The tactics of tolerance
I don’t think it is possible to overstate the importance of the current debate regarding the proposed building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero. The Right, true to form, has correctly identified the gravity of the situation, but has chosen an utterly misguided response. I could rebut their Islamophobic diatribes with a moral defense of religious tolerance, but in this instance it is unnecessary.
It is unnecessary, because in this case the strategic argument is more compelling than the moral one. We, the United States and our allies, are engaged in an ideological struggle. Extremists on either side will tell you that it is a struggle between the Christian and Islamic faiths. Others will tell you it is a struggle between Islamism, a militaristic and theocratic ideology, and Western, secular democracy. In truth, we can speak more broadly and say that we are in the midst of a struggle between the forces of integration and those of isolation. Those who favor integration fight for a world with liberalized markets, political self-determination, and religious coexistence. The forces of isolation would lead us backwards, into a world of economic stagnation, theocratic tyranny, and inter-religious strife.
The strategic struggle we face is to convince the moderate majority of the Muslim world that they are better off embracing the politics of integration. The actions we take in creating a prosperous and pluralistic society can do what our tanks and bombs cannot; they can offer the people of the Islamic world an attractive alternative and a convincing refutation to the Islamist agenda. We can—and must—win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world if we are to triumph in this ideological struggle.
The construction of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero is not an anti-American, liberal apology; it is a bold assertion of our identity as a free and integrated society. We will, in effect, proclaim to the Muslim world that we are in fact the antithesis of what the Islamist accuse us of being. We are a society in which Muslims can prosper economically, express themselves freely, and above all else, worship peacefully. This is the message that must be repeated ad nauseum, until it has reached every ear from Marrakesh to Samarkand. It is then that the citizens of the Muslim world will once and for all reject the lies of the Islamists and join with the West in ushering in a new, peaceful and prosperous age. Liberal (that is free) pluralism, not Christian extremism, is the genuinely American agenda that will refute and triumph over the violent bigotry of extremist Islamism.
