November 27, 2001
Kamloops Daily News


What are you prepared to die for?  It's a question we should
ask ourselves if we want to understand traditional Muslim
values, says professor Irving Hexan of the department of
religious studies at the University of Calgary.

It's a question that's difficult for my western mind to
grasp -- not just because no answer comes immediately to me
but because the question itself seems odd. 

It doesn't help for me to probe the lives of those who give
up their lives for a cause, either.   I recently watched a
video of the true life story of Irishman Bobby Sands.  He
died in jail of self imposed starvation because he believed
that he and his fellow IRA inmates were prisoners of war,
not criminals.

I understand that the Irish Republican Army considers itself
to be an army and not a gang of criminals.  But I would not
have given my life in a hunger strike to make the point.  I
guess that passion for a cause is something that you had to
experience in order to understand. 

Islamic martyrs are like that.  For traditional Muslims, the
question of what they would die for requires no soul
searching, no head scratching.  One of the fundamental
beliefs of Islam is that those who die fighting for Islam go
directly to heaven.

The goal of our soldiers to get out of war alive and those
who do so say that they were just doing a job.  Acts of
bravery spring spontaneously on the battlefield, not as
premeditated acts of martyrdom.  It is we, the ones back
home, who say that those who died did so for a noble cause
(freedom, country).

Unlike Muslims who life in societies governed by God
(theocracies), we live in a secular world.  The head of
Muslim countries, the caliph, is both spiritual and
political leader.

Christians are in the world but are not part of it.  Christ
made the separation of church and state clear: "They are no
part of the world, just as I am no part of the world (John
17:14),"  Jesus says of his followers.  Christian life is at
best a tolerance, at worst an endurance, of a Godless world.

Our western world has the appearances of Christianity but we
don't consider politicians to be spiritual leaders.  I find
it ironic that the mightiest currency in the world is
inscribed with the words "In God we trust".   It's not God
that sustains the faithful capitalists but the almighty
buck.

Although Muslim terrorists talk about a holy war against
Christians, their targets are elsewhere.  Our churches were
not their targets. Terrorists attacked a greater symbol of
our belief system, the World Trade Center.  And it worked. 
The attack had the desired effect of shaking the foundations
of our secular consumer society.

The heart of western society is the marketplace.  We live to
shop.   And if we didn't, things would collapse.  Two-thirds
of our economy is driven by shoppers.  Consumption and
over-consumption are the cornerstones of our way of life.

And although we aren't willing to die for the marketplace,
there is often a lot at stake.  

Consider those British Columbians who put their lifetime
earnings into Eron Mortgage.   So great was their faith that
they threw not just their savings into the pot, but they
also mortgaged their homes.  So fervently did they believe
in the 18 percent return promised that they were willing to
risk it all. 

I understand that kind of faith.  I lost money in the
Teachers' Investment and Housing Cooperative in the 1980s.  
I never for a moment doubted that money would beget even
more money -- it was only the faithless poor who paid for
their doubt.

But like TIHC, Eron squandered money in worthless
investments. I didn't lose a lot of money because I didn't
have a lot to lose but many investors' lives were shattered. 
They didn't lose their lives but they did lose a lifetime of
savings.

What are we prepared to die for?  Hexan's question does
provoke an examination of our beliefs, even if no answer
comes to mind.  If there is anything to learn, it is that
the absurdities of other beliefs are seen most clearly from
a distance.

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