If you read my blog regularly (thanks to all three of you), you’re going to get sick of me talking about memes. But they’re important. The memes make the man (or woman). In this case, the memes influenced a well educated Iranian to attempt to kill nine random Americans by running them down with a car. And here is what influenced him:
“Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one’s life in obedience of all of Allah’s commandments found throughout the Koran’s 114 chapters…”
“The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead.”
If the coalition used the same fallacious thinking that Mr. Taheri-Azar used when he decided to run over random people because the “U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah,” then it would just use all of its firepower to decimate the entire population of every Islamic nation. Luckily for all of us, the United States isn’t run by madmen who are trapped by the same flawed memes the proponents of Islamofascism are stuck with.
Whether or not it is publicly acknowledged by officials, the war in Iraq is a war against destructive memes. A man whose reality is so warped he cannot distinguish between college students and agents of a government whose policies he disagrees with is a dangerous idiot. The United States is generally a place that promotes tolerance of differences. This makes it a threat to anyone who feels that their way is the only way. Taheri-azar’s twisted viewpoint allowed him to attack and attempt to murder people just for being free to choice something other than what he chose as a way of life.
Reasonable people don’t want to attack Islam or Muslims, but we’re also not going to allow mad followers to dictate to everyone else their own moral code, and we are not obligated to follow the teachings of Allah or the tenets of Islam. For a long period in human history, it was fairly commonplace for groups of human beings to enslave other groups of human beings. Thankfully that time is over, and we are moving on. Just as slavery has faded into the archive of bad, outmoded memes that are no longer practiced, so too should any religious memes that justify killing anyone who disagrees with them.
One size fits all religion doesn’t work in the modern, interconnected world. Freedom means having options and being able to choose them yourself. The defense of free will is worth dying for even when the fight is run imperfectly.