The requirements of contemporary (counter-insurgency) warfare also render suspect Professor Bellah’s admonition that we refrain from using language like radical Islam – which is supposed to tar all Muslims with the terrorist brush no matter how often it’s stated that not all Muslims are terrorists. In order to wage war against the very particular people who are now intentionally attacking innocents on a regular basis in Iraq, you need to know who they are and what they believe. Knowing what they believe will help to determine when they will attack, how they will and will not do so. In order to acquire that knowledge, you have to be trained and informed about their motivating ideology. If, as is in fact the case, suicide terrorists in Iraq are motivated by their understanding of Islam, then you have to know something about Islam in general and about the particular intepretations of Islam affirmed by those suicide terrorists. Given that, as a matter of fact, most of those who blow up bombs in crowded markets in Iraq are motivated by their understanding of Islam, then what are we to call them? What’s better than ‘radical Islamists’ – identifying the normative commitments that the suicide terrorists themselves affirm (Islam) but distinguishing them from most Muslims (by calling them radicals).

For another side of Islam, look at the web site of A Common Word. Here you’ll find a statement about the relations between Islam and Christianity that expresses love and unity, and is signed by distinguished Muslim leaders all over the world. I found it in an article in Commonweal, the liberal Catholic magazine. There is a Christian response, signed by a large number of distinguished people. The Yale Center for Faith and Culture took the initiative in this response.

There is another article in my latest issue of Commonweal on the degree to which the church and leading clerical and intellectual Catholic leaders embraced anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s. Their rhetoric about the “Jewish threat” and their apparent conviction of its reality is reflected exactly in Edward Cline’s rhetoric, reinforcing my feeling that Islamophobia is today’s anti-Semitism, with the same conviction of certainty of the crimes of the hated ones, and the same great fear of the “threat” posed by them. I know that anti-Semitism is not dead and that it is virulent in Europe today, stoked in part by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but not excused by that. And anti-Semitism, not just opposition to Israel’s policy, can also be found in the Muslim world, which is equally inexcusable. (And if you want to see evidence that these problems are worldwide, consider the violence against Christians in parts of India, with churches burned and Christians murdered. Alas. But it is not Muslims—but some Hindus—who are doing it.)

I would sum up the analogy between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia this way: Criticism of some oppressive acts of the state of Israel toward the Palestinians must never be generalized into anti-Semitism; similarly, criticism of some violent acts of some Muslims must never be generalized into hostility toward Islam as a religion.

The term, which first appeared in the 1980’s but didn’t enter discourse until after September 11th, describes an irrational fear of Islam. Islamophobia has become a controversial term that, for the left, symbolizes a dangerous overreaction to a minority of Muslims. But for the right, the word Islamophobia undermines a justified skepticism of religious motivations and marginalizes a cultural clash that may define our time.

As is their custom, they probed the blogosphere for the most lively and engaging discussions of the issue and selected Robert Bellah’s post to represent the “Liberal” perspective, writing that “Bellah examines the ways in which terms like “Isalmophobia” and “war on terror” oversimplify the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.”

Bellah’s post is contrasted with a “Conservative” analysis that argues that the use of the term “Islamophobia” is justified and the sentiment is just as rational as “harboring a phobia for rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, or poisonous centipedes.” The author, Edward Cline, criticizes the overly submissive and politically correct Western press, whose “cowardice is artfully disguised by most publications under the cloak of multicultural ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’ for a great religion” even while “Islam-friendly” journalists and so-called “experts” seem to ignore “Islam’s persecution and murder of Christians, Jews, and other religious faithful around the world.”

After arriving in the west some decades ago, it took me years to finally realise that I had come with huge misconceptions about the western people; and that at the end of the day they were ordinary human beings with the same frailties and strengths as where I had come from. People in the west need to develop the same understanding and empathy about the Muslims.

The fact is that Al-Qaeda and its real and spiritual offshoots are not interested in destroying the ‘way of life’ in the west. This image has been created by deep seated vested interests, who continue to dominate and manipulate the public discourse.

The ultimate reality is this. There is only one planet that is home to all of us: white or black, Christian or Muslim and rich or poor. In here lie all our hopes and all our future. We have to learn to share it for all of us. The real battle is not between the west and Islam or between civilizations or even between rich and poor. The real battle is for the survival of the planet and humanity and lines are drawn between those who want to share it all and those who want it all for themselves.

Meanwhile, the challenge he offers can be food for thought and action among all of us who strive for a worldview of compassion, respect and analytical clarity. One extremely important point Bellah raises: the “war on terror” is rife with collective self-delusion. I have great hope that our next White House voice shall be a person of global understanding—one who can transcend divisions and help us appreciate the great role religion can play in society and the world today, as always: to remind us that there is that which always transcends our human definition of “the good society” and “good religion.” Such a person, in my view, may well have been schooled in the bridge between Kenya and Kansas. He certainly has charisma and wishes to listen and learn from citizens here and citizens in nations elsewhere. I hope that Barack Obama has occasion to meet Robert Bellah. They share poignant habits of the heart.

While I agree that efforts toward peace and reconciliation require that we be mindful of the power of language, I’m not sure that using language that obscures the religious nature of religious motivated violence (whatever the religion) is the answer.