Our Views: New outrage of extremists

The burning of one of the world’s great repositories of historic Arabic texts in Timbuktu is a tragic indication of what kind of future the Arab world has if extremists win today’s battle for influence in the Middle East.

In the library, which held books dating from the 11th Century, the historic Qurans and other religious books apparently meant little to the rebels fleeing French and Malian government troops. Rather, they were a target for a malicious mob.

The good news is that many significant manuscripts were saved and hidden, but the losses are still likely to be significant.

“People sometimes talk about the war against radical Salafi jihad groups as a clash of civilizations,” noted Walter Russell Mead of Bard College. “In reality, as the torching of the great library of Timbuktu, a world class repository of Islamic history, religious writing and culture, shows, this is a war against civilization being waged by barbarian know-nothings.”

Let the book-burners win, and the future of the Muslim world will be as fragile and endangered as the pages that went up in smoke in Timbuktu.

Comments

1) Comment by InPVille - 05/02/2013

The Madrassas/schools are controlled by the Imams/Spiritual leaders many of whom are radicalized. A member of the military who had served in Afghanistan once related to me something he had been told by an Afghanistan citizen. The solution offered by the man, who had lost several family members in the conflict, was to remove the Imams with extreme prejudice. Sounds like the man was a reader Ann Coulter's columns or of like mind. We have book burning in this instance, destruction of historic temples and such in places like Afghanistan, and talk of destroying the Pyramids and other ancient structures in Egypt from the time of the pharaohs. If you want to reduce the influence of the extremist, you need a counter force in the society. First you need to have groups willing to settle differences of political opinion without resorting to violence, and a large enough group of moderates that can sway the outcome when things go to far in one direction. Here we have the extremist and the moderates. The other group has been eliminated by the extremists. See the story of the Greek tyrant who sent sent of his subjects to the Delphic Oracle to find out how to remain in power. The oracle said nothing but went into the wheat field with a scythe and began chopping off the tops of the wheat. Dealing with this problem is difficult in the extreme. The political will and the values of western society to do what would have to be done do not exist. How are you going to stop violence through violence and have anyone left at the end? I don't know the answer.

2) Comment by billynurse - 04/02/2013

So much print and oxygen have been devoted to so-called intolerance here in the U.S., while in the middle east, Christianity has very nearly been driven to extinction.

3) Comment by prbeav - 04/02/2013

Louisiana places high value on beliefs and low value on discovery. Consider the Governor, for example.>>>>In debate, I avoid the word "science," because it is for fundamentalists like a red flag to a bull.>>>>The nation's education system needs to be redesigned from Obama's inauguration language: "Together we determined that a modern economy requires . . . schools and colleges to train our workers." No! Our education system should prepare and coach people for a lifetime of open-minded education toward psychological maturity.

4) Comment by [e-mail] - 04/02/2013

There are certainly times when by looking around one might conclude that natural selection is working; then again, one sometimes sees something so divine that it has to be a gift from above.

5) Comment by bourbon-soda - 04/02/2013

If it is true that creationism in the schools is one of the least of Louisiana's problems, why does an outrage by extremists in a distant land provoke associations with any significant population in Louisiana? LEAP is outrageously easy, but has a high failure rate. Why not work around the creationism problem by emphasizing math, logic, and standard English? It is an exaggeration, but the little-old-lady-in-tennis-shoes sometimes seems an apt metaphor for the evolution zealots. Also brings to mind Orwell's "One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England." I know this is ad-hominem but I get to have a little fun now and then. The main social effect of evolution may be to nullify the 7th Commandment, with the Darwinist effect of returning to polygamy by dominant males, but that's just me.

6) Comment by prbeav - 03/02/2013

True, especially with the recent decision in New Orleans. My concern is valid for folks like me, though; folks who keep trying to make their childhood indoctrination work, often referred to as "the masses."

7) Comment by bourbon-soda - 03/02/2013

Creationism in schools is one of the least of Louisiana's problems.

8) Comment by prbeav - 03/02/2013

Focus on Louisiana. My intention is to express that only in a society where objection to natural selection is traditional and expected could you get a legislative body to pass a law requiring the teaching of creationism in biology class.>>>>One of the newspaper's functions is to educate the people. With a steady diet of God's influence, it's no surprise that people like me--people who become dedicated to rearing a family and serving in a career and conform to society get glimpses of the overall facts yet don't really grasp them.>>>>What could the Advocate do? For example, the daily G. E. Dean focus could be paired with an impressive adaptation to a cosmological change. For example, what happens when the existing species suddenly get hit with a higher concentration of oxygen.>>>>This is only a tip of an iceberg of what the Advocate could do.

9) Comment by bourbon-soda - 03/02/2013

Comparing this book-burning incident to anything recently perpetrated in the US, is hyperbole. It is much easier to dislike your neighbors than people farther away. A major example of suppression of Darwinism occurred in the officially irreligious Soviet Union, where Lysenkoism displaced Darwin's theory. Stalin and others probably did to buttress Marxist assertions that human nature would change under socialism or communism, resulting in the New Soviet Man. An even more taboo topic than general Darwinism, is the possibility that human brains have evolved differently over the past 30 or 40 thousand years in response to different evolutionary pressures. Whole organism evolved, but not a specific organ. Makes you go "hmmmm."

10) Comment by tradewinns - 03/02/2013

one has to look at any incident with both sides view. we decry the loss of historical documents as if the documents are somehow enlightning. i don't know why they did it, but suppose those documents meant nothing to the uneducated masses that support their cause, but they know we liked them. they would/did burn them just to hurt us. or perhaps those documents do not support their side, they'd be getting rid of an aid to the enemy. religion is such a separating force in the world.

11) Comment by prbeav - 02/02/2013

Sorry; "but" should be "by."

12) Comment by prbeav - 02/02/2013

People who are indoctrinated in the word of a god should beware: it can keep you from realizing what you learn.>>>>Entering my eighth decade, six with awareness of natural selection, I realized last week that the discovery of tools that are some 1.8 million years old (whereas the biological building blocks for life first appeared some 3500 million years ago) is an indication that awareness did not exist for most of the life of the Earth--4600 million years.>>>>The burning of ancient texts in Timbuktu pales before America's suppression of the facts regarding natural selection so that hopes for favor from the gods can be maintained. And the Advocate, but promoting the influence of God, is a willing contributor.>>>>America defends freedom of religion at the expense of both freedom to know and freedom to think!>>>>I urge reform right here in Baton Rouge.