When we think of Islamist terrorists, doesn’t our reaction frequently boil down to “hey, what’s their problem? Why don’t they just ‘get democracy,’ move into the 21st Century, leave behind all this primitive religious fervor, and quit killing people?”
Basically: what makes them think there’s something worth fighting over?
The idea that Islamist terrorists don’t have something “worth fighting over” is founded on secular assumptions - that no religion is better than another, or at least that no religion is worth spending your entire life’s energy trying to defend and promote. It is the ultimate arrogance, condescension, and insult to their value as human beings to dismissively say to them that what they believe in is not worth fighting for. If this extreme form of Islam is true (as they believe it is), that we are infidels, that it is their God-given duty to convert or destroy us, then it certainly is worth fighting for. Our very act of dismissal provides fuel for their argument that secular western society is ignorant, relativistic, and has no direction but downward.
The problem is not that these “pre-modern” “savages” have yet to be “enlightened” by the modern (or post-modern) secular western world, or that their impoverished conditions have caused them to lash out at our success. The problem is that their worldview is dangerous, wrong, and evil.
No secular means or democratic solution is going to weaken their resolve. And no watered down “can’t we all just get along” line of diplomatic reasoning will ever have any impact on such zealous individuals.
