Belle below and Edward at Obsidian Wings have already said most of what needs saying about Prof. Martin Kozloff’s fear- and hate-filled letter. I knew people like Prof. Kozloff in Ireland, where terrorist groups in the North spent twenty-five years or so plumbing the depths of pointless, evil violence. But frustration is not a strategy. It’s easy to give in to blind anger, but if you don’t follow it up with any tangible action it’s just political onanism, and if, God help you, you do follow through then you just find yourself in the same boat as the people you despise.

Prof. Kozloff is Watson Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. What sort of values does he think schools should try to embody? What sort of values does he think make it possible for there even to be such things as Distinguished Professors of Education in the first place? Yet he says “We will … muzzle or remove anti American professors,” and “We will burn your mosques,” and “We will transport arab-muslims to our deserts, where they can pray to scorpions under the blazing sun.” In the face of this, I’m not ashamed to say that my view is best expressed in, of all places, a comic novella by Alexander McCall Smith:

The Master then rose to give a short address.

‘Dear guests of the College,’ he began, ‘dear Fellows, dear undergraduate members of this Foundation: William de Courcey was cruelly beheaded by those who could not understand that it is quite permissible for rational men to differ on important points of belief or doctrine. The world in which he lived had yet to develop those qualities of tolerance of difference of opinion which we take for granted, but which we must remind ourselves is of rather recent creation and is by no means assured of universal support. There are amongst us still those who would deny to others the right to hold a different understanding of the fundamental issues of our time. Thus, if we look about us we see people of one culture or belief still at odds with their human neighbours who are of a different culture or belief; and we see many who are prepared to act upon this difference to the extent of denying the humanity of those with whom they differ. …

‘Here in this place of learning, let us remind ourselves of the possibility of combating, in whatever small way we can, those divisions that come between man and man, between woman and woman, so that we may recognise in each other that vulnerable humanity that informs our lives, and makes life so precious; so that each may find happiness in his or her life, and in the lives of others. For what else is there for us to hope for? What else, I ask you, what else?’

It is not weakness to master your fear and anger and think clearly about how to understand and properly solve a problem like Islamic Terrorism. It doesn’t imply any indulgence or softness toward terrorists: wanting to be good doesn’t mean having to be stupid. Certainly, our principles may imply far more than we can hope to live up to, but isn’t that the point of them? And, as the Master says, what else is there for us to hope for? What else, I ask you, what else?