Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Right. Listen, if you don't want to have a discussion, just say so.
My initial argument was that the attitude amongst Muslims that violence visited upon those who insult Mohammed or desecrate a Koran or blaspheme in some other way is justified seems to create an atmosphere that breeds Muslims who engage in such violence. You and Ty argued that is was more about being poor and disaffected (simplified version of your arguments, for sure). I don't entirely disagree. I thought both of your arguments were very convincing. However, in places where people can spontaneously join in and crush a woman with rocks and their feet because someone loosely accused her of burning the Koran and the Minister of Religion said such a killing would have been justified only if she actually burned the Koran, it leads me to believe that, although surely the issues you mention are important contributing factors, there is more to it than poverty and feeling like an outsider.
And I agree that there may be a change brewing based on the reaction you mentioned (although, it is very hard to tell if the swift reaction to the mob killing is based on the fact that the woman was "innocent" of the "crime" she was killed for or if murder by mob generally is the issue). I surely don't disagree that any such change should be welcomed.
But it seems to me that there is something different about how many* Muslims think about their religion and what an appropriate punishment should be for those who insult it, or worse, who don't believe, that contributes to an atmosphere in which people (young, poor, whatever) think it's okay to turn to violence in the name of Islam.
TM
*Not all or most.
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My general view on this is that there are a wide range of reasons why the Middle East in particular and other areas where there are large Islamic populations to a lesser extent is very much a mess in a lot of ways, but that these have a lot to do with history, a lot to do with economy, and a lot to do with the particular way religion has interacted with that history and that economy. I really don't find an awful lot of use for broad statements about Islam devoid of the context of a particular area, and I will very much diminish and ridicule people who attempt to make such statements. They are almost always silly.
That doesn't mean every statement about Islam broadly doesn't make sense. For example, one common thread, whether we are talking about my neighbors in a tony 'burb or someone in rural Pakistan or rural Nigeria, regardless of whether we're talking twelvers or Wahaabis, is the Hadj, and the Hadj plays a particular role in spreading radical Islam and in providing a very protected environment for jihadis to come together each year.
Take Afghanistan. Actually, take Kabul. A woman is beaten to death here by a mob at a shrine. The people inciting it are screaming about blasphemy. What's going on?
I don't know. I'm still reading up on it. Kabul is a mixing pot, a place of many ethnicities and cultures. Also place of culture and libertine reputation for many years. A place that has seen heavy repression of Islam under some governments, that has seen a lot of very liberated women, and that was, under the Taliban, very repressed and very much thought of as a problem by them as they tried to impose fundamentalism. This isn't Kandahar. The fundies don't run the place. But they're there. I've had two relatives in Afghanistan, and each enjoyed Kabul. Thought of it more like an Indian city, but with less poverty, than a Middle Eastern one in look and feel.
Are there tribal or class elements to this besides religious ones? Family disputes involved? How much is focused on the burning of the Qur'an? I don't know. Sure sounds like that was the match that lit the fuse, but some sources say it was a false rumor, some say it was true.
I do know there is a strong reaction, that there are a lot of women marching in the streets, that her funeral became a major political statement by women. The focus in the streets seems to be on this being about women and how they are treated.
What about the statement by the ministry official - who was that, anyway? It was an unnamed official, not the Minister. It this some leftover from Kandahar or is this someone trying to undermine the current minister, or who?
From this event, what can I say about Islam as a whole? About proclivity to violence? Hell, I know there is a frightening element in Afghan society that looks like the bastard hate child of Jerry Falwell and Oliver North. I know there are fundies who probably think the woman shouldn't have been in the shrine at all. Was the ringleader also someone who American troops had put inside a metal tanker without water for four days in hundred degree heat, whose fundamentalism was also deeply anti-Western, who hates women who clothe themselves in a western style, and what was she wearing? I don't know, but it's possible. It's also possible some of the mob was missing limbs from old Russian mines. What motivates people to turn into a mob anywhere, what kind of deeper dissatisfaction and frustrations?
These issues are things for a nice complex novel. I don't pull out of it particularly useful or interesting broad statements about Islam and proclivity to violence. Power to you if you can. You want to talk about the Middle East and why it is messed up? I think a lot about that. Pick a country and I'll be happy to focus on it. I'm reading up on Lebanon and Iran in particular now, both fascinating places, and getting ready for a short trip to Israel in a couple of months.
