Here’s a bit I came up with this morning whilst arguing with myself: Saying that Islam has a predilection for violence because of the muttaween is like saying Christianity is inherently violent because of the Ku Klux Klan… Does this mean that the ancient cycle of violence will eventually die down after a civil-rights renaissance? On the other hand, the muttaween is all but sanctioned by the various governments that are in essence, if not in fact, theocracies. Doesn’t this lend a bit more credibility to the muttaween? It seems to me that the most support the Klan ever got was a long, blind eye from a few ass-hat congressmen, a governor here and there and David Duke.
Perhaps I’m just letting my pessimism cloud my judgment here.
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4 comments:
Although, if a government has been taken over by the extremists (which seems to be the case in those areas) then government sponsorship doesn't lend a broad religious acceptance of the mutaween acts. And I think the the KKK got more acceptance, both formal and informal, than you say. But I don't know that for sure.
This leads me to something I was thinking about this morning when ruminating over this subject. Perhaps how the people in those countries truly differ from "us" is their acceptance of leadership that is extreme and perverts their religion. We see it as a tacit acceptance of the vile acts they perform. Perhaps it's more of a numbness on their part. Maybe just getting through the day is enough and some hard line government might sound good if they are going to keep them safe. I personally think that many Americans are beginning to suffer from the same delusion. It's OK that our government takes more and more power and restricts liberty as long as they keep us safe, right?
I think it goes further than the illusion of our own safety, Trav. The 2004 state elections with their hard neo-Con fundamentalist turns against gay rights has got to mirror the acceptance of far too many people of our own fundamentalist fascist religious regime.
I'm with you in that it's the fundamentalists, and not Muslims as a whole, who are all fucked up, but I think the problem remains fairly widespread through other countries and cultures as well
But you also have to figure, that if we are to apply the idea of Crusades and the Christian applicable to the current Islam issues, think of the Christian civil wars that went on between themselves after years of bubbling between themselves...insurrections..burnings at the stake..
You have to remember that the "modern" european states were once, essentially, catholic theocracies...I think that this is just, in the bigger picture of things, the cycle that major religions tend to go through, I guess you might call it growing pains on a really big and confusingly moral scale.
I believe this is just the way for religions, more evasively bordered, to phase in and out, wage war, and molt, just like the great US of A did once upon a time, the only thing that we can really do is try to ensure that once all these "crazies" molt and form their own wings of Islam (if they technically haven't already) That they become recognized and respected by everyone, and let them be, they are who they are, and they try to live the best they see fit. Just as long as they understand that they need to continue to 'play' on their own 'playground', and not ours.
As an addendum to travis and evan's comments....
In my view of politics and the machines that keeps governments 'afloat', we all must remember things like McCarthey-ism, and group-think are things that apply to far too many things in life.
Unfortunately I believe that our society as a planet has become 'specialized' to further our own economies, and outside of these specialties, we must learn to rely on the 'intelligence' and 'wisdom' of others, for the benefit and detriment of all. (sidenote: this is much of why religion in general seems to be such a hotbed of problems, everyone wants one answer, but nobody knows exactly where to find it, and we constantly argue to prove who is right.)
Leadership (and security) is sometimes a quality found in someone who takes the helm by force, and sometimes found as a force who takes the helm by qualities.
I mostly prefer to leave it to the latter, but that's a hard quality to find in a place like the middle east, where living from day to day becomes a true blessing, worrying about anything else is almost futile, because it could truly disappear within seconds, especially if you don't fit a specific religious norm.
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