There are aspects of my belief system that trouble me deeply.
The Taliban were evil; they committed acts that no civilized person would condone. Yet, when I point to their social system as an example of what excessive Islam can do to a society, the response I often get from Muslim apologists is that the Taliban’s fault wasn’t that there was too much Islam under them: rather, there was too little. Their system wasn’t “true” Islam. The ideal Islamic society, a utopia that perhaps existed under the Prophet fourteen hundred years ago, has yet to be replicated. So, yes, blame the Taliban for their sins, but don’t generalize it to Islamic society in general.
Unfortunately, that’s the problem with utopias: like Plato’s ideals, they tend to be unrealizable. So it’s virtually impossible to malign a “true” Islamic society simply because one does not exist. Its proponents are too slippery to ever admit that hateful regimes like the Taliban’s may in fact have incorporated some of their utopian ideals.
This argument invariably invites scorn from me. Much to my discomfort, I sometimes find myself making a similar argument in defense of socialism. Don’t judge socialism by what goes on in Cuba or what happened to the USSR. “True” socialism is a different beast altogether. Gulags should not cast a stain on the ideal of socialism. You get the gist: the Taliban are to Islam what Stalin is to socialism.
A related point. I find the modern phenomenon of jihad to be repulsive, where jihadis from all over the Muslim world gather to fight infidels wherever they can (Bosnia, Iraq, Kashmir, Chechnya etc.) However, the idea of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting Franco’s fascists on the Republican side during the Spanish civil war has a downright romantic appeal for me.
Isn’t this hypocrisy?
I’d like to say not. Jihadis are terrorists who deliberately target civilians. The Brigade was composed of idealists, fighting against the soldiers of fascism. Potato, potato? I would like to think not…
