Nathan, I am not disputing the fact that virtually every major religion (including secular ones) has a commendable theology or a glorious past. But do not forget that the people who brought us Goethe and Marx gave us also Adolf Hitler. One could, of course, link nazi concentration camps to the protestant arbeit-macht-frei ethics, but historical materialists should know better than claiming that ideas can produce material consequences.
More specifically, I am not debating fine points of islamic theology or philososphy - i am merely claiming that islam is currently being used by essentially fascist forces as a mobilizing ideology in the same way as German or Italian nationalism was used half a century ago. btw, the fascist right uses christianity and russian nationalists use communism to similar ends.
Religions and ideologies do not cause the rise of fascist movements, which are generally a product of the social-economic institutions, relations and conflicts. However, they are generally used by such movements to legitimate themseleves and their claims in the eyes of the general population, and attract mass followers. It is no accident that when challenged in the "court of public opinion," fascist thugs resort to claims of cultural mandate grounded in religion, messianistic ideology, or national culture.
So yes, crowds chanting islamic slogans on the streets of cairo or teheran are the equivalent of the brown shirts in munich or nuremberg - they are the storm troopers in the hands of fascist regimes. This has nothing to do with the philosophical debates of christian or islamic intellectuals - except perhaps that such debates are often used as a fig leaf to cover the raw brutality of the movements and regimes that espouse them.
>in the United States, the greatest danger to civil liberties is inflated
fears
>and xenophobia against Islam. Fears of Islam have been used to deny civil
>liberties to a host of people. Frankly, the anti-Islam fears look more like
>McCarthyism than anti-fascism.
Good point. However, I do not think that such fears originate in xenophobia - after all, few people outside the chirstian fundamentalists circles fear buddhism or confucianism. The fear of islam, like the fear of nazism, is grounded in the deeds of its followers.
Moreover, I do not see any anti-islamic hype in the us that would even remotely resemble the level of anticommunist hysteria. If anything, islam is treated with benign paternalism as compared to ardent anticommunist crusades, even though there is not a single case of a *democratic* regime overthrown by a communist insurgency, and no instances of left wing terrorism against public at large. While left wing "direct action" groups, such as red brigades, carefully selected their targets to people directly linked to the ruling class (e.g. financiers or generals), islamist terrorists seem to derive sadistic pleasure from blowing up innocent bystanders. But regardless of such atrocities, islam enjoys relative respect in this country, while communism bashing has always been the "blood sport" of the US ruling and intellectual elites.
So i do not see any immediate threat of anti-islamist hysteria to civil liberties, here or in europe.
wojtek