The best political leaders in history have been spiritual, of that there is no doubt. The Ghandis, the Martin Luther Kings, the Ashokas, the Buddhas and the Mandelas. All were men who inspired people at a personal level, and that, for me, is something that has been sorely missing in politics of late.
The reason these men were so successful wasn't because of their political prowess, economic knowledge or college degrees, it was because of their first hand experience of, and staunch aversion to, oppression, inequality, hatred, greed, oneupmanship and many other negative attributes of the individual and of humanity as a whole.
They were able to reach people because they tapped into something within people that gave them hope, a desire for better, a want for peace and a more easy life than the one that currently existed for them.
How these people actually went about their political policies, while rare, was not mysterious. They took interpersonal and intrapersonal humanconcepts and inflated them to social levels. Mandela spoke about the nature of individual hatred and managed to radically change an apartheid country; Ashoka spoke of individual desire, greed and selfishness and managed to radically change a hitherto wealth and chaste focused social system; Luther King spoke about the nature of elitism and the inherent commonality of man and managed to radically change a society that had based its economic stability on inequality of race.
They touched people with personal moral concepts and backed them up in political installation, and these men managed to do it while promoting peace throughout; peacefulness was always a part of the intended means.
What if we were toapply such concepts to how we deal with radicalist Islam?
The method, is of course, extremely complex. But take note from MAndela. He didn't just oppose the apartheid, he was able to expound on why it existed in the first place; or Luther King, he didn't just oppose the inequality, he was able to describe what fuelled it; or Budda, he didn't just oppose the suffering of those around him, he was able to identify its causes.
So, what is the aim of the wider extremist sections of Islam? It's Madkhali, the Salafist Islamist teaching of nonviolence unless violated. They see their purpose as 'terrorizing the terrorists', and view America, obviously, as the prime terrorist to be terrorized. Osama Bin Laden, to mention one well know terrorist, viewed himself a strong advocate of this teaching. In one interview he quipped, 'If we are terrorizers without cause, then why don't you see us attack Sweden, for instance? It is because Sweden have not attacked us'.
Bin Laden can't be considered the architect and creator of extremism, but certainly the catalyst and vocal point for a vast number of contemporary extremists. So, in understanding these men's views, that America are the instigators, which arguably they are (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, campaigns and interventions stretching back many years), it is possible to understand what drives them and attempt to address the problem at its root.
Since war is clearly not working, evidenced by the huge growth in membership to extremist organizations in the last twenty years, perhaps a new approach is necessary. For my liking, we should take such an approach in guide with the lessons learnt from leaders who have made tremendous differences to conflict environments in the past.
The reason these men were so successful wasn't because of their political prowess, economic knowledge or college degrees, it was because of their first hand experience of, and staunch aversion to, oppression, inequality, hatred, greed, oneupmanship and many other negative attributes of the individual and of humanity as a whole.
They were able to reach people because they tapped into something within people that gave them hope, a desire for better, a want for peace and a more easy life than the one that currently existed for them.
How these people actually went about their political policies, while rare, was not mysterious. They took interpersonal and intrapersonal humanconcepts and inflated them to social levels. Mandela spoke about the nature of individual hatred and managed to radically change an apartheid country; Ashoka spoke of individual desire, greed and selfishness and managed to radically change a hitherto wealth and chaste focused social system; Luther King spoke about the nature of elitism and the inherent commonality of man and managed to radically change a society that had based its economic stability on inequality of race.
They touched people with personal moral concepts and backed them up in political installation, and these men managed to do it while promoting peace throughout; peacefulness was always a part of the intended means.
What if we were toapply such concepts to how we deal with radicalist Islam?
The method, is of course, extremely complex. But take note from MAndela. He didn't just oppose the apartheid, he was able to expound on why it existed in the first place; or Luther King, he didn't just oppose the inequality, he was able to describe what fuelled it; or Budda, he didn't just oppose the suffering of those around him, he was able to identify its causes.
So, what is the aim of the wider extremist sections of Islam? It's Madkhali, the Salafist Islamist teaching of nonviolence unless violated. They see their purpose as 'terrorizing the terrorists', and view America, obviously, as the prime terrorist to be terrorized. Osama Bin Laden, to mention one well know terrorist, viewed himself a strong advocate of this teaching. In one interview he quipped, 'If we are terrorizers without cause, then why don't you see us attack Sweden, for instance? It is because Sweden have not attacked us'.
Bin Laden can't be considered the architect and creator of extremism, but certainly the catalyst and vocal point for a vast number of contemporary extremists. So, in understanding these men's views, that America are the instigators, which arguably they are (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, campaigns and interventions stretching back many years), it is possible to understand what drives them and attempt to address the problem at its root.
Since war is clearly not working, evidenced by the huge growth in membership to extremist organizations in the last twenty years, perhaps a new approach is necessary. For my liking, we should take such an approach in guide with the lessons learnt from leaders who have made tremendous differences to conflict environments in the past.