Gerecht critique
Reader comment on item: Radical Islam as Its Own Antidote[, Argues Reuel Gerecht]

Submitted by george rosenbaum (United States), Jun 23, 2005 at 12:17

Agree that Gerecht (translated fair, just, correct) is defeatist. Nearly all tyrannies collapse of their own weight, some sooner, some later. But, always at a huge human suffering. I wish I could be more confident in the moderates. What precedent is there for a moderate solution in tribal, sectarian societies (perhaps for a time Sarajevo)? It seems like hope for solution to moderation is driven more by a philosphic abstract notion than by experience. Where has it happened in the emergence of a developing society? Perhaps, South Africa is an example, but only after long apartheid rule. Are we trapped by our need to be problem solvers, insisting that visions of solutions are the basis of policy? Regretably, I see no scenario of solution that I can sign on. Is it amoral to accept uncertainty and to base policy on absence of seeing a solution?If so, then is it any less amoral to stretch for a vision of solution that has little historic precedent.?

George Rosenbaum

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