I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

There comes a time when you have to recognize that your own mindset is your greatest enemy in dealing with an Other who seems utterly alien.

I've only just begun studying Islam, but my first few examinations reveal that there is almost no way America, or any western nation, can attempt to get their heads around the vast gulf that exists between Western thought, and the world's Muslim populations, particularly in the Middle East. Most of our thinking is shaped by the Renaissance with its revival of Greco-Roman ideals, and by the Protestant reformation which enabled science and the objective view to dominate our views. There is nothing like this in the Islamic Arabic world, which reached its cultural and intellectual height prior to the 14th century, and has since stultified. It was the Muslims, incidentally, who saved all the Greek and Roman literature that didn't burn in Alexandria. They were the keepers of culture while Europe went through the dark and middle ages. Thanks to the Muslims' effort to preserve those texts, we could have a Renaissance. The Church vs. rational mind split that rules our society is non-existent in theirs. Just a few cultural snapshots are enough to reveal a startling difference in mindsets.

When you travel in the Arabic or African muslim world, prayers are shouted out to you daily on the streets. You give prayers in the mosque or at home 4-5 times per day, including a 4 AM prayer. When you check into any hotel in that part of the world, a symbol in the room always shows you the direction of Mecca so you can pray properly. In Islam, scholars deeply understand the traditions, and carry the religion forward and spread it to others. In the West, scholars study religion from the outside, trying to understand it objectively, while having little if any direct knowledge of transcendental or spiritual experiences. Such experience 'taints' the objective view, and renders scholarly work open to criticism of familiarity and obfuscation.

Can you imagine what it would be like to move in our country and have the book of John or the book of Job shouted out at you on street corners to make sure it was entrenched in your soul? What would it be like to have your children indoctrinated in the Bible from early ages, and to further position that book as THE correct text on the subject of the monotheistic God? The Qu'ran and the Torah - well they were earlier or later attempts but imperfect because people believed Mohammed had the word of God, and that wasn't right, or that Ezekiel or Daniel were prophets, and there was only ONE TRUE PROPHET AND THAT IS JESUS PRAISE BE TO GOD.

Can you imagine what it would be like to so fear women that you cover them so that they cannot tempt you into doing unimaginable things to them? Oh wait, in our society, women are expected to exploit their sexuality and to bare their bodies as much as possible to gain favor with men and advance their positions in society. The US is the biggest consumer of pornography in the world, while maintaining that we treat our women well. We pay them .70 for every dollar men earn, but hey, we respect 'em. Long as they got nice tits.

Same problem, different direction.

Back to the mindset difference, and how difficult it would be to bridge. I have also seen artwork, propaganda, Iranian, that shows an angry Iranian woman holding the dead body of her son, while the symbol for God is above her head. In shadow around her are all the sons who have died for God, and all the sons who are yet to be who will die. The message is clear. Iran's mothers have no problem sacrificing their children to defeat the infidels who defy God.

So, exit that world for a moment and come back over here to the nice comfortable godless west, where we make decisions rationally. That type of mindset is exactly what they see as evil. There is no Divine in our decisions. How can we be anything but infidels? Do you see how this problem can never be solved by our current mindset? We can never even begin to have a meaningful dialogue because our position is already so foreign.

So what do we have in common? Where can we begin some kind of dialogue across this schism?

Well, we have children.

We love those children.

They have children too, and they love theirs as much as we do ours. We all love to breathe the air, and have the ability to feed and shelter our people. We want our families to prosper and be healthy. The only approach that can ever work is to work towards humanity, to work towards our mutual humanness.

This, incidentally, is a distinctly feminine position, and one I suspect will be needed to rectify things and bring peace to the world. Playing king of the hill hasn't worked very well since we've had wars since the beginning of recorded history, and the trend doesn't seem to be easing up any.

War is always with us because the stories that create it are very old and endlessly repeating. You have, I want, I take. You get mad, you want, you take. It's a very masculine game. Players change, borders change, technology changes, but the formula never alters. Whether what you have is prosperity, control of the world's resources, my land, my spouse, etc., I must take it from you. But if one truly wants to stop war (and I am far from convinced that people really do want to stop it), then the only way through is to recognize the Divine, or the humanity, in others. Even strange others. Even scary others. Whatever your religion, surely you eventually have to come to the conclusion that God would never have created whole races and creeds of people by accident, or mistakenly, so that they could be destroyed by another race or creed. 

That would imply that this Divine Creator was mistaken, in error, and then how could such an entity be trusted?

There's an oil-slick slippery slope there, pardon the reference...

The way out is through seeing our humanness reflected in each other, and learning to relate to that. In this way, I suppose that old Biblical prophecy might come true that the meek shall inherit the Earth. Everyone else shall be too busy killing each other off. The meek, the ones able to connect to each other in a non-threatening way, will be all that's left.

Interesting thought.