Is the battle for hearts and minds a matter of religious faith?

On January 7, Chérif Kouachi and his brother Saïd murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdoe, ostensibly because the magazine had portrayed the prophet Muhammad in an unflattering way.

On January 11, 1.6 million people took part in a unity march Paris to express condolences and solidarity with the ideals of freedom of expression. The Paris march was one of many in France. The total number of participants may have reached 3.7 million. Although secular, these French marches included people from all religions represented in French society. French leader Francois Hollande said, “Paris is the capital of the world today.” There were no organized speeches, though. 

On January 20, 800,000 people took part in the “Love to Prophet Mohamed” rally in Grozny, Chechnya. It should be noted that the Kremlin-backed regional government declared a holiday for people to attend the demonstration. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, issued an emotional on-stage address, “If needed, we are ready to die to stop anyone who thinks that you can irresponsibly defile the name of the prophet… You and I see how European journalists and politicians under false slogans about free speech and democracy proclaim the freedom to be vulgar, rude and insult the religious feelings of hundreds of millions of believers.”

Muslims also rallied in Bannu, Pakistan where they chanted “Death to France” and erroneously burned an Italian flag. And in Tehran, Iran where they demanded that the French ambassador be expelled.

One murderous event and two radically different reactions involving hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people. Are these different reactions explained by something fundamental to the Muslim faith? No. They are not. This is not about faith. This is about culture. 

Muslims in Canada did not rally against France and Charlie Hebdoe (at least not in any remotely substantial number). Or in the United States. Or France, the U.K., Germany, Denmark, Italy, or Sweden. Muslims in liberal western democracies did not rally against France despite taking offense at the Charlie Hebdoe cartoons as, indeed, some did. 

If this was only about a deep, legitimately held religious belief then we would see Muslims all over the world as angry as those in Chechnya, Iran, Syria, and Iraq but we don’t. Why? Because this is not exclusively about faith. Western Muslims aren’t all that angry. This is about a deeply held, broad cultural bias which involves religious belief but is not exclusive to religious belief. The rally in Grozny is about culture and geography. 

I note that the Muslim world doesn’t seem too upset about China which is not exactly Muslim friendly.

And this is why the battle for hearts and minds will take decades. Probably centuries. There has never been a time in human history where we basically like and trust one another on a global scale. We are always instilling hatred and anger against our neighbours, on a macro scale. We are good at collecting in communities and getting along but we are also very good at disliking the community next to ours.

As globalization has taken hold, the scope of anger and geography has changed. We are no longer Athenians sowing distrust towards Spartans a scant 200 kilometers to the west and south. We are now secular liberal democracies bombing Muslim totalitarian states on the other side of the earth. And, we are totalitarian Islamic states teaching our children that westerners are bent upon the destruction of our faith and that we should rocket all of Israel into oblivion. 

This is the same vilification of the enemy as has gone on in human relations for 2500 years dating back to Greece. Um, no, let’s be realistic. It’s more like the same vilification of the enemy that has gone on for 45,000 years when modern humans encountered Neanderthals in Europe. Or, more like 130,000 years when we first see Neanderthal emerge in the fossil record. The human animal seems to have a deep need to like the humans on this side of the valley and distrust that bunch on the other side of the valley.

The advantages that we enjoy in the 21^st century are education, communication, and wealth. The level of anger and distrust in the world, today, is shockingly less than just 200 years ago. Measured against human history, things are changing very quickly and we are hating less and less. 

The battle of hearts and minds will be won. The world will reach a broad, lasting peace. And, on a cosmic scale this well happen very quickly. On the scale of a human lifetime, though, hatred and distrust are here to stay and it’s not about religion. It’s about the human animal’s ability to vilify the supposed enemy with whatever reasons we can come up with.

As a recent Paul Noth comic states: “There can be no peace until they renounce their Rabbit God and accept our Duck God.” We’re getting there.