Occident’s sleep

In the battle of the ideas that it sees to us to intercross the blades with the Islam, the West and its defenders are themselves peck the accusation of being lukewarm if not coward. It is Ayan Hirsi Ali that declared dumbfound for the “shyness” with which connects western contrast - or at all does not contrast - the arguments of the Muslim foundamentalism culture. “Sense of uneasiness” that Ali felt already in 2004 during the crisis of the Danish cartoons and then in the vicissitude of declarations of Benedict XVI in Ratisbona. In both cases the international press advised to ask for forgiveness. “But because the westerners are therefore uncertain with regard to all that is therefore wonderful in the West: the political freedoms, free press, free of expression, the parity of rights between men and women, gay and heterosexuals?”, it’s asked, astonished Ali. She quotes Tony Blair and his article “The battle for global values” on the pages of Foreign Affaris in February, in order to praise of the analytical feature that privileges the soft power, like tool of the comparison, but of critical the appraisals on the Corano that, practically, it’s considered “a reformist” text. In the review (The review of the reviews) that I edit for «Liberal Risk», in number 11, I had reviewed that article, emphasizing the same conceptual weaknesses: “Historical participation of the english premier, already resumed from the international press, is that one introduced on Foreign Affairs pages. An interesting reading in order to emphasize the critical passages of it puts into effect the crash between the West and Muslim terrorism. Values and not emergency (security), soft power and not imposition of our culture to a world substantially pre-westfalic are the right choises. They are these - a lot synthetizes - characterizing points more of the long analysis; a turned appeal to the Islam, but from which shine through - perhaps - a suggestion for “evangelic” policy of Washington. To consider the Corano like a book “reformist” it can be a passage, a culturally useful key, in order to tie the distance of the birth of western modernity with the history of the muslim universe. It could be an attempt in order to pay compatible, therefore comprehensible to the players, two distances of civilization. It is a well known formulation many times over describing a Islam, in the Middle Ages, tolerant and crucible of cultures. The only weakness in this reading is perhaps theological; because he considered the sacred text of Muslims in the same way of the Bible, while it would be more right to compare it to the symbol of the Holy Cross. A fact that renders less agile the rational use of the contents of the Corano, according to a logical dialectic that does not hold account of the important aspect of the “word”. We cannot read the sacred text of the Islam - it would be better to define it symbolic - through the cartesian means of “reason”. We would risk tragic mistakes. An aspect that could make to less appreciable the speech of Blair winning for fundamentalist Muslim audience (even if not radical). The right attempt however remains, from part of one of the more important of western democracies statesman, to open a dialogue with those who Samir Kassir - ill-fated father of the libanese spring - defined “the poor devils of the history”. Just on this argument the British leader supplies the better side to the “pontoniers” of the dialogue, above all to those Muslims. He untangles the concept of civilization from its western characterization and transforms the war of the terror to the democracies, in one universal challange between hope and fear. One right chosen, from the media and political point of view. A battle in order to conquer the hearts and the minds of the “multitudes” - it would say Toni Negri - and to make to gain the values and modernity. To the end the renter of Downing street nozzle an appeal for the defense of the West, against the politician cynicism and for the transformation of the ideals in realpolitik”. Now Ali blinks us in face a truth who we know, but that we think it’s better not to acknowledge in order not to burn the paths of the dialogue. But he will be then therefore? “Tony Blair and the Pope should not be embarassed, would have to feel itself less to uneasiness in asserting that XXI the century is begun with a battle of the ideas. Those of the West against those of the Islam. And Islam and liberal democracies are incompatible”. Then naturally Ayaan Hirsi opens to the dialogue, with careful extension to the traps of the generalization, but it does not lose the conceptual kernel of the critic: “The culture Muslim is fundamentalally anti-western”. In the muslim schools, that would have the same rights to exist of those catholics, protestants or Jewish, they are teaching to hate for the Hebrew, the separation from «infidels» and the virtues of the jihad. Reciprocity in the relationship with the other faiths does not exist. “If the Muslims can make proselytism in the Vatican City, because the catholics can’t do the same in Mecca?». In the Organization of the Islamic Conference, two countries are democracies. “Both fragile and corrupts, face the risk to be overtaken from the agents of pure Islam”. If Turkey has the safety valve of an army caretaker of the kemalist laicism, Indonesia is lacking. In both the women still play an active role in politics, but they are perceived like the enemy to pull down, as the presence of the women in the public life were the last obstacle to the advent of the true Islam. For Ali - today she’s resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute – it’s basic to understand the differences between Islam and the West «why one is so great and the other so low». It’s usefull to gain this battle of ideas in order to save our civilization.