Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Islam Expert Discusses Terror

Islamic religion expert Michael Sells discussed the conditions that have created the threat of Islamist terrorism and the possible solutions to solve the problems of this growing conflict during a speech yesterday in Copley Formal Lounge.

Sells, a professor of religion at Haverford College, discussed uslim perceptions of the West. He argued that the two worlds do not talk enough about the situation at hand and that the conflict will get progressively worse if it is not discussed.

“The issue of religion and violence is comparative,” Sells said. “If we don’t reflect on the two different modalities of our culture, then there’s no way of talking. If there’s no way of talking, then the tension builds, and there is a devastating conflict that occurs.”

Alluding to the stories of his childhood and remembering how adults would become angry and leave the room after disagreeing on certain religious and political issues, Sells maintained that people are ambivalent about getting involved in public debates concerning the Arab-Islamic and Western worlds.

“We have this problem of naming the enemy so that we know who the enemy is. But naming the enemy is an act of creating the enemy, making the threat more serious,” Sells said.

Sells added that the terrorism problem is an inherent conflict rooted in human nature and that people have the perception that the problem cannot be overcome, only fought.

“We need to be able to generate public debate, making elections a form of democracy in forms of foreign policy,” he said. “The void is only filled by those who do speak about the problems.”

Sells explained that the growing divide between the Western world and the Arab-Islamic world is the categorization of different religious ideologies.

“We say we’re not at war with Islam, but rather with Islamists or Islamo-fascists,” he said. “The problems of these names are the threats in the forms of ideologies of the different monotheistic religions.”

He went on to explain that differing ideologies cannot become labels by which one can identify a group of people.

“The problem of ideology lies in religious imagination,” he said. “There are seven forms of religious imagination that seem to produce struggle, conflict and ideological mobilization.”

Sells went on to list the seven forms of religious imagination – monotheistic intolerance, purity of women, holy war, the idea of sacrifice, the claiming of sacred spaces including Jerusalem, the expectation of the Messiah and perceptions of heaven.

“These religious ideologies become extreme war masks into which people fit,” Sells said. “It is like a magnet pulling iron filings apart,” he added, citing how two walls of religiously-divergent warrior groups such as the Serbs and the Croats fought in the Kosovo conflict.

“Sometimes, there is a clash of civilizations, and conflict is inevitable,” he said.

He explained how the Western world reacted to increased media presence in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

“The particularly violent forces in the world today involve certain Islamic roots becoming powerful in the Islamic world,” he said.

Sells also addressed how the Arab-Islamic world sometimes perceives the West as a powerful machine creating a desire for consumption of a cultural outreach that entices people of all cultures.

“That machine invades the tradition of family, making it impossible for Muslims to keep up family values,” he said, alluding to the frequent use of the faces and bodies of women in advertising.

“The classical iconoclasm merged with a modern media struggle, creating an effort of 9/11 attacks to infiltrate into the heart of Western media,” he added.

Sells concluded that Americans need to make an effort to discuss these religious issues in public. “It is absolutely essential to get these issues out of academia that is necessary to engage in popular arguments,” he said.

The event was co-sponsored by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the CCAS Outreach Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

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