbito de lo privado y pasa a la esfera pública. Es ahí cuando surgen los intentos de imposición de tal o cual postura religiosa sobre el resto de la sociedad. Una cosa es la religión en una sociedad secular y otra en una teocracia:

I am writing today about "Islamism", a word I persist in using to describe an over-politicized, and over-literalist version of Islam that is a threat to the West, as it is also a threat to every Muslim who wishes to live in reasonable freedom, and peace with his neighbours. I make the distinction because it must be made. I make it again and again, but people don't get it.

Be assured, I receive heat from both sides, for I am often attacked by correspondents who accuse me of "making excuses" for Islam, of making "a distinction that isn't a distinction". To them I can only say: that if Islam had been following the teachings of Osama bin Laden, or President Ahmadinejad of Iran, from its beginnings, it wouldn't be a problem today. It would have perished centuries ago. It is only because Islam was able to offer a rich and credible civilized tradition, and the starch of an intelligible moral order, that it was able to last the centuries, and find itself enjoying today, as Christianity also enjoys, the acid bath of post-modernity.

On the other hand, if I thought the Koran superior to the Gospels, I wouldn't be a Christian, would I? For I do still live in a country where, in the words of Mohammed, "there is no compulsion in religion". Or, relatively little.