Desiring Machine

This is a chilling news story about how Iraqi barbers face brutal intimidation by radical fundamentalists because they believe the barbers shouldn’t be shaving beards. The thuggery amazes me. And I am under no illusion of the grave threat these wackos present to society. It is because of this absurdist religious nonsense that the founding fathers so strongly believed in separation of church and state. Jefferson and his contemporaries understood quite clearly why it is important to not let this radical religious thinking take a foothold in society. This is why we on the left worry about the radical christian fundamentalist strains in our own society.

But after reading this news, the islamofascist nutjobs killing barbers seems to take the cake. And when they talk about car bombs I have more than a vague sense of the danger. Several years ago I missed a car bombing in Cape Town, South Africa by a few hours when I walked through a mall parking lot there. The bombing was reportedly attributed to radical islamic extremists who went on to do a series of other bombings in Cape Town while I was there. I will never forget the feeling of recognizing that had I simply been in the same place just a few hours later I might not be alive. This is one of the personal experiences that does tend to color one’s thinking. So I am under no delusions about islamic extremists, or IRA extremists, or anti-abortion extremists, or even your garden variety lone wolf nutjob.

The fight against these fundamentalists is not an easy one. And I deeply sympathize with the barbers. It must totally suck to live under that kind of daily threat and intimidation because some nutjobs have decided that they must take an absolutist stand on facial hair. Perhaps, and I don’t mean this flippantly, we should air drop gillette razors across the country to send these radicals a clear message that they cannot win.

But there needs to be an outcry and real action from the muslim community. They will need to take an aggressive stand against the intolerant elements of their religion. The Saudis should start right away in the dismantling of the wahabi sects and schools in their society. The Iranians should curtail the hate filled mullahs. The jews and Israelis should curb the militaristic elements of their society. And we could do well to brush back the fringe Christians in our society. People of good faith everywhere need to take a stand.