Reflections on the 9/11 report

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Even if the 9/11 commission's report may be the furthest thing from religious commentary that can be found, there is some food for thought in it.

The commission paints a picture of leaders of political and terrorist groups - Osama bin Laden, principally - who act with brazen cynicism as they prey upon the victims of a more or less repressive culture to persuade them, in turn, to make victims of people in other cultures. And the cultural differences are described, at least in part, as religious: "we" of the bin Laden's intolerant brand of Islam against "them," the infidels - Jews, Christians and, frankly, everyone else.

The first victims, as the report explains it, are young men of the current Arab cultures who have found the combination of recently acquired national wealth and the traditions of their homelands to be an uneven mix. The boost from oil did not always lead to well-managed social and economic improvement. Various forms of corruption and falling, and likely mismanaged, oil revenues are given the blame for that.

Although oil did put some Arab countries on the global map, they tended toward insularity in their cultures, partly by giving young men few educational opportunities other than to attend religious schools or to obtain mainly technical educations.

"Millions pursuing secular as well as religious studies were products of educational systems that generally devoted little, if any, attention to the rest of the world's thought, history and culture," the report says.

Thus marginalized in the global sense, the report says, the young men became "easy targets for radicalization." Some heeded bin Laden's and Brooklyn-based Sheikh Abdel Omar Rahman's calls to identify the United States as the cause of their troubles and strike at it, pointing to Islamic duty as the basis and to Islamic dominance - at least in the countries and lands they consider historically theirs - as the goal.

The report duly notes the majority of Muslims globally reject bin Laden's "violent sectarianism," even if he did not arrive at his power without allowing some compromise with Shiites (bin Laden is considered a militant Sunni) and secularists.

The entire picture appears, to some, to flesh out the fears of nervous American secularists who warn us about the motives and capabilities of religious extremists, whether Muslim, Christian or otherwise.

And, in this space, we have pointed out some parallels between the behavior of religious extremists in both Islam and Christianity. But here we must point out some important differences.

The cauldron of unrest in the Middle East includes some cultural aspects that are not be be expected in the United States, which is considered ideologically to be a leading nation in Christendom. Here, opportunity is up to the individual and spreads across the culture from education to religion to politics and livelihood. And we encourage curiosity about and sensitivity toward other cultures, even among our most conservative social subsets.

Also here we have a difference, at least in our broader culture, in examples. I once asked a friend who has studied Muslims more closely if they had in their history any nonviolent leaders for social or cultural change in the mold of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. or Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The question, sadly, seemed to be its own answer: There were not many and none of such international reputation or effect, even as rich as the history of Islam is. Were it otherwise, their names might have been invoked prominently and many times since it was first learned that the man behind the plot to kill so many on 9/11 claimed Islam as his inspiration.

And although that cannot be taken to mean Islam is a religion of violence - remember, to the vast majority of Muslims, its tenets emphasize peace and tolerance - and as much as we would wish it were not so, it is a cultural difference that bears consideration.

And it shows us why when we think of Christian activism, we tend most often to think of examples like the Berrigans allowing themselves to be taken off to jail for protesting violence and war.

As for Christians who resort to violent means, such as those who have bombed abortion clinics, we tend to regard them as having lost their mental equilibrium and, certainly, their connection to the Christ who lifted no hand against us who lashed him and put him on a cross to die.

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