Book Review: Machismo, Islamismo

Have we spent the last thirty years in a coma, not noticing the harbingers of danger? The Images of the collapsing Twin Towers in New York have shaken us awake. Since then, we have become more suspicious of the people from Islamic countries who live and work with us. The word "sleeper" has quite suddenly lost its harmless meaning.

"Is it five minutes to midnight, or later already? Are the crusaders stoppable on the way to Islamic world domination—and can the enlightened world still be saved?" With dramatic rhetoric, feminist Journalist and author Alice Schwarzer names the dangers she sees as central, specifically, that of advancing Islamic fundamentalism and the possible consequences for democracy.

Overrun by Islam. The southern flank of the former Soviet Union, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, and portions of the Balkans are in danger of being overrun by the Islam of the Taliban, according to the contributions of Gabriele Venzky, Johannes von Dohnanyi and Wolfgang Günter Lerch. Poverty and antiquated ideas are the humus in which fundamentalism thrives. The American bombs on Afghanistan have by no means eliminated this danger. The central point of these three articles, grouped under the title "And tomorrow the whole world," is complicity on the part of liberal Europe, which from the authors' perspective reacts to extremist Islamic groups with a mix of naTvete, helplessness and false tolerance. This opinion is also shared by Muslim academician Bassam Tibi in his contribution regarding the specifically German "prescribed" love of the foreign: "In place of the mentality of the Nazis, who demonized everything foreign, we now have the other extreme of the 'good' German, who glorifies the foreign."

To be sure, this opinion is not pulled out of thin air, yet it does seem overly broad. Can all the values of our hard-won post-war democracy, built on freedom and tolerance, have been wrong and simplistic? Is there not a danger that the opinion ex-pressed here plays into the hands of those who would prefer to seal off Germany against foreigners? Would anyone even be capable of reliably distinguishing between "good" and "evil" foreigners, so that terrorist attacks could be discovered already in the planning phase and therefore be prevented? And how high would the price be for domestic politics?

Such considerations, which could lead to a differentiated perspective, can regrettably not be found in this book. That is unfortunate, as many of the arguments presented are quite worthy of consideration. Everyone who studies the outgrowths of modern terrorism knows how extremely difficult it is to deal with this form of violence. The terrorism of Bin Laden is simply not locatable: the murderous attacks come out of the blue. A secret formula to prevent them does not exist, and the authors of this book, it may be assumed, know that as well.

On her "spiritual trip through Germany," Cornelia Filter discovers that under the guise of an incorrectly understood tolerance, groups or institutions that sow the seeds of worldwide terror are tolerated or even promoted. The seven-day trip documented here leads to the Islamic centers and institutions in Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Muenster, and supposedly shows "how an Islamic network is woven across Germany." Everywhere she goes, she meets "supposedly" peaceable Muslims, "zealous converts," and, as she describes in a condescending tone, "tolerant Christians and enlightened democracy advocates." The many peaceable Muslims who live and work in Germany, without connection to terror or violence, remain unmentioned. The words "tolerant and enlightened" have a clearly negative connotation here. That is intentional, and therefore irritating.

Filter's contribution too would have been more convincing had she made more precise distinctions. It is true that some of the so-called "sleepers," such as the suicide assassins from Hamburg, were able to prepare their insane deed so meticulously and successfully because they could study and make contacts in Germany without disruption or discovery. On the other hand, they also gave the authorities no reason to be suspicious of them. At most, more attention should have been paid to what was happening in many of the Islamic centers in Germany. On that point, the author is correct: "A young man doesn't become a jihad lighter in his sleep. According to the German Federal Criminal Police, the three sleepers from Hamburg were presumably provided with the ideological tools for the 'holy war' by the Islamic center in Muenster, which had openly declared, prior to September 11, its sympathetic stance toward the Taliban in Afghanistan."

The liveliest and most convincing part of the book is dedicated to women's issues, though it unfortunately consists mostly of reprints from the magazine EMMA, edited by Alice Schwarzer. Is this supposed to show that these topics were overlooked by everyone eise but discussed in EMMA since 1979 and that the Cassandras have been calling for a long time, but were not heard? Be that as it may, Elisabeth Badinter's article, which appeared in a 1991 special issue of EMMA called "War," deals with the so-called headscarf scandal in France in 1989. Badinter, the well-known Professor, author and philosopher, manages to avoid oversimplification, carefully and intelligently analyzing the reasons why the three veiled girls "touched the most explosive problems in French society" at the time (The reference is to a highly publicized incident in which three Muslim schoolgirls were expelled for wearing the scarf (hijab) to classes, an action that was deemed contrary to French prohibition of religious Symbols in educational settings. ). But that was 13 years ago.

The contribution of feminist activist Robin Morgan is also only an updated version of the introduction to her book Demon Lover from 1989. It is about the outgrowths of a "phallocentric" cultural tradition, about macho societies in the Middle East, Asia and the West. She locates the typical Islamic hero at the "intersection of violence, eroticism and masculinity." In a 12-page appendix, Robin Morgan refers to many events, some from the more distant past, that should have drawn the attention of the public and the authorities to the misogymstic positions and practices of Islamic groups. Instead, in her opinion, an unbelievably careless naivete and ignorance prevail nearly everywhere. When asked what he thought of the Taliban during the campaign, George W. H. Bush reportedly said, "Is that a rock group or something?" Again, the tenor of the article is that nobody was paying attention, even though the catastrophe could and should have been predicted.

Even if the tone of hindsight know-it-all can occasionally get on the reader's nerves, this book remains worth reading. It focuses attention on Islamic machismo and is simultaneously a warning to adherents of democracy not to overlook fundamentalist danger out of indulgence and romantic multiculturalism.

By Franziska Sperr; Trans. Amy Young, Feminist Europe. - Review of Alice Schwarzer, ed.: "Die Gotteskrieger und die falsche Toleranz." [The Jihad Fighters and False Tolerance] Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2002. - Review originally appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1.7.2002.