Looking beyond ISIL

Archbishop Justin Welby wrote in Prospect Magazine on Wednesday 15^th October 2014, on the struggle against violent fundamentalism. 

The article deserves reading and the core message is immensely challenging and we should take it to heart. 

The theme is one that he touched on in his speech in the House of Lords on Friday 26th September and then, he stated that our response to ISIL must be on an “ideological and religious basis that sets out a more compelling vision, a greater challenge and a more remarkable hope than that offered by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

We must face the fact that for some young Muslims the attractions of Jihadism outweigh the materialism of a consumer society.”

He suggests that if we are to win this struggle, it requires a review of those aspects of our own culture that rest in power and self-advancement. 

There is a reference our “undisturbed wealth” and the need to reshape our own values, as much as to overcome those of ISIL.

This implies the nurturing of a spirit of humanitarianism and selfless giving. 

This call for self-criticism seems to have been overlooked by the editors who provide a subtitle that includes the anodyne phrase “we should not relinquish our values”.

It is the Archbishop’s comments on intervention, pacifist principles and Just War that might generate the greatest comment. 

His comments on Just War, imply a rejection of the notion of a global war on terror and might also raise obstacles for endorsement of a military intervention in Syria. 

The danger is that discussion becomes limited to ‘military intervention right or wrong’ although the Archbishop has urged a focus on the global struggle for “the heart and the spirit” if we are to defeat extremism. 

This struggle is not solely, or even primarily, concerned with military responses to violence but requires us to question systems of power and trade and reassess our commitment to international law.