For more than a decade, the U.S. and the West have fought Islamic terrorism predominantly on the military front. Strategists have completely neglected to treat — or even address — the ideological and psychological foundations of the mind.

I call this battlefield “Brain-istan.”

Fighting Terrorism in ‘Brain-istan’, Tawfik Hamid, 9/18/2013

I sometimes feel alone with this blog when reflecting at lay level+ on relationships involving language, cognition, and behavior, i.e., the psychology of language or, I suppose “psycholinguistics”.  It’s therefore most heartening to see Tawfik Hamid similarly engaged, albeit with a different nomenclature.

Call it “Brain-istan” or “Intellectual Battlespace” (thanks, Tammy), reference “psycho-biological” or “psycholinguistics” we’re advancing together along lines addressing pervasive (also archaic and adverse) cultural programming.

Easy does it though.

Even though Hamid notes, “Islamic radicals force women to wear bland, shapeless and colorless dresses, and forbid the expression of any physical beauty,” I / you / we / they know that radicalism falls far short of adoption (on that, reference “Shimmer” around here).  For rather lovely pictures of colorful Islamic dress, web search images related to the breaking news “Nigerian beauty pageant“.

Related: Nigerian woman wins beauty pageant billed as Islam’s answer to Miss World | World news | theguardian.com 9/19/2013

One may hope for culturally convergent evolution to smooth over the rough edges of distinct cultures.  I’d rather witness global peaceful cultural co-evolution — and it’s needed with as many languages and ways intact and included as may be possible — than what’s been going down in Syria (but, hey, that’s just me).

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