Dave of MacRaven makes an observation that hadn’t occurred to me.

I couldn’t even exist as a dhimmi in an Islamic state: as a Heathen, I’d be forced to convert or be killed. The subservient dhimmi status only applies to “People of the Book”, i.e. Christians and Jews. Kaffirs like me – well, the Koran recommends beheading.

Islam never underwent the period that Christianity did of Reformation and internal Holy War. In the West, that religious cataclysm from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries led directly to the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment led to a severe curtailment in the mixing of politics and religion. Mainstream Islam is very similar in political outlook to Christian Reconstructionism, in that both ultimately envision a “godly” state, complete with enforcement of “gods” laws.

Note that Christianity has a “reconstruction” movement trying to inject religious law back into the secular state. Islam needs no such reconstruction, as it’s never been “deconstructed”. Unless and until Islam changes its basic character, which is that of a warrior religion with “conversion” by the sword an accepted norm, they will remain a threat to the ideals of a secular state, and to religious liberty.

He puts his finger on the point that unsettles me about Islam — its militancy. Dave provides several links on his post to clarify and define his terms. He also provides a link (also included here) to an article describing an ex-Muslim woman who made a brief movie intending to highlight the “widespread but hidden violence against Muslim women.” As a result of this ten-minute movie, Hirsi Ali has received death threats via email; a rap song calls for her death, and there are threats discussed in chat rooms. She now has two bodyguards 24/7.

I found Siona’s reflection provoking, and it made sense. I had difficulty choosing which part to excerpt, so I quoted most of it.

I’ve written before here about my interior wrestlings with the purpose and privilege of this journal. Why do I write? It is for myself that I settle down each evening, to release my demons through my fingertips? If so, why here? Why do I feel so conflicted about my urges to write for an audience? Why do I feel so compelled to interact? Why do I hunger for responses, and why am I inevitably surprised when they appear?

It seems so obvious now.

We used to sit around campfires. We used to weave our lives from language, explaining our days and our selves and the world in all its strange incomprehensibility. We used to make sense of ourselves through this interactive communion. It is the story that gives life meaning.

Somewhere, though, we seem to have lost track of this.

Now our shared stories are sitcoms. Our shared stories come to us from CNN, from Fox, from The New York Times, piped through the airways by some higher lying authorities. (Or is it author-ities?) We are not participants. We are consumers. No wonder we feel alienated from ourselves and our communities. Our own stories are nonexistent, and we cling to the empty substitutes of Sex in the City, Law and Order, CNN Headline News, the Weather Channel. We use the stale currencies of prefabricated narratives instead of our own far richer gifts.

I’m stumbling off track here.

What I meant to remark upon was the uniqueness of these online communities as places where storytellers meet. This sphere is comprised of a strange amalgamation of literature and spirit and friendship and politics and poetry, but regardless of the topic, and regardless of the place, each blogged word is produced by someone for personal, rather than financial, reasons. Each blogged word is taken in, reflected upon, used, and responded to. This shared creation is no small matter. This is a world of stories, as real and interactive and crucial as those myths our ancestors needed. We grant our lives meaning.

Yes, indeed. This is what compels me to blog — the creative interaction. The power to produce my own story, rather than have some corporate pablum shoved down my throat. Some people praise blogging as if it were the next best invention since sliced bread; others mock the “blogosphere” and the self-importance exhibited by the few prominent people therein. Granted, there’s a lot of puffery. Granted, blogging isn’t going to eliminate pollution or generate a cure for cancer. And there’s a lot of badly written material in cyberspace. However, it is the greatest revolution in substantive human expression in many years. We have the ability to share our thoughts and images, however grand or small, with the entire world (that has Internet access). Until blogging, the power to reach a massive number of people in print format rested in an external locus of control — book publishers, corporate media, the government. Most bloggers will likely have only a small audience. I’m sure there are blogs of eloquence that I never get to read; it takes effort to find the good stuff. I won’t have time to read it all, even if I do find it.

Blogging puts pebbles in the hand of the individual. They are no longer solely in the domain of corporations to dole out — a few here and there, based on a person’s connections. We who blog experience satisfaction in tossing the pebble and observing the ripples emanate endlessly, even if one cannot see how far those ripples go.