the real meaning of Islamism
Reader comment on item: What You Can Do To Help Win the War on Terror

Submitted by Christopher Game (United States), Sep 16, 2007 at 00:00

New Guinea used to have something called a cargo cult. It arose in the days when aeorplanes were new and not understood. They would arrive from the sky in a mysterious way, full of the white man's cargo. The cargo cult was the expression of a belief that certain rituals would cause aeroplanes loaded with cargo to magically arrive from the sky, and disgorge their contents of cargo to all and sundry. Islamism is thought of in terms of an ideology, but its real nature is that of a variety of cargo cult. Communism is also of this kind: an ideology clothing a belief: that the state will magically provide cargo for the masses.

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