The Real "Root Cause"
by Joe Gelman
01 October 2001 

There has been much discussion about the "root cause" of the 
attack on the United States on September 11th. Most of our 
"root cause" explainers have been shallow, perhaps unwitting 
apologist for terrorists who murdered thousands of 
Americans. Yes, they will usually start off by expressing their 
horror at the loss of civilian life, but such expressions serve as 
a kind of throat clearing before getting to the main point: it's 
all the fault of an arrogant and misguided US Policy. 

So allow me to explain the real root cause, unrestrained by 
political correctness: We are dealing with a culture that is not 
forward-looking in the modern, Western tradition. It is a 
culture obsessed with the past, deeply immersed in 
"victimology" and worships the concept of martyrdom. The 
source of the deep resentment and hatred can be found in a 
long history that most of us rarely delve in to or are even 
aware of. 

For centuries, even before the Crusades, Islam was the 
dominant world religion, culture and economic power. 
However, by the 1300's Europe had firmly emerged from 
what we refer to as the dark ages and experienced an 
explosive renaissance. With emphasis on science, technology 
and the arts, the West flourished. Surprisingly, the main 
process that would eventually render the Islamic world 
irrelevant for the next seven centuries was the West's opening 
of trade routes to the riches of the Orient in the 1400's, which 
would circumvent the Islamic middleman who, until then, 
controlled those trade routes, allowing the west to prosper in 
unprecedented fashion. 

Yet, while the West prospered through trade and discovery 
of new lands, the Islamic world lost its major markets, 
primary source of prosperity and power, and gradually 
receded into its own "dark age," which it is only now 
beginning to emerge from. 

As strange and preposterous as it may seem to many of us in 
the West, who have spent our entire lives concentrating on 
the present and the future, what is currently happening is an 
attempt by Islamic culture, and particularly its more fervent 
followers to reassert the historic position of Islam as the 
dominant world culture and religion. This is not a secret 
revelation. The followers of Bin Laden and others proclaim 
this openly and proudly. Again, this might seem completely 
preposterous to many in the West, but to many in the Islamic 
world, this is a natural and inevitable process. 

When one tries to put oneself in the mind of a young, 
idealistic, intelligent and deeply religious member of Islamic 
culture, things look very different. When such a person looks 
at the West with its impressive symbols of prosperity and 
power, what they really see is a giant monument to their own 
culture's failure in comparison. When faced with such a reality 
one is left with only two alternatives, acknowledge the 
superiority of Western Civilization and join it on one level or 
another, or reject and seek to destroy it. The bombers of 
September 11th chose the latter, but there are millions of 
them. Far more than acknowledged by our own leaders or 
even by the spokesmen for Islamic organizations. 

This is the essence of the problem. Those who don't fully 
understand the history and mindset will have difficulty 
comprehending this truth and will look to more conventional 
explanations that fail to grasp the larger picture. Many of our 
"root cause" explainers point to perceived modern grievances 
to explain Islamic resentment of the West. Perhaps it is the 
offensive US military presence in the Gulf region or Indian 
"occupation" of Muslim Kashmir or Israeli "oppression" of 
Palestinians or Russian destruction of Chechnya. Pointing to 
these and other examples misses the much larger point. 

Taking the Arab-Israeli conflict as an example: The Islamic 
world does not hate the West because of it's support for 
Israel, it hates Israel because it is a small symbol of Western 
dominance and success over Islam. Do away with Israel 
tomorrow and the fundamental problem remains from their 
perspective. That is why Bin Laden and his followers see the 
US as their primary target. The US is Western Civilization. 
The US is the Great Satan. 

Time is not on the West's side. Islamic radicalism is a rapidly 
growing phenomenon and has already shown that it is willing 
to go to any length to bring down the West and its institutions. 
They clearly have the WILL. It is only a matter of time until 
they gain the MEANS to inflict far greater damage in the form 
of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. At that point, 
the existence of Western Civilization is at risk. Better to 
confront the problem now than face a far more dangerous foe 
down the road. 

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Joe Gelman is a Writer and Business Consultant living in Las 
Vegas.