Why We Won't Beat Islam

Strange title, huh?  I  believe in calling a spade a spade and despite what George W. says, we are at war with Islam.  It's not just the US, either.  It's every Western 'Industrialized' nation against Islam.  It's also the Haves against the Have-Nots. 

Consider this:

• Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world
• It is the fastest growing religion in the US
• It is flourishing in what we refer to as the 'Third World:'  where the 'Have-Nots' live

Islam is a religion for the 'Have-Nots,' the same people we're paying a nickle a day to make our clothes or fabricate our Nike's.  Islam tells the 'Have-Nots' (HNs from here on), 'You are poor because the decadent west has stolen far more than its share of the worlds goods!' which is probably true.  It also tells them that the decadent west is in opposition to the law of Allah and therefor must be destroyed. 

Consider India, one of the world's most poverty stricken nations.  Millions of people live in cardboard houses with dirt floors.  Islam boasts 130 million adherents and is the fastest growing religion there.  Over the past ten years, it has grown by 30%, and while Hindu (a faith of peace and tolerance) continues to be the dominant religion in India, Islam is catching up. 

Poverty in the world is alarming.  I couldn't find current statistics, but in 1980 it was estimated that 44% of the world's population was living in poverty.  That's huge.  And I have to believe that the gulf between the poverty stricken, the HNs, and the relatively wealthy is growing. I mean, the gap between the HNs and the wealthy is huge in the US . . . imagine how much further apart the poorest of India and the Wealthy in the US are. 

And we have to think like that.  It's a global world and if you think the poor of India don't know how we live, you're very naive.

'Well hell!' you say.  'Screw 'em.  While we were going to the moon and inventing the personal computer, they were busy steeping out of the way of the cows roaming the streets!  They got what they deserved, and so did we!' 

Maybe so . . . but we have to recognize that the population of the world's HNs is growing by leaps and bounds and with Islam telling them in increasing numbers that we are the source of all evil on earth . . . it's not going to matter much who's right and who's wrong, who got what they deserve and who didn't.

Islam lends passionate action to the resentment and frustration of the poor. 

We're fighting Islam with bullets and bombs.  Each bullet, each bomb reinforces the HN idea that we are the cause of their woe.  Instead, we ought to be fighting poverty with money and programs.  We'd get better results. 

Consider India again.  We've all experienced the boom in India's technical presence.  Often, when we go to 'Customer Service' on the phone or computer, we are connected to someone in India.  That nation with its low wages, highly educated workforce, strong work ethic and lax regulations is the beneficiary of much of the outsourcing that's occurred in this country over the past ten years.  And THAT development, that genesis of a burgeoning middle class, will do more to stem the growth of Islam (and hatred for the west) in India than a billion bullets and a million bombs. 

If you want to defeat those who rage against the Haves, find a way to turn more Have-Nots into Haves.

(Indian Customer Service is actually quite good if you'll relax your self-righteous indignation and your insistence on having an experience just like the one you had at Nordstrom 20 years ago.  I do admit there are some problems:  try giving an airline confirmation number made up of Vs and Bs and 3s and Ps to someone for whom English is a second language.  It's a bitch.  But some bright charger at the airlines will eventually come up with a phonetically effective way to number reservations and that will take care of itself.)   

I think about that dirt poor kid in India dressed in fake Nike's, fake Levis, a fake American Basketball jersey and a fake Atlanta Braves baseball cap. He wants to look cool like the Western kids he sees on television in the movies or in the magazines . . . but when he turns his eyes to his own world there is a disconnect. I picture a soul full of longing for something it knows it will never have . . . and a heart full of rage at the order of things. 

We are so in their faces.  No wonder they hate us.

An equation for the new Millennium:  Wealth in the face of poverty + passionate belief in judgmental ideology = destruction. 

This is why we'll never beat Islam.  We're fighting with our fists instead of our hearts.