item0079E  1098, 1099

Our Back Yard

I have not shifted from my initial hunch.  Which was that this was the work of an ad hoc local UK group, determined to make their personal mark on history, and strike a blow against "the West". I believe that bombers are young men from our own back yard.  They are able to draw on sophisticated explosives, through "The Network" (which is all Al-Quaida means, in Arabic, I understand).

It is pointless to seek for a motive, in the sense of a "strategic motive" - "What do they seek to achieve"?  That is beside the point.  They are protesting, not governing the country. This is, I believe, the work of a UK-based group of young men, for whom Islam probably provides a social bond, as for Young Conservatives, or Young Methodists.  They are desperate to find some way of doing something significant to register their protest against the drift of world events, to assert their values, to challenge the dominance of a seemingly "Godless" West, with its seemingly vacuous and destructive philosophies.  And as Islam, with its fundamentalist streak, seems likely to be eclipsed, within fifty years, by the popularity of Western individualism, combining with the humanist pragmatism of China, this problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.  Fundamentalism will go out of fashion.

I do not share the world-view of Islam.  Last week I attended a timely local lecture on "Islam and Terrorism", at which leading Imams of the Ahmadiyya Muslim denomination explained their philosophies, calmly and convincingly, and with great erudition.  Islam embraced all the other monotheistic religions, they explained, indeed it was an umbrella faith, with a place of honour for Christians and Jews.

But I was unsettled by their emphasis on the finality of  Islamic truth.  Now that the full truth had been revealed, in the Koran, following the revelations of Judaism and Christianity, there was "no need to look any further".  For Islam, there was no "Second Coming" still awaited, so we could all settle down and follow the Koran.

I am sad to say that this, however "sensible" it sounds, sent a veritable shiver down my woolly liberal Quaker spine.  Indeed, it was precisely the calm, unruffled, certainty with which these views were uttered that unsettled me.  For I am unaccustomed to 100% certainty.  I, for my part, am on the lookout all the time for a more perceptive truth, asking questions all the time - for me, there can be no religious or philosophical finality, and each is entitled to make his own search. 

I have become more religious as life has progressed - I say, because I understand better the profundity of the questions that must be answered.  I certainly have no belief in an after-life of any kind: this is as good as it gets.  Nor can any doctrine or philosophy can ever be more important that the humanity of the individual articulating it. The humanity of the individual should be honoured and respected, regardless of belief or opinions held, however extreme, however outrageous, however dangerous.

Every religious faith carries the potential for fanaticism, but some seem more prone to fanaticism that others.  And when last week I sat listening (paradoxically in the Quaker Meeting House at Swansea), absorbing the total, settled confidence of the senior London Imam who delivered the message, it sent a shiver down my spine.  Such conviction makes me feel uncomfortable, precisely because of its chilling certainty.  It is easy to see how such shining personal confidence, such overwhelming and convincing faith in the jurisdiction of the Almighty, could inspire young, frustrated, disregarded and resentful young men to "great" deeds of daring and personal sacrifice.  Including indiscriminate slaughter.

Me?  I prefer self-doubt - the ever-questioning journey through life - in the words of the Quaker Advice - "I beg you to consider the possibility that you may be wrong"... The best hope for a peaceful world lies in the emergence of a more tolerant, liberal Islam, which can be truly at ease with religious diversity, and atheism, without any assertion of "final" systemic superiority.

• The individual is of greater importance than any creed or philosophy he espouses..

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18 July 2005