A lesson of history
10/20/2006
A lesson of history.
Today’s modern Middle Eastern Islam is a very prickly version of its older self. In Islam’s heyday it tolerated other religions and their churches or synagogues although as a non-Muslim one was taxed as a result and excluded from many important political functions. There never was real tolerance for different views.
Allowing other religions to exist, at a price, was an important economic source of funds for the Muslim ruler of the day.
Today’s Islam is increasingly and violently intolerant and the way I see it, mostly as a result of the failure of their own political, educational and social growth to understand that populations and countries cannot grow and mature and become economically successful, without allowing reason to become part of religious belief. That was the subject of the Pope’s recent speech and which, predictably, erupted in mayhem.
There are many highly educated Muslims who understand this problem but it cannot be whisked away by magic. It will need a few very clever, benevolent, yet strong and ruthless dictators to control this totally self destructive modern tendency among militant Islamists.
Unfortunately, while on the one hand many of the younger people in Iran, for instance, are well educated and distinctly unsympathetic to the current theocratic regime, there is little they can effectively do because a modern state can squash dissent very easily and effectively. I have had some experience with that during WWII.
Hence, outside help is probably needed to start the ball to change rolling. But how and without starting a horrible additional war with nukes or poison gas or the spread of bacterial agents or something of that kind? Yet something has to be done to destabilize the area and make room for regime changes. The world will avoid dealing with this issue at its peril.
On the other hand, general education in Iraq is less advanced, and in Syria and Saudi Arabia it is dismal. Education is frequently total indoctrination of Quranic content while nothing is done to make young boys grow up in an emotionally stable manner. They all become completely frustrated while the girls can’t even live outside the house and eventually are married off to some bloke they don’t even know. That kind of social structure creates some very unpredictable males. The results are obvious and in the hands of some very clever, power hungry political fanatics. We know the rest.
It may well cost the West a lot more in lives and resources before this problem can be brought under some semblance of control, but we have no choice in my opinion, and must first, all of us, try to really understand the issues and then together allow our government, hopefully with European and other allies, to nip this evil in its not so small bud as soon as possible.
The alternative of walking away from it will be suicidal for the West.
A lesson of history.
Today’s modern Middle Eastern Islam is a very prickly version of its older self. In Islam’s heyday it tolerated other religions and their churches or synagogues although as a non-Muslim one was taxed as a result and excluded from many important political functions. There never was real tolerance for different views.
Allowing other religions to exist, at a price, was an important economic source of funds for the Muslim ruler of the day.
Today’s Islam is increasingly and violently intolerant and the way I see it, mostly as a result of the failure of their own political, educational and social growth to understand that populations and countries cannot grow and mature and become economically successful, without allowing reason to become part of religious belief. That was the subject of the Pope’s recent speech and which, predictably, erupted in mayhem.
There are many highly educated Muslims who understand this problem but it cannot be whisked away by magic. It will need a few very clever, benevolent, yet strong and ruthless dictators to control this totally self destructive modern tendency among militant Islamists.
Unfortunately, while on the one hand many of the younger people in Iran, for instance, are well educated and distinctly unsympathetic to the current theocratic regime, there is little they can effectively do because a modern state can squash dissent very easily and effectively. I have had some experience with that during WWII.
Hence, outside help is probably needed to start the ball to change rolling. But how and without starting a horrible additional war with nukes or poison gas or the spread of bacterial agents or something of that kind? Yet something has to be done to destabilize the area and make room for regime changes. The world will avoid dealing with this issue at its peril.
On the other hand, general education in Iraq is less advanced, and in Syria and Saudi Arabia it is dismal. Education is frequently total indoctrination of Quranic content while nothing is done to make young boys grow up in an emotionally stable manner. They all become completely frustrated while the girls can’t even live outside the house and eventually are married off to some bloke they don’t even know. That kind of social structure creates some very unpredictable males. The results are obvious and in the hands of some very clever, power hungry political fanatics. We know the rest.
It may well cost the West a lot more in lives and resources before this problem can be brought under some semblance of control, but we have no choice in my opinion, and must first, all of us, try to really understand the issues and then together allow our government, hopefully with European and other allies, to nip this evil in its not so small bud as soon as possible.
The alternative of walking away from it will be suicidal for the West.
posted by Schaesberg at 9:44 AM
