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September 30, 2009, 2:06 pm
Going to Extremism
By David Brooks and Gail Collins
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
David: Gail, Recently I was reading a book called Moral Minds by Marc Hauser of Harvard. The book is about the underlying grammar of our moral judgments, but in the middle of it, he has a section on honor killings. He describes a killing that took place in Jerusalem in 2001. A guy named Mr. Asasah stood in front of his 32-year-old daughter. She was single and pregnant. Asasah had a noose and an ax and a group of about 30 men and women behind him. He asked his daughter to choose the means of her death. She chose the noose.
He then began strangling his daughter and she did not resist. As he killed her, the audience chanted, Stronger, stronger, you hero, you have proven that you are not despicable. After the woman was dead, her mother and sister served coffee to their guests.
The mind gapes at events like these, yet each year there are thousands and thousands of honor killings.
Now, of course, it should be said immediately these sorts of practices are perpetrated by an extremist fringe. But this extremism seems to have an outsized influence on world events.
After September 11, there were a great many books written about the dangerous conjunction between the modern world and these ancient and barbaric practices. There were many books written, which made the best-seller list, about suicide bombings and the extremist cult of honor and death. Many of these analyses were tied to the larger problem of global terror and Islamic extremism.
Does any of this ring true? Do you see a confrontation looming?
Gail: David, Islamic extremism is obviously a profound threat to the entire non-extreme world. Its particularly disturbing to me because it seems so tied in to brutality against women. But Im trying not to obsess about it as the be-all and end-all of the dangers from without.
When I first came to New York more than 25 years ago, I worked at United Press International on the overnight shift, where one of my jobs was to deal with terrorist threats.
It was extremely educational. Somebody called and said, We have a bomb in a locker at Grand Central Station and you had to A) report it to the police and B) figure out whether it was likely to be a Balkan terrorist, a Middle Eastern terrorist, a Central American terrorist or some new group we hadnt heard of yet.
One night, someone called with a very heavy accent and we thought it was the father of Al, our intern. It turned out it was a terrorist group reporting the assassination of General Anastasio Somoza, the ousted dictator of Nicaragua. He kept saying what I later realized was Somoza is no more and I kept saying Al has gone out for pizza.
I am not telling you all this to make light of your concerns God knows nobody in New York takes this stuff lightly, especially since it seems pretty likely that there was a plot this year to set off some kind of explosive in the New York trains or subways, one of our worst nightmares.
All Im saying is that given the Internet and the easily available technology of basic bomb-making, you cant tell where the next threat is coming from.
David: Gail, Ive always thought that Islamic extremism was different. To me, the most persuasive theory is that some people are caught between modernity and tradition and as an escape have invented a make-believe purism, which permits killing in the name of holiness.
Then came the Iraq war and the debate shifted. But over the past few weeks, Ive been reminded that the problem has not gone away. There are still fanatics in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and South Lebanon, and even Denver. In some ways extremism is on the wane but in other ways the poisonous infection has not been addressed.
American attention has turned to domestic issues, and yet it has come to seem more likely that the Obama presidency will be defined by its reaction to this extremism, as the Bush presidency unfortunately was.
There is the Iranian regime, the Taliban, the extremist forces in Pakistan. Events seem to be conspiring to create a series of confrontations in the years ahead. It seems more likely, especially after the past week, that there is simply no escaping the toxin.
And Im not sure the Obama folks have any comprehensive strategy, other than trying to escape the whole mess. Theyll have to come up with one.
Gail: David, the difference between the Obama strategy and the Bush strategy isnt mainly military. Its a conviction that the real solution lies in the Islamic community, in empowering the good guys to weed out the lunatic fringe. That seems to be happening to some degree in Pakistan, where people are getting thoroughly sick of the Taliban. The fact that most Muslims seem to see our current president as a sympathetic figure rather than the spawn of Satan is certainly a help.
I also think our colleague Nick Kristof is right on when he argues that the only way to change the terrorist-producing societies in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa over the long term is to expand and elevate the role of women through education and programs that promote economic independence, like microfinance ventures.
Of course, these changes will probably take generations and I expect to always live in a country thats under threat of terrorist attack. So I want our government protectors to be smart and super-vigilant. But I dont want them to go overboard and trash the Constitution in the process of protecting us. There are way too many crazy people out there, and I would rather take my chances on surviving them all with our civil liberties intact.
Going to Extremism
By David Brooks and Gail Collins
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
David: Gail, Recently I was reading a book called Moral Minds by Marc Hauser of Harvard. The book is about the underlying grammar of our moral judgments, but in the middle of it, he has a section on honor killings. He describes a killing that took place in Jerusalem in 2001. A guy named Mr. Asasah stood in front of his 32-year-old daughter. She was single and pregnant. Asasah had a noose and an ax and a group of about 30 men and women behind him. He asked his daughter to choose the means of her death. She chose the noose.
He then began strangling his daughter and she did not resist. As he killed her, the audience chanted, Stronger, stronger, you hero, you have proven that you are not despicable. After the woman was dead, her mother and sister served coffee to their guests.
The mind gapes at events like these, yet each year there are thousands and thousands of honor killings.
Now, of course, it should be said immediately these sorts of practices are perpetrated by an extremist fringe. But this extremism seems to have an outsized influence on world events.
After September 11, there were a great many books written about the dangerous conjunction between the modern world and these ancient and barbaric practices. There were many books written, which made the best-seller list, about suicide bombings and the extremist cult of honor and death. Many of these analyses were tied to the larger problem of global terror and Islamic extremism.
Does any of this ring true? Do you see a confrontation looming?
Gail: David, Islamic extremism is obviously a profound threat to the entire non-extreme world. Its particularly disturbing to me because it seems so tied in to brutality against women. But Im trying not to obsess about it as the be-all and end-all of the dangers from without.
When I first came to New York more than 25 years ago, I worked at United Press International on the overnight shift, where one of my jobs was to deal with terrorist threats.
It was extremely educational. Somebody called and said, We have a bomb in a locker at Grand Central Station and you had to A) report it to the police and B) figure out whether it was likely to be a Balkan terrorist, a Middle Eastern terrorist, a Central American terrorist or some new group we hadnt heard of yet.
One night, someone called with a very heavy accent and we thought it was the father of Al, our intern. It turned out it was a terrorist group reporting the assassination of General Anastasio Somoza, the ousted dictator of Nicaragua. He kept saying what I later realized was Somoza is no more and I kept saying Al has gone out for pizza.
I am not telling you all this to make light of your concerns God knows nobody in New York takes this stuff lightly, especially since it seems pretty likely that there was a plot this year to set off some kind of explosive in the New York trains or subways, one of our worst nightmares.
All Im saying is that given the Internet and the easily available technology of basic bomb-making, you cant tell where the next threat is coming from.
David: Gail, Ive always thought that Islamic extremism was different. To me, the most persuasive theory is that some people are caught between modernity and tradition and as an escape have invented a make-believe purism, which permits killing in the name of holiness.
Then came the Iraq war and the debate shifted. But over the past few weeks, Ive been reminded that the problem has not gone away. There are still fanatics in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and South Lebanon, and even Denver. In some ways extremism is on the wane but in other ways the poisonous infection has not been addressed.
American attention has turned to domestic issues, and yet it has come to seem more likely that the Obama presidency will be defined by its reaction to this extremism, as the Bush presidency unfortunately was.
There is the Iranian regime, the Taliban, the extremist forces in Pakistan. Events seem to be conspiring to create a series of confrontations in the years ahead. It seems more likely, especially after the past week, that there is simply no escaping the toxin.
And Im not sure the Obama folks have any comprehensive strategy, other than trying to escape the whole mess. Theyll have to come up with one.
Gail: David, the difference between the Obama strategy and the Bush strategy isnt mainly military. Its a conviction that the real solution lies in the Islamic community, in empowering the good guys to weed out the lunatic fringe. That seems to be happening to some degree in Pakistan, where people are getting thoroughly sick of the Taliban. The fact that most Muslims seem to see our current president as a sympathetic figure rather than the spawn of Satan is certainly a help.
I also think our colleague Nick Kristof is right on when he argues that the only way to change the terrorist-producing societies in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa over the long term is to expand and elevate the role of women through education and programs that promote economic independence, like microfinance ventures.
Of course, these changes will probably take generations and I expect to always live in a country thats under threat of terrorist attack. So I want our government protectors to be smart and super-vigilant. But I dont want them to go overboard and trash the Constitution in the process of protecting us. There are way too many crazy people out there, and I would rather take my chances on surviving them all with our civil liberties intact.
