Islamism and Bushism

While I would never claim that Islamism, the radically politicized version of Islamic ideology espoused by Osama Bin Laden and his followers, and Bushism, which in its foreign policy component commands forceful global intervention to advance U.S. interests, are anywhere near analogous--indeed, they are separated by vast socio-cultural and historical gulfs--there are some similarities that warrant analysis.

One similarity in particular demands our attention, and it derives from the theological presuppositions present for Bush as well as the Islamists. It is well known that Bush believes his position is God-given, and that he was chosen to lead the U.S. through Iraq. Indeed, Osama Bin Laden also believes his position is dictated by Allah, and thus both, although diametrically opposed, believe themselves to be in harmony with God, while the Other is fundamentally removed from God's abstruse wishes. It is as if one were a prism for other.

None of this is new; there have been enough discussions of the theological basis for both Bushism and Islamism. What I find edifying is an additional understanding derived from a category espoused by philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, that faith, true faith, requires a "teleological suspension of the ethical". By teleological he means the establishment of a pre-established purpose, a greater and final end.

For Kierkegaard, the Ethical is the Universal; that is, ethics has an objective basis, i.e., God, and we are required to follow an ethical imperative. What is difficult to comprehend, however, is that sometimes God requires, in an act of faith, for us to suspend what we know to be ethical for a Greater Good--a teleology. Thus, as Kierkegaard obsesses over, God's demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Isaac had committed no crime, and Abraham was, by ethical standards, agreeing to murder his only child. This was an act antithetical to our ethical imperative.

But Abraham agreed anyhow; his faith in God was stronger than ethical objectivity--he underwent a teleological suspension of the Ethical for God. His faith was stronger than the universal prohibition against murder.

Thus we return to Bushism and Islamism. Both purport to represent a theological and political ideal, and both claim a teleological suspension of the ethical. Islamism perhaps commits the greater atrocity by its nonrecognition of the difference between soldiers and civilians in a so-called jihad, or 'Holy War". Then again, The Bush Doctrine has permitted the unnecessary death of tens of thousands of Iraqis for a strategic calculus that, in its most insidious subtlety, may include hastening the Rapture. Thus, while we should make strong distinctions between the two ideologies, we witness their similarity on the level of ideation and ontology.

We should, in fear, tremble at both.