Although not 'the evil one' President Bush so vehemently wanted captured 'dead or alive' the detainment of the hirsute American Taliban John Walker Lindh on Dec. 8, 2001, and his subsequent confession of guilt nearly six months later, was a small and somewhat satisfactory consolation prize in the War on Terror. A minimal threat compared to the duo of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, Lindh's capture gave the government a surprising if not bittersweet success story, one of the very few to come out of this war thus far. The only other victory came courtesy of a decisive strike against a weak and depleted enemy; suddenly the Taliban were no longer the burqua-enforcing, Buddha-exploding leaders of Afghanistan, that privilege once again returning to the regional warlords who operate on their own agendas. The average American still waits nervously in fear of "what next," sitting at home with a glass of water in one hand and a potassium-iodide pill clenched in the other while safely detained in some federal prison is one American Taliban, a misguided youth who got caught up in the dangers of religious ideology run amok.
But for all it's worth, Lindh's transformation from a quiet suburban boy into an obstreperous supporter of theologically based fundamentalism is not unique internationally, especially when speaking about members of extremist religious factions that flourish within the United States. Our nation, so passionate in its love of freedom and democracy, has a dangerous undercurrent of non-secular ideologues, who, like the former rulers in Afghanistan, seek to create a nation, and a world, that bow down to its own brand of religious idealism. Those who would rather live in a nation bound by the bible, not by the constitution, those who seek to create systems and constructs that promote purely puritanical beliefs, and those that choose religion over reason constitute the greatest internal threat to our national security; they are the real American Taliban.
Shortly after Sept. 11, Jerry Falwell eloquently expressed his own irrational reasons for why planes hijacked by religious zealots attacked America. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way _ all of them who have tried to secularize America _ I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" These asinine words from the American version of Mullah Omar need no explaining _ the idiocy involved speaks for itself _ but what stands out is his insistence on blaming the secularization of America, the failure of morality in this nation, for influencing the events of Sept. 11. He used a tragedy as a vehicle to criticize everything that cuts against the current of his utopian, ideologically religious nation. Placing blame on individuals merely seeking to live the American Dream who don't conform to his own brand of extremism, and subtly calling for their removal from the American landscape in order to "right a nation wronged," is equitable to the ideology the Taliban and its leaders forcibly impressed upon the people of Afghanistan for nearly a decade. Zealots like Falwell who deride the Taliban while supporting their own ideal of religious fundamentalism in the United States fail to see the hypocrisy in their visions, and if this ultra-religious faction had their way, America would look more like the Afghanistan of pre-Sept. 11 than the America of 1997.
What happens when conservative ideologues clash with society because American children are learning that evolution, not creationism, may account for mankind's existence? The science of evolution can no longer be taught in a science classroom. For two years, no public school in the entire state of Kansas could teach about evolution in the classroom. In Ohio, lawmakers are seeking to appease religious factions by instituting a curriculum of intelligent design rather then strict evolution, teaching children that primates evolved only after being created initially by a "God or godlike creature." What happens when science reaches a point where cures for various deadly diseases may be found using a process that defies what the religious right deems as acceptable? Science would be sacrificed in the name of, what these religious ideologues consider moral righteousness and spiritual sanctity. In order to satisfy their own vision of what America could and should be, a vision emanating from their pervasion of the world's best-selling fiction book of the past two thousand years, this same faction seeks to subdue research that one day may lead to cures for hundreds of debilitating and deadly human afflictions. This includes an affliction that has disintegrated the mind of their so-called conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, simply because the process in which these remedies could be extracted does not conform to their ideals of a moral society.
The religious right in America wants to curtail a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body while at the same time desires to dictate what can and cannot be viewed on television, be read in schools, and be worn on the streets. They seek to suppress individual free will for the sake of religious doctrine, accompanied with an ultimate aspiration for moral dictatorships without reason, turning our government into a regime reminiscent of the Taliban.
But only an exiguous number of Americans believe in these visions, only a very vocal few subscribe to such ideological beliefs. The danger therein lies the fact that so too in Afghanistan did only a very minute minority agree with the doctrines of the Taliban _ the sharp rise in American style clothing, entertainment, and even food in the streets of Kabul shortly after liberation attests to this fact _ and yet they were still able to retain supremacy for nearly a decade. Spirituality and faith is the epicenter of human fortitude, but the flashpoint arrives when faith becomes ideology, and the ideology turns into a hatred for all those who hold different beliefs. This is the impetus for religious extremism in the Middle East, amongst men of all faiths, in America and across borders in every corner of the globe. It doesn't matter which religion it is, for the inherent danger of extremism founded in faith is one that has faced the world for thousands years before and will for another thousand years hence.
Not all religious Americans would rather live in a land with laws drawn out of individual proliferation of spiritual indoctrination, and a man of faith is not the same as a man of oppressive faith, but the fact remains that a strong faction in this nation wants to impress upon all people a certain ideological zealotry that inhibits the life of men and women alike in order to fulfill a greater view of morality in the eyes of faith. There are not many other belief systems that represent a greater threat to a free and open society
Religion in its nature is not an oppressive institution, but when hijacked by those with ulterior motives of domination and control, it becomes just a hollow vehicle for megalomaniacal men. The tragedy of Sept. 11 demonstrates these truths, and highlights the perils of unbridled religious adherence. Perhaps religion, like other potentially hazardous substances, is best served only in moderation.
Adam Blickstein is a junior majoring in Political Science.
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