In defence of Sam Harris

Sam Harris has come in for a great deal of unwarranted vilification lately, following an article he wrote on airline security screening procedures. He has been accused, quite unfairly, of advocating racial discrimination in risk assessment.

Harris is more than capable of defending himself, and has been kind enough to restate his position with customary polite clarity against a baying tirade of knee-jerking net trolls whose main concern seems to be to show one another how superbly liberal and human they are. I certainly can't add anything to what Harris has already said. His consummate skill is to crystallize hours of careful, profound thought into a few blazingly clear paragraphs of rational argument. His writings deserve to be read properly and considered in depth before we rush to blast inane, bleating responses to all corners of the web.

My understanding of Harris's stance on airport security is as follows. If I've read him right, then there is surely no need for the overloaded bandwagon of furore onto which the PC brigade continues to clamber in droves.

1. The ideology of Islam is self-avowedly wedded to terrorism in pursuit of jihad. Muslim suicide bombers destroy themselves and others literally every day. The last two sentences are plain facts and are open to neither debate nor politically correct misinterpretation.

2. Followers of Islam adopt overt demonstrations of their allegiance, in costume, style of hair and beard, and in their routine daily conduct. Thus many who follow Islam are easily identifiable as such. They opt to associate themselves, visibly, with their ideology (see 1 above).

3. Random screening of air travellers equates to an asinine pretence that there is no link between Islam and the threat of terrorism.

As long as Islam fails to break its links to suicide terrorism, it remains irrelevant to argue that most Muslims are not terrorists. The master stroke of Islam - and of all currently popular religions - is to appear to be all about good, while actually perpetrating a great deal of evil. I would have a lot more respect for the non-terrorist majority of Muslims if they would publicly distance themselves from the pernicious ideology that is Islam, until such time as its violent pretensions to world domination are expunged. When that day comes, and no-one wears, carries or performs active, overt advertisements of an ideology committed to destruction, then truly random screening at airports will be the way to go.