A must-read from British author Hanif Kureishi on the London bombings ...

[non sociopath skin]

The arduous conversation will continue
Criticism - of religious intolerance and western violence - is essential

Hanif Kureishi
Tuesday July 19, 2005
Guardian

We no longer know what it is to be religious, and haven't for a while. During the past 200 years sensible people in the west have contested our religions until they lack significant content and force. These religions now ask little of anyone and, quite rightly, play little part in our politics.

The truly religious, following the logic of submission to political and moral ideals, and to the arbitrary will of God, are terrifying to us and almost incomprehensible. To us "belief" is dangerous and we don't like to think we have much of it.

Confronted by this, it takes a while for our "liberalism" to organise itself into opposition and for us to consider the price we might have to pay for it. We also have little idea of what it is to burn with a sense of injustice and oppression, and what it is to give our lives for a cause, to be so desperate or earnest. We think of these acts as mad, random and criminal, rather than as part of a recognisable exchange of violences.

The burning sense of injustice that many young people feel as they enter the adult world of double standards and dishonesty shock those of us who are more knowing and cynical. We find this commendable in young people but also embarrassing. Consumer society has already traded its moral ideals for other satisfactions, and one of the things we wish to export, masquerading as "freedom and democracy" is that very consumerism, though we keep silent about its consequences: addiction, alienation, fragmentation.

Rest at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1531301,00.html