Clarity, Down Under Style

Yesterday, Fausta hosted Australian Richard Fernandez, author of the well known and highly regarded Belmont Club and ourselves in a terrific BlogTalk Radio podcast.

We talked about terror in the far east and the cultural and societal differences between Islamists in the far east and the Middle East and of how the notion of ‘government’ in the far east is very different from our own notions.

As the conversation turned to terror, we touched on what is often left unsaid.

The ideologies that espouse, promulgate and teach terror are not brought on by poverty or political unrest or dissatisfaction. Hostages are not taken and held to be traded for economic aid. Planes aren’t flown into buildings in response to GDP of the free markets of the western world versus the GDP of the many tyrannies of the Muslim world. Women- and 13 year old girls- are not raped to avenge a stalled peace process.

In fact, the terrorists aims are deliberately misrepresented- and that is in their interest and the interest of the those who appropriate those causes to serve their own ideologies. The terrorists and their supporters don’t want to see western values (i.e., democratic principles) and successes brought into the Muslim world because western values and successes are antithetical to the ideologies of terrorist and their supporters. Terror flourishes when societies fail. Introduce values that embrace individual freedoms and the freedoms that allow an individual to succeed, and support for terror vanishes.

The petrie dish of terror is failure.

If the terrorists and their supporters and apologists really wanted to better the lives of hundreds of millions of oppressed people, they would use America western freedoms as models for success. Instead, terrorists and their supporters seek to destroy the freedoms that have authored success. They deliberately want to keep failed leaders and failed ideologies in place.

Fausta’s BlogTalk Radio podcast with Richard Fernandez is one of her best yet. Richard’s thoughts are clear, concise and more than a bit insightful.