Martin Amis on Islamism and terrorism

In a long, wide-ranging essay, the British author reflects on Islamist terrorism. "All religions, unsurprisingly, have their terrorists, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, even Buddhist. But we are not hearing from those religions. We are hearing from Islam.... We respect Islam - the donor of countless benefits to mankind, and the possessor of a thrilling history. But Islamism? No, we can hardly be asked to respect a creedal wave that calls for our own elimination. ... The age of terror, I suspect, will also be remembered as the age of boredom.... a superboredom, rounding out and complementing the superterror of suicide-mass murder. ... The opposite of religious belief is not atheism or secularism or humanism. It is not an 'ism'. It is independence of mind - that's all. When I refer to the age of boredom, I am not thinking of airport queues and subway searches.I mean the global confrontation with the dependent mind.

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