Root cause and responsibility
Posted by Jonathan Birch on January 24th, 2008
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user *Hiro
Does the West cause Islamic extremism? Is it the war in Iraq what done it, or decades of support for Israel, or centuries of imperialism? In a trivial sense, yes. If we’d done things differently, the consequences would have played out differently. It’s easy to construct stories of how this might have occurred, with reference to Osama Bin Laden, the July bombings, or whatever terrorist specifics take your fancy. But cause, explanation and responsibility are three different things. When columnists like Seumas Milne and Khaled Diab try to hook up the first with the second and third, they’re wrong.
Believe it or not, it was a strange passage in Richard Dawkins‘ The Extended Phenotype that set me on to this. Dawkins describes what a broad term “genetically determined” is. If a society enforced a rule that girls must always wear pink, their clothing would be “genetically determined” by their sex. If a society were to kill every baby girl because they want boys, the girls’ deaths would be “genetically determined”. But that sounds utterly wrong. Why does it sound wrong? Because we expect that, when something is “genetically determined”, it’s explained by genes, and that we have licence to blame the genes for the trait. Not so. All we’re talking about here is brute causation.
This, I think, is the correct relation between foreign policy and Islamic extremism. It’s true that we are causally connected to extremism - we can influence it, for better or worse. Extremists, particularly in this country, are surely surrounded by moderates who tolerate their presence, and may even be funded by misguided moderates some of the time. Future foreign policy moves (like a Palestinian state) could drive a wedge between moderates and extremists; past moves (like invading Iraq) have pushed them closer to each other. But let’s get one thing clear: we’re not to blame for Islamic extremism. We shouldn’t adjust our own policies out of guilt, in the hope of achieving a reconciliation with the extremists. And Western foreign policy doesn’t explain Islamic extremism. The most relevant cause in the explanation is a hateful, bigoted interpretation of the Qur’an.
Filed under: foreignpolicy, iraq, jonathanbirch, middleeast, ukpolitics on January 24th, 2008
If the main explanation is a hateful, bigoted interpretation of the Qur’an, how do we explain that? It doesn’t just pop into the world, displacing all other interpretations of the Qur’an….presumably there are real economic and political forces pushing towards the acceptance of this interpretation.
Firstly, thanks for the good post Jonathan.
Secondly: While you make a good point, Owen, it should be pointed out that it’s a good illustration of the distinction between explanation and responsibility.
Although ‘economic and political forces’ might explain the prevalence of ‘this interpretation’, it is not the case that the causers of those forces are responsible for the interpretation. They are responsible for unjust economic and political actions and culpable to the extent that they are unjust. They are not culpable for ‘hateful interpretation’ of the Qur’an, much as their actions might explain it.
Owen, I’m not arguing against that view at all. The West does have a causal link to the spread of Islamic extremism - but this link falls short of lumping us with responsibility (essentially for the reasons Matt gives). I think the lack of a sharp distinction here poisons a lot of the leftist vs neocon dialectic.