Out of the mouths of TV shows

I just watched an episode of Law & Order which raised some questions in my mind (which the show at its best is really good at doing).

The plotline concerns a young American (white, and from an affluent family) who has converted to Islam and whose beliefs and behaviour are extreme and radical. He is charged with murdering a woman whose life and actions are anathema to his new beliefs.

The dialogue that made me sit up and notice was between two characters: Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy (prosecuting) and Defence Attorney Anwar Mohammed, a Muslim (defending). In the context of a discussion about the defendant’s radicalism, DA Mohammed explains he is defending because it is his job, not because he agrees with the young man’s views. He says “Don’t confuse his politics with my religion”.

Now this episode was filmed in 2002 and there was clearly a bit of reassuring propaganda behind this line. And the young Muslim convert turns out to be less threatening because he turned to the certainties of radicalism after being hurt by a girl: cherchez la femme.

But that line has got me thinking. At first to applaud: yes of course, Islam is not about the politics of violence and destruction, this cannot be what the Prophet intended. And yet… how does that translate to politics in other faiths?

What about Catholic priests and nuns in South America and other areas, working with the poor, standing up against corrupt regimes? Christians who organised labour unions for migrant workers in the US? Vietmanese Buddhists monks burning themselves to death in protest against an oppresive regime? All of these are either explicitly violent or risk violence.

Are they “good” in a way that Islamic Jihad and the Christian Crusades are and were “bad”?

Instinctively I would say yes, but violence, politics and religion make uneasy if constant bedfellows. What about Christians who kill abortion doctors? They certainly believe they are engaged in their own holy war and that their actions are justified.

So do we forget about politics and retreat into our inner spirituality, shutting the world out? That’s certainly tempting.

But surely what makes us human is the ability to reason and question as well as to feel. We must get involved in political issues in the world around us. The environmental and animal rights movements, for example. Plenty of extremists there! But that’s another reason to get involved, to take a spiritual perspective with us into groups vulnerable to in-fighting and violence. Reflect, meditate, think for yourselves, but get involved in ways that seem right to you.