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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Sounds like not India either, but still Indonesia, Morocco, etc.
There is a tension here: painting the Muslim world with a broad brush is totally idiotic, as the differences between religious violence in Bosnia, where a bunch of Christians were committing genocide against Muslims, Nigeria, where religious violence is overlaid on tribal violence, and Afghanistan, where the growth of Islamic fundamentalism occurred in the course of a long occupation by a foreign power, is extreme and there are clearly very different root causes. On the other hand, there are specific things that have resulted in the spread of violent political Islam, such as the existence of the annual Hadj providing a place and an opportunity for radical Islamic groups to meet, swap war stories and bomb recipes, and talk religion and munitions, and that do unify the Islamic world. To understand the reasons for violence and the spread of it, it helps to look at specifics. But foreign occupation and intervention play a big role in many of the areas where violence is widespread, not just Islam. In Iran, where political Islam first emerged, a very clear major cause was the repression practiced by the Shah with very substantial and open help from us.
But, let's pause. If we're really focused on truly atrocious violence, let's think about where genocide has occurred over the last century. Europe, Christians against Jews. Europe, Christians against Muslims. Cambodia, Buddhists against Buddhists. Uganda, Christians against Christians. Armenia, Muslims against Christians. Am I missing something here? What religion shows up most on that list?
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Thanks for the education. Obviously, I would never, ever, ever suggest that there was something poisonous in German culture that contributed to the Holocaust. Nor would I ever suggest that Germans should have looked to fix that poisonous culture, by doing things like creating innumerable Holocaust memorials, making Holocaust denial a crime, teaching schoolchildren about the crimes committed by Germans, etc.
Since I would never, ever, ever say anything like that about German culture in the 1930s and 1940s -- after all, what really happened is that some people, who happened to be German, killed a bunch of Jews -- I certainly cannot say anything to suggest that maybe Muslims, broadly speaking, need to look at their own cultures and teaching. It just happens to be that some guys, who happen to be Muslim, just like to blow shit up.
