Ending Endless Jihad

I'm no scholar. On those rare occasions when I have a serious opinion about something, my intent in sharing it is to stimulate conversation and the opinions of others, particularly those that have a more scholarly, informed point-of-view, and especially those who may have a better solution than whatever I might be suggest. The intent is to generate ideas toward solving the problem. That is all.

Would you allow a person or a group of people who consumed human flesh as a sacred rite to move into your neighborhood? How about an individual or a group of people that believed that sex with children was ordained by God? Or a gang that dined on dogs? Or a group that believed that God intended women to be slaves, to be raped and abused, and stoned to death for going out in public without an escort?

Of course you wouldn't.

Then why would anyone allow a group of people who believe that "Killing yourself in the process of killing the enemy is an act of martyrdom and brings a special place in heaven" to move into their country, or city, or neighborhood?

In other words, how can a group of people that believe in military jihad, or holy war, fit into any mixed, heterogenous society? How can a group of people that preaches intolerance of the tolerant possibly be expected to become a participant in the global society of the 21st century? Of course I'm referring to a very small percentage of the Muslim population. Islam, though still largely misunderstood by the Western world, represents many of the values that Pope Francis would like to imbue in Catholicism.

Then, like some fundamentalist Christians who would literally "beat" the devil out of a sinner, there are the extremists. Consider: Jihad, or "struggle," is defined, by some, as the sixth pillar of Islam. There is military jihad, and spiritual jihad. Personal, or spiritual jihad is similar to the beliefs of most religions, which is that the faithful must struggle to uphold the principles of their faith in a heterogeneous society, where ideas and practices of others may be temptations or unwanted influences. Islamic jihad, in the spiritual sense, isn't any different than Judeo-Christian proclamations of faith, and as such aren't a threat.

But how do you tell the spiritual jihadist from the military one? What military jihadist is going admit, whether signing a lease for an apartment in Brooklyn, Paris, Saint Petersburg, Vancouver, London or Cape Town, that they ascribe to the tenets of Islam that suggest that military jihad is a responsibility, indeed a holy command and a reservation for a "special place in heaven?"

Some estimate that 25% of the global Muslim population are active military jihadists: 375 million people. Others estimate that, in Europe as of January 2015, less than 1% of the Muslim population were interested in destroying Western civilization - around 175,000. Since then, approximately a million refugees, the vast majority of them Muslims, have moved or are attempting to move to Europe. If you subscribe to the idea that it is the poor, disenfranchised Muslim youth that are most likely to be recruited for jihad, and that Europe has no idea how to accommodate the refugees, you might assume that thousands of jihadist seeds are being planted as we speak. And, as President Obama remarked, "It's hard to reason with someone who willingly die to kill others" (or something like that.)

It took a dozen jihadists  on the ground and in the air to execute over 4000 innocents on September 11, 2001. It took less than that to kill 130 people in Paris on November 13, 2015. So, the percentages aren't even relevant.

What to do?

 

Let’s assume that we, as world citizens, believe that anyone that murders civilians and innocents, for whatever reason, forfeits some if not all of their human rights. In the U.S., felons are stripped of their rights as citizens, incarcerated and in some states put to death. But what about someone who believes that is their divine responsibility to kill those that don’t prescribe to their theology, but hasn’t killed anybody yet? What of the Muslim who says “yes, military jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, and as such I must abide by it. However (that’s a big “however,”) I am too old to fight,” or “my first responsibility is to my family, which precludes murdering infidels,” or “I don’t have a gun. I don’t even have a scimitar.” Is such a Muslim thus excused and allowed to mingle freely in the global society? Would it not be prudent to have such an individual renounce military jihad, as the fundamentalists define it, altogether? What might effect might it have if the leaders of the many sects of Islam got together and said "any Muslim that murders innocents and civilians in the name of jihad is not a martyr, and the special place for them in the afterlife is hell?"

Many worldwide religions have made accommodations or updated their laws over the course of history to be able to function peacefully in a heterogeneous, globally connected society. Without such tolerance the human race surely would have destroyed itself by how. Admittedly, outlawing military jihad against civilians would be a parliamentary move at best, but no country can expect to accept refugees that may be following jihadist leaders, so there must be leaders to whom the refugees can declare allegiance, and in so doing at least protect the interests of their refugee followers as they attempt to integrate with Western society.

Unfortunately the Islamic leaders that influence the jihadists aren't likely to bend to such pressure. While the majority of the world's Muslims may be peaceful and rational, we know it only takes a few to wreck havoc on the free world. But the West, unable to form a coherent response to the jihadist attacks, have in turn been unable to articulate the consequences to those leaders that support the status quo. So now it all depends on the ability of the Western world to coordinate a response, with clear consequences, to ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Shabab, and every other stateless jihadist group out there.

Is it possible that the West and ISIS can call a cease-fire/cease-murder and sit down around the negotiating table. What's to negotiate? If you renounce jihad and stay within your own borders we won't annihilate you? That may ultimately be the agreement, but first doesn't the West need to show that they're ready, willing and able to annihilate ISIS and all other jihadist groups? Is there a way to do that without a show of physical force and imminent invasion, aka boots on the ground? Don't the jihadists have to be able to see that they are surrounded by the big guns, the tanks, the aircraft carriers, the soldiers, sailors, marines etc and that there is no escape?

You can't fight barbarians with international law and threats of legal persecution. Any organization that justifies killing civilians needs to be prepared for killing in kind. The jihadists trust that the West will not stoop to their level. This is the checkmate that prevents the West from successful eradication of the Islamic State. Without the threat of total annihilation, there will continue to be a dozen new fighters for every one killed by the West.  

The extreme scenario, with the military forces of the West poised to strike in the Middle East, and Western governments prepared to aggressively root out radical residents, is the highest of high stakes gambles. If the extremists are allowed to keep their little caliphate in exchange for renouncing military jihad and centralizing their believers in a designated area, like the North Koreans and other repressive governments, and making do with complete isolation and military containment, maybe they'll opt for survival. Many Westerners won't want to give the jihadists that option.

Then there are some Westerners who believe we have created this predicament by marginalizing and disenfranchising Muslims, particularly young, jobless males in the major metro areas of Europe and North America. Islamic fundamentalism provides purpose, direction, and, with martyrdom achieved in military jihad, the highest level of eternal paradise. What seventeen year old candied apple peddler on the streets of Montmarte, hungry, horny, and entirely directionless, isn’t going to find the promises of fundamentalist Islam appealing? President Obama has said that the front line of the battle is winning the hearts and minds of disenfranchised Muslim youth. If the leaders of Islam took military jihad out of the equation, and eradicated the notion of the martyr’s paradise, wouldn't Western society be more willing to include Muslims in the greater social sphere?

Soon, the shock of the latest atrocity will pass. The downed Russian jetliner, which ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula claims as their victory, is nearly forgotten in the West. The Lebanese barely got a nod from the international community after the attack that killed 40 in Beirut. The Parisiens will continue to feel the sting, as they did after Charlie Hebdo, but give it six months. Meanwhile security in the West will double down on Islamic extremists, until intelligence has arrested all the suspects and has no other leads. Then, somewhere in Europe, or the U.S. or Canada, or Russia, the Islamic jihadists will strike again. They may not strike as frequently as mentally ill Americans with easy access to lethal weapons, but, until the entire notion of military jihad is outlawed in Islam, there will be no end.

Awakening Elsewhere

You get the sense that you're elsewhere in those morning nether moments between dreaming and waking: someone outside - in a tree, maybe - is making a sound you’ve never heard, as if trying to start up an ancient motorized contraption. But the gears are rusted, the flywheel won't fly, the pistons won't pump, the crank won't turn. In the distance another rusty engine won't turn over, and then another further down the canyon, until you realize that these contraptions -  or whatever they are - are communicating with each other, sending signals, perhaps warning others of your arrival from El Norte, Los Estados Unidos. And wouldn't it be just your luck that the various owners of these broken machines decided to try and fire them up at 6am on the first day of your long awaited birthday vacation?

You slip backward into the dream you were having about the final exams you must take for the classes you never attended forty years ago, while the engines outside rumble, scratch, fail to catch. There's a loud peck-peck-peck-peck on the wooden window frame. Then there is a new sound: someone in the street is playing a slide whistle, low to high. Boooeeeeeup. Boooeeeeeup. Slowly you begin to hear the other jungle creatures: cackles, bloops, cries, and caw caw caws. No robins, these. No squawking jays. The engine rattles out your window, then across the canyon. You swing your aching legs off of the hard futon mattress, standing, peering, retrieving your glasses from the nightstand, peering again. Is that a turkey hopping from branch to leggy branch in the sparse spring growth of the borogrove tree? OR is it one of Disney's Jungle Book Beatle buzzards, now pausing to make that most un-birdlike ratchet racket. Could this be the infamous Jub Jub bird? 

Now that you've matched a voice with the face, or the ungodly machine racket with a beak, you crawl back under the sheet and pull the pillow over your head, in need of just a few more winks. No sooner do you begin to drift than the powerful "Voice of Sayulita" reverberates through the jungle: "Uno! Uno!" the announcer shouts over the megaphone, and you wonder what the fuck? This isn’t the guy in his truck hawking fresh camarones y pescado. The announcer’s abstract dawn polemic is a little disturbing, and you involuntarily envision Los Federales storming the town and rounding up all sunburned men in bermuda shorts and tank tops for a spontaneous “fishing trip.” If there happened to be an important message to impart to the citizenry of Sayulita it would most certainly have been translated, considering the vast majority of property “owners” in this former fishing village are Americans and Canadians. Eventually the guy shuts up and whatever imagined worry dissipates, the bird that sounds like a dying industrial sewing machine shuts up, and there’s just enough jungle birdsong outside to lead you back to dreamland.

For the next few days you’re not sure that you’ve entirely awakened, at least not to the world as you’ve known it lately. Your morning coffee tastes different: sharper, bolder. There is no news of beheadings. The coffee-skinned umber-eyed people smile and say “hola” while you dodge the lobster-skinned vacationers in golf carts. The air is heavy with the sweet, musty smells of the tropics and the occasional and distinctly Mexican stench of raw sewage.  The dusty, rutted road to el centro and the beach is lined with trash and mined with fresh piles of steaming dog turds. There are dogs. Lots of them, mutts all, mostly small, short-haired, pointy-eared females. Nobody collects their contributions because nobody owns them, at least not officially. They wear no collars, no tags; they go unspayed, unneutered, living with whomever will feed them. Vacationers adopt them, love them, take them to the vet, the groomer, then leave. You’ve heard there is a program that allows Canadians to easily adopt the pup or pups of their choice and airlift them north, but no such program for the Americans.

One of the street dogs falls into step by your side: a short-haired she-mutt with the coloring and size of the average beagle, but with pointy ears and the thicker jaw of a bulldog. After she accompanies you for two blocks you begin to call her Lucy, but no sooner do you arrive at the beach than your new friend Lucy disappears into the chaise and umbrella jungles, scavenging elsewhere.  Still no news of beheadings.

The ocean, the beach, the sand, the waves: they look like yours at home but they too are elsewhere. Weaving in and out of the chaise and umbrella colonies stroll the indigenous Huichol beach vendors, along with the local mestizos, selling home-sewn fantastical stuffed animals, “Animalitas”: orange spotted unicorns, striped reindeer with pipe-cleaner antlers, purple turtles and three-legged monkey keychains – blue, pink, chartreuse. “Come on,” says a little Huichol girl with almond eyes of liquid chocolate and mocha skin so smooth you have to

stop yourself from stroking it, “Dos pesos, better than free.” The vacationers wonder: “Why aren’t you in school?” And she says it’s a week off. But then an expat Arizonan tells you that the Huichols don’t go to school because the money they make selling animalitas and trinkets on the beach is more important. They are artisans, this is how they make their living, and who can turn down a doe-eyed child? The mestizo silver vendors, the donut man, the cigar man, the guy with the beautiful carvings, the women and their colorful fabrics - they're used to rejection. But the children? It will take a couple of days before you can ignore them completely, and only after you’ve bought a three-legged “changa.”

The beach musicians are impossible to ignore; even in the late afternoon as you doze, straw hat over your face, you can hear the short, squat Huichol boy beating on his over the shoulder tom-tom, whacking his snare and caterwauling “ay yay yay yay, cuanto mejores” in an atonal shriek so discomfiting you’re tempted to use his beater on his head and put him out of his misery. But his father stands behind him, now and then blowing a solo mariachi trumpet, his ponytail snaking from under his trucker’s cap halfway down his back. The father sounds good enough to play with a real mariachi band. But he’s Huichol, dark-skinned, the lowest of the lower classes in a country where the fair-haired, lighter-skinned descendants of the Spanish Conquistadores hold sway. It may be that a duet on the beach with his tone-deaf son will have to suffice.  

You awaken from your three-beer slumber, but not entirely. Even a swim fails to bring you to back to your normal self. Is it because the water is flecked with sparkling gold flakes that float just below the surface, but when you try and scoop them up in your cupped palms the flakes disappear? Standing in the shallows and looking deeper you think you see thick schools of tiny two-inch fish when, like an exploding depth charge, a brown pelican crashes into the water not five feet away, followed by another, and then another. The gulls are upon them instantly; looking for a handout, hoping a few inchlings will spill from their swollen pouches. Don’t these birds know that this is where the humans swim? Later you watch the pelicans from the beach as they hover from 30 or 40 feet above, then dive with a violent splash between surfers, boogie boarders and swimmers. You imagine that there must be a hundred pelicans circling above the people in the surf, at least one for each human, and it is amazing that no one gets an arm or a leg impaled by a pelican beak. Has there been any news of beheadings? If this were America, either the humans or the pelicans would have to stand down – such co-existence with the evil humans can’t possibly be good for these statuesque seabirds. Are they not endangered yet?

You catch a wave with your body, sliding down the face on your belly, right arm extended, for

My evil twin in the wave

the first time in…how long? It must have been here or someplace like here, where you could stay in the water for hours and never get cold. One day the wind comes up, kicking up the swell and sending waves ashore in a chaotic jumble, and you’re thinking of getting out when an old fat guy, like you except bald, catches a ride that makes you envious. You stay in, diving under the walls of whitewater to the ocean floor, then surfacing, then ducking under again, then surfacing, until you’re in just the right place. As the wave crests you turn and take two powerful strokes before it picks you up and sends you sliding down the face until your head is surrounded by whitewater again. Now you’re awake and you want another wave, just like that.

When you get out of the water there is still no news of beheadings. Tomorrow you’ll stop thinking about beheadings altogether. Why did you start thinking about them in the first place? Were you imagining there was something you could do about them? Some way to tell the beheaders to stop their insane behavior immediately? No, they wouldn’t listen to you – scumbag infidel. In their eyes you are simply another head waiting to be lopped off with a scimitar. You feel bad for those that have lost their heads in the name of Allah, and you’re certain those responsible will pay some day. But you are powerless. You must entrust your heartache to the leaders of the free world, knowing they must, they must – how could they not - share your heartache. They must feel a compelling need to do something about it. Yes, they must. But you? What good does it do you to think about beheadings when there are waves to ride, tequila to drink, beautiful women to love, chile rellenos to eat, more tequila to drink. You’ve awakened entirely elsewhere.

Later, back in the states, you may wonder what happened to your sense of global responsibility. You may ask yourself why you still read the papers, and that it would be far better to write them than to read them. There would be no beheadings in your newspaper. But will you cancel your subscription to the NY Times, as you had when you were elsewhere?

On the walk back to your casita you stop for a package of cacahuates japonesa, which your daughter loves to nibble on during the nightly domino game. Your wife prefers the pistachios. Halfway up Avenida de Ninos Heroes you spy Lucy napping under a banana tree. You give a whistle and her head pops up. “Do I know you?” she asks. Your heart hiccups and you think “but I thought we were…?” Later you’ll have enchiladas in mole sauce that will damn near give you an erection. You have never tasted such pure delight; you shiver with joy.

As you lay your head upon the pillow you notice that the birds are quiet. Only the distant sound of the waves, the faint drumbeat of Cuban band, the laughter of a dancing girl, the chuck chuck chuck of a tiny gecko on the wall, the gentle breathing of the beautiful woman beside you, your domino champ…that is all there is now. All you need. And when those Jub-Jub birds start firing up their claptrap gizmos at dawn between the rooster’s cry and the ka-kaw, ka-kaw of the jungle birds, you might think “ah, so here we are. Home at last.”