I was reading Anne Applebaum’s op-ed article in WaPo and fell upon this epiphany that she had:

The case of Bayrak and her ilk also suggests the need for another kind of anti-terrorism strategy. Too often, we still consider public diplomacy to be a sort of public relations activity, the “promotion” of American values. Instead, we should think about it as an argument. The Bayraks and Balawis of this world are engaged in constant debates — in Internet chat rooms, in the halls of publishing houses, in mosques. Are they hearing enough counterarguments? Are we helping the people who make the counterarguments? I suspect that they don’t and I’m certain that we aren’t — nearly a decade after Sept. 11 — and that has to change. Intellectuals may wear glasses and read books, but neither prevents them from throwing bombs — or from strapping them inside their underwear.

I have some respect for Anne but this is surprisingly naive of her to even suggest that. I was so moved by this article to the extent i was just about to pen an email to her but then i thought … meh better to rant over here instead.

“Are they hearing enough counterarguments?” The idea is not in the quantity of arguments to be made or heard by them. Those arguments are being made by many but as soon as they are labeled as foreign the whole argument would collapse since anti-western ideology doesn’t put much credence in any argument that is assisted and endorsed by their enemies.

It’s tough enough swatting the accusations of being brainwashed and manipulated by the west, it is even worse when you are labeled as a collaborator. The “innocent” suggestion of offering help will doom any counter argument.

On the other hand being a counter argument doesn’t necessitate that it would be in line with an  anti-terrorist agenda.

The topics and conversations that people like Balawi undertook were long reaching beyond a jihadists ideology that reached into all parts of social life and how Islam is integral to the heart and well being of that life. Does that mean anything? Well let me paint it in a slightly different hue, we have intellectuals in the Muslim world who are adopting creationism as ideology so that it would endow some legitimacy to science ! Evolution on the other hand didn’t even penetrate society to the extent of generating a conversation and is widely dismissed as a tool of colonial hegemony.

While its wonderful to get help of any sort but if you really want to help then make sure that there is no discernible link between the west and any of the counter arguments. The counter arguments that are being laid now, and have been laid in the past need to counter act half a century of thought that has flourished and existed on the fact that all other systems have failed.

The latest calls about infiltrating and profiling Muslims are furthering their agenda and strengthening their arguments by providing living proof that at the end that the impetus for world policy is a religious agenda rather than a purely secular one. So the best help that can be laid for people who try to provide a counter argument to the Islamists and the Jihadist is by staying away and making sure that your representatives and governments don’t adopt an anti-islamic rhetoric than only further exasperates the problem.

(more emotional that labored…. hence why it’s not a letter and is reduced to a rant)