So I am a celebrity now. I got interviewed by a very important journal. That's a first for me, although in retrospect I should have seen it coming. My knowledge is now so large that it threatens to collapse in on itself. The only sensible solution is to occasionally vent out excess knowledge through interviews. And teaching, I guess.
So anyway, I now think I should have answered some of the questions in the interview differently. Here's some stuff I wish I would have thought to say when they asked me.
Q. Is Islamic terrorism becoming the means by which all poor people express themselves?
A. No. There are no Mexican terrorists blowing stuff up to make a point about amnesty for "undocumented workers." Just doesn't seem to be their thing. Of course, they are Catholic, so it might be difficult to transition all the way to Islamic terrorism without making a few changes on the way.
But even if you are looking at countries with lots of poor, angry, Muslims, you don't always find terrorism. There are lots of Muslims in central and western Africa, and they often disagree with their non-Muslim neighbors. Sometimes these disagreements even turn violent, with riots and such. But there are no Hausa terrorists blowing themselves up to get the word out about Shari'a. And Africans are much poorer than Arabs, and often just as angry. So if Islamic terrorism were really the tool of the opressed and impoverished, you would think they would be using that tool. But they aren't.
Actually, I guess that's only one question I would have answered differently. Oh, well.
--DR. SEAN PATRICK O'PAGAN, PhD, JD, DDS
(UPDATE 10/15 : Yet more fame and recognition!)
