Madam, - Dr Vincent Kenny (July 18th), in his reply to myself and Eamonn Gavin, continues to make false claims to bolster pernicious arguments. Allow me to deal with just a few of them.
Firstly, we were not focusing on "academic definitions" of martyrdom, but actual definitions - and actual differences between the Christian sense of the term and its current use in terrorist discourse.
These are not "academic" distinctions, but serious ones, with serious consequences. To confuse them - or to claim a broad similarity between them - is to make a grave moral and intellectual error. To restate the point: one accepts death for one's self, while the other inflicts it on the innocent. A greater gulf of difference could not be imagined.
Dr Kenny contends that the subject is "complex", but then goes on claims that the current phenomenon of Islamist "martyrs" can be seen as an "extreme reaction" by "misguided agents" to "social and political injustices".
As an analysis, this somewhat lacks complexity; and it is also refuted by the facts. Jihadists are not the wretched of the earth but, as we have seen, educated professionals - doctors, architects, and, in some cases, millionaires.
Moreover, their "grievances" are well broadcast. Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America", for example, set out what was required of the Great Satan to bring an end to the jihad: "We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest. . .". Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recently pledged attacks on Britain for the crime of honouring Salman Rushdie, since it was an "insult to Islam". A "very precise response" was being prepared, he assured us.
They are not, therefore, motivated by "injustice", but impiety. Yet Dr Kenny would have us not "attack" such "misguided agents", but placate and assuage their wounded sensibilities.
Also, the comparison with the IRA is ludicrous. Gerry Adams was not calling for the extension of a Catholic Republican empire to the far corners of Europe; he was not calling for the mass conversion of Protestants on pain of death, or the elimination of England; and he was not regulating sexual mores, or calling for the strict imposition of Curial edicts.
Disgustingly murderous as they were, the IRA had limited goals. Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, has called for nothing less than the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate across the Middle East and Europe, and the imposition of Sharia law upon millions of unbelievers. - Yours, etc,
SEAN COLEMAN,
Lindisfarne Lawn,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.