The Islamic Threat:
Perkovich, George
the Irish had already become the domi- vants, the vacation homes, the lavish glob- So why did Boston voters buy him for nant ethnic group in Boston by the turn al trips-all...
...In the language of the 1992 their criticism of the West...
...Headline writ- Highly recommended...
...are the world's highest, while the bulk of projects at the start of the Great Depression i i The Muslims the globe's oil reserves sit beneath their anticipated much of the New Deal...
...We crosscut events and moin any linear manner...
...Instead through the Islamic formation of indi- is that the media, academia, and poliof threat-mongering, the operative ques- viduals at the grassroots level," by oper- cymakers collectively have failed to extion should be: "How can U.S...
...at least as far as Beatty is concerned...
...Qaddafi was an enemy of Sadat and To develop a strategy for dealing with policies and programs, and increase pop- Nimeiri...
...them?-so that our constructions are in ing, an epistemological labyrinth...
...What exIrving Malin exploration of motives is unclear...
...This neglects American leadways in which Islamic leaders-Qaddafi, of non-Muslims in key government posi- ership in saving Muslim Somali lives Khomeni, Sadat-differ markedly from tions, and the existence of political par- while Islamic nations contribute nearly one another, and in the cases of Qaddafi ties representing a competing ideology or nothing...
...How hypo- Bill Clinton has stated as a pillar of his not only a citizen of Bridgeport but a gecritical and counterproductive, then, for foreign policy...
...In some sensinence (including John F. Kennedy's only politician in American history to es this is true: politicians are indeed a maternal grandfather, Mayor John "Ho- have been reelected from jail, but he was mirror of their society, and a kind of emney Fitz" Fitzgerald), Curley brashly surely alone in having twice been in jail bodiment of its potential...
...Norton, $23, 393 pp...
...corruption, exclusiveness, and inequali- religion remain the major determinants in "In the 1990s," Esposito writes, "it is ty of their current governmental and eco- the formulation of foreign policy," important that the vacuum created by the nomic orders, and a resentment over the Esposito rightly summarizes...
...Instead, this was "the main thread in centuries to their native lands, and local- The Rascal King is a compelling and Curley' s public life: doing little things for ly to the 1840s and the burning of a rich journey through a hundred years of little people who repaid him in votes and Catholic convent by rampaging Nativists...
...it does not account for the full It is interesting to note that Howard ends moves on at least three lev- complexity of the event...
...could not outweigh the negative...
...who works as a detective for the state gov- Can words ever capture life...
...If, for example, we simply read the setting more than the "private" Bridgeport Perhaps the invisible message of the enstory of Billy Bray, we discover that his or Bray family...
...more than a brief review...
...Instead, he speaks of "Islamic re- However, Esposito acknowledges that ly, many Muslims perceive the vivalism" or "Islamic activism," which are Islamic activists will probably stop short American-led new world order as fun"less value-laden and have roots within of full-fledged democracy and tolerance...
...He tries rational way...
...read in several ways...
...Barnum, Lincoln, and other famous allegiance of their fellow citizens...
...curity bureaucracies do, too...
...0 Commonweal 12 February 1993: 23...
...it is also a study of "histo- and adulthood have, in a mysterious way, as "pictures": "In the beginning was the ry," a meditation, if you will, on what the been shaped by Bray's testimony...
...Globally, Libya and Iran it John Esposito, an accomplished Middle terrorist groups which have become syn- struggle against the United States, while Eastern specialist from Holy Cross Col- onymous with Islamic fundamentalism Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, lege, has explored a major foreign policy to many Americans, the much more nu- Turkey, etc., have been formal or inforproblem confronting American society merous Islamic movements represent mal American allies...
...More often and leaders must focus on these nations' profoundly affect all aspects of interna- than not, rulers and governments have used foreign policies...
...Iran, Nimeiri's Sudan...
...This is the purpose of The therhood in Egypt fulfill real socioeco- central Asian republics of the former Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality...
...On the authoritarian Algerian government cried context...
...Is it possiernment, offers one version of the mur- ble to describe those longings which lie Ir his brilliant novel deserves der...
...rious fiction...
...Bray, actly is the relationship of language to life...
...He points out the orientation would restrict the participation Muslims...
...as if to insist that Maureen Howard a woman who pleads self-defense...
...The mansion, the array of ser- gies of containment...
...Mon-Sat 302.764-8918, 9.9 EST Commonweal 12 February 1993: 21 territories...
...Birthrates in Islamic societies Semitism in the 1940s...
...authority, buttress nationalism, legitimate sion...
...began long before Curley, reaching back the bad...
...to enhance their above and beyond the Shiite-Sunni diviadversarial terms...
...One billion Muslims inhabit the tion restrictions in Congress in 1913, and earth, comprising majorities in forty-five speaking out against growing anti- he Muslims countries...
...and discover that it never existed as im- ing those of her brother James...
...The second level of the novel has as its continual flow, refusing finality...
...fluenced by his father...
...Esposito eschews the pop term spective...
...true: society is a mirror of its politicians...
...Esposito judiciously distinguishes would be at best a limited democracy with attacked Iraq, contrasted to passivity among Islamic movements in various so- a weak pluralistic profile...
...Barnum is, perhaps, the Algeria recently, this allegiance may be ticipation, something which President secret hero of the novel because he was expressed at the ballot box...
...It requires nuance, pragma- saw history-whatever it is-as a kind of racy in Algeria and elsewhere...
...jettisoned its principles and, by damentalist threat...
...But this version is a perversion...
...More recentexist...
...sociations were also balanced by an out- hyping alarm over Islam...
...derline investigation because we eventu- The "beautiful system" in effect, leads ally learn that in the investigation, any us to the third level of the novel...
...Among "fundamentalism," which he regards "as American presidential election, the Islamic these motivations are: "imperialism, too laden with Christian presuppositions activists have recognized that the people America's tilt toward Israel, and its supand Western stereotypes, as well as im- want change and they have demonstrated port of oppressive regimes (the Shah's plying a monolithic threat that does not that they are the agents of that change...
...end of the cold war not be filled by exag- West's role in creating and sustaining One reason it has been hard for gerated fears of Islam as a resurgent `evil these for the last several centuries...
...An ideologically oriented Islamic state ample, the alacrity with which the U.S...
...The Islamic community is idea how to engage with these societies (kings, generals, former military officers) riven by conflict and competing interests, in anything but frightened, befuddled, and have found it a useful tool...
...an uncanny sense of political theater and entertainment...
...Primacy cinating references to Bridgeport in the life ments-they will increasingly win the must be attached to supporting tendencies of P.T...
...and a deeply tragic and unending string of personal losses that hit him with regularity, in- THE ISLAMIC THREAT Yet the alarmists are shouting fire in a cluding the early deaths of his wife and Myth or Reality combustible theater-one in which exits four of his six children, two on the same John Esposito have not been marked...
...Boston history, and an in-depth chronicle gratitude, who as the years went by and But at a time when Irish political strength of the life of a man whose contributions they tasted something of the world's in- was nearing its peak, Curley did not at- and transgressions were monumental...
...This section of the novel can be rience in political, economic, and legal will and does not directly threaten U.S...
...She picture...
...E Curley's funeral procession in 1958 testified to this loyalty...
...its ideological before Serb slaughter of Bosnia's cieties and nation-states...
...Their Americans to identify our national inempire' at war with the new world order goal is the transformation of society terest in dealing with Islamic societies and a challenge to global stability...
...Distinct from the small Soviet Union...
...Oxford University Press, $22, 243 pp...
...She is aware that "a" or "e" or "o" Nell, the parents, and James and Catherine age fifty, recognizes that her childhood are symbols...
...Coughlin...
...The which they choose to suppress, whether as Al Smith or Richard Daley, Curley did enmity between Boston Yankee and Irish they rely on the good in each citizen or on not build an all-encompassing machine...
...and effected a coup, vitiated by our current portrayal of the fun- entry we can continue to read about the the U.S...
...Iran and Kuwait...
...Typically headlines...
...Esstructs the myth and image of raging If they were not tainted with Mus- posito decries the tendency to dismiss monolithic "Islamic fundamentalism...
...At a time To Beatty, Curley's positive attributes when old threats have waned, the "Green f ©1OIiq prc , Ilnc...
...fering an explicit strategy for transformthe Islamic mantle to obscure practices that In determining the American interest ing the specter of an Islamic threat into a have little to do with religion, faith, or the vis-a-vis Islamic nation-states, citizens partner in building a common future, he 22: 12 February 1993 Commonweal does say that such a strategy must rec- inaction, sided with the junta...
...Price (including P&H): spoken admiration of Mussolini and an ers and book editors find it profitable to Hardcover $21.00...
...He Are Comrisked his career by jilting the Al Smith ing...
...These as- simpler in American political culture than 84 extremely thought-provoking short chapters...
...These are precisely the attributes right-hand side of this section of double "fundamentalists...
...She writes: ON THE ONE HAND...
...Heads of state nanosecond...
...Double entry, designed to place equivalencies ...when something is missing ...when something is lost, you simply set down a number on the other side of the page to compensate, reconcile...
...Indeed, he and bless with silence the denial of democ- righteous...
...National interest and and leadership today accessibly and with mainstream reactions to the oppression, regional politics rather than ideology or care...
...But the nations that have led the world to solidify power rather than to promote of an Islamic monolith evaporates in a through the twentieth century have little political participation...
...It was the initial A, peak and word means not only to the Bray children lives alone because she cannot ever be crossbar simpler than drawing of horse but to all who want to recapture the "past" sure about the motives of men, includ- upon the wall of cave...
...This strategy will fail, nius who recognized the need to carry histhe United States to look the other way however, if it is heavyhanded and self- tory into the unreality of life...
...Those not helped by him were aware of other aspects of Curley's life: a spell- FEAR NO ISLAM binding and unforgettable voice and rhetoric...
...policy architects offer no strategy for esThough essentially a local figure, caping the heralded danger...
...Perhaps the centerpiece of ognize the reasonableness of many of the "The United States must be willing to the novel is the section called "double Islamic activists' beliefs and goals...
...His public works AreComing...
...newspapers, radio stations, etc...
...0 Brays...
...How do Islamic states tional life through the twenty-first centu- Islam, as they have used other ideologies, seek to influence us...
...And in nomic needs...
...This issue deserves fuller Although Esposito stops short of ofan American ally, how they cynically use treatment than Esposito gives it...
...Khomeini's Iran sought as well as the collective religio-culture of Conversely, popular-based Islamic to subvert Saudi Arabia...
...lief that the right of self-determination and concept of double-entry bookkeeping the While Islamic activists may be better at representative government includes ac- debt and credit must agree...
...I un- the beautiful system must hold...
...no inaccuraopposition than in government-they ceptance of an Islamically oriented state cies or altered circumstances are admittend to lack adequate training and expe- and society, if that reflects the popular ted...
...the Irish had already become the domi- vants, the vacation homes, the lavish glob- So why did Boston voters buy him for nant ethnic group in Boston by the turn al trips-all were evidence of a man liv- so long...
...no way of Curley also made hismark on the national George Perkovich telling whether the alarm is false or exscene, leading the fight against immigra- aggerated...
...An actor The three levels intersect in our minds...
...Beatty faults Curley for adding to the poi- cial forces they choose to liberate and But unlike other big-city mayors such soned waters of Massachusetts politics...
...As in toward human rights and political par- historical figures...
...he has refused to "nature" or "history" in any completely These three levels, in effect, do not move accept "ordinary" happenings...
...At the same represented for his time what Harold while in office, at either end of his career, time-paradoxically-the opposite is also Washington declared to black Chica- a parenthesis of disgrace...
...More than a million witnesses to poses...
...He was not the the politicians it deserves...
...When the tism, and an empathetic tolerance of duplicity, a hoax, a stage show...
...Iran bandwagon in 1932 to back Franklin Resurgent...
...federal jobs did not materialize...
...It his story...
...they exist because they began their children...
...as if NATURAL HISTORY vestigation of the murder of a soldier by to balance, naturally...
...We are told that in "the beautiful societies do need fundamental reform...
...Instead, in a work that provides members of the middle and lower class- demics and government advisors from enough historical background for non- es, these movements lead the call for po- questioning orthodox portrayals of an specialists to follow easily, he decon- litical reform and human rights...
...Clearly, Islamic societies will well-being of the community...
...Saddam Hussein waged war on Islamic societies-individual nation-states ular support...
...limness, many Islamic activists would be "the reasons given by activists (and inReaders will learn to discard inimical the "good guys" from an American per- deed by many Arabs and Muslims) for cliches...
...Iran's Lethal Secret...
...Nothing is the Relevance of Religion in the Nineties, by Milton H. Keene...
...Iran, Turkey, and Islam-we must first understand "the movements such as the Muslim Bro- Saudi Arabia compete for influence in the problem...
...Catherine, a spinster at vowels...
...placable fact...
...goans on the night of his mayoral vic- Even worse than these transgressions, It is largely up to the politicians which sotory: "It's our turn...
...I find the answer in the writings of the century, and though other Irish ing far beyond the means of modest of Vaclav Havel: "They say a nation gets Americans preceded him in political prom- governmental salaries...
...it is at the heart of "simple" Billy or James...
...her "double entry"-now notice the dark els: it is, first, a study of the And Bray's investigation is viewed in pun!-with a series of speculations on Bray family-Billy and different ways...
...Howard is, in a sense, questioning the relation of private and public history, of those uncanny associations which can never be correctly explained...
...he opened them in the end, the scales are clearly weighed of the little things Curley had done for wider, exploiting them for his own pur- in the negative for James Michael Curley, them...
...First Peril" of Islam can give new purpose to One Wellington Rd...
...damentally anti-Islam, citing, for exIslamic tradition...
...It is a bold "double entry" tire novel is that humanity is flawed, that life is dominated by one event-the in- into the way "history" is an odd, myste- it can never know unearthly designs...
...we can read the fasmanagement to run effective govern- interests," Esposito concludes...
...But difference, magnified manifold the value tempt to heal the wounds...
...alliance with the fascistic Father Charles press the Islamic button, and national se- Pay by MasterCard, VISA, or check...
...policy ating hospitals, clinics, legal-aid societies, plain "the `who' and the `why' of history, transform the specter of an Islamic threat schools, child-care centers, youth camps, the specific causes or reasons behind the into the pursuit of a common global future...
...thus any page of the to rewrite-or, better yet-to recreate tives in an unconscious way...
...These Another of our "Books of Distinction" Delano Roosevelt, became the local hero headlines have a tabloid flavor, but they PUSH BACK THE NIGHT: again with F.D.R.'s victory, and ended up appear in some of America's leading A Clergyman-Columnist's Views on the jilted suitor when allegedly promised newspapers and magazines...
...And here the chimera ry...
...it is, finally about the "mix" (of limited ability), James has been in- We recognize that we can never understand of art and reality, of "word" and "world...
...Like McCarthy-era antiEsposito never completely answers this urban-based and attractive to educated communism, Islam-baiting inhibits acaquestion...
...Their demonstrate by word and action its be- entry...
...unswerving fundamentalist threat...
...and Sudan's Gaafar Muhammed Nimeiri, orientation...
...Quality Paperback $14.25...
...America's foreign day in February 1950...
...We manipnovel combines the various levels and, in- Billy in a movie he wants to sell to his ulate them-or are manipulated by deed, makes them into a maze of mean- agent...
...Suite 15 and foremost was an unending penchant well-worn and lavishly equipped strate- Wilmington, DE 19803.4129 for graft...
Vol. 120 • February 1993 • No. 3
