Well, Lobsang we have Boermag, a white supremacist ( that believe white racial supremacy has been ordained by the Christian God ) terrorist group in South Africa, that has been referred to as the “Afrikaaner al-Qaeda”. We have the LiberationTamil Tigers of Eelam ( mostly Hindu with some Christians, Anglican and Catholic mostly, fighting the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority ) in Sri Lanka, who have been credited with committing more suicide bombings than any other terrorist organization in the world. Plus a small Sinhalese counter-group of domestic terrorists in Sri Lanka, who, among other things, bombed the offices a Norwegian children’s charity and Norway’s embassy to protest Norway’s mediation efforts in that civil war. We have the various splinter groups off the IRA , like the Real IRA and assorted Protestant hard-liners like Red Hand Defenders in Northern Ireland. We have both the leftist militias and right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia engaging in bombings and murder of civilians ( and similarly, though less widespread in Ecuador, including multiple bombings of theTrans-Ecuador pipeline, which has killed a number of bystanders ). We have the nominally Christian ( though their theology is a bit muddled ) Lord’s Resistance Army conducting guerilla war and terrorist activity in northern Uganda. We have the ( ostensibly Buddhist, but rather syncretic ) Aum Shinrikyo and the Japanese Red Army in Japan. Terrorist acts by Burmese ( seizure of hostages in a Thai hotel ), Laotian ( bombing of tourist spots ), Cambodian, and Vietnamese anti-government dissidents. In the Phillipines, in addition to the Moro Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf groups, we still see Communist rebels holding on and attacking foreign civilians. We have the ETA and the leftist GRAPO in Spain. In France the Breton Resistance Army that bombed a McDonalds and several Corsican separatist groups that are fond of bombing government offices. In Greece the groups Revolutionary Organization 17 November and Revolutionary Nuclei. In Italy the Red Brigades. We even have the Jewish extremist Kach and Kahane Chai in Israel, who are on the U.S. State Department’s official terrorist organization list. and etc.
So terrorism is everywhere and, no, it is not all Islamist in nature.
That said, an awful lot of it is. Of 40-odd ( 43? ) groups listed by the State Dept. as terrorist organizations here ( a 2000 report, perhaps slightly dated and I would say not exhaustive ): http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm
…about 13 are explicitly Islamist by my count. Another half-dozen or so are Arab secular ( members are predominantly, but not exclusively, Muslim, but are not Islamists - i.e. most of the fragments of the PLO ) or have some more modest religious pretensions ( like the Mujaheddin e-Khalq in Iran, which is a rather more leftist than Islamist ). So a fair proportion. And certainly the main global threat these days as opposed to regional, at least vis-a-vis the west, is this loose network of radical Islamists.
So is Islam, as a religion, to blame for this high incidence? Probably in part. Islam is not a pacifist faith on the whole ( though there are many Muslim pacifists ). It was explicitly political from the get go and militant, at the very least in its defensive posture. Now whether it is inherently agressively violent as a matter of theology is another question. That has been debated at length by theologians both ancient and modern and more recently by schlubs by me. I have argued at length in other threads that ther consensus view in modern Islam is that it is not ( see for example this thread on the meaning of the word jihad: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142731 ). However, it is undeniable that a minorioty, however large or small ( and despite Kalt’s blather I have never seen any indication that a majority of the planet’s one billion Muslims are interested, even theoretically, in launching a jihad against the west - I guess then according to Kalt most Muslims really aren’t Muslims at all ), does take the extremist view and probably at a higher percentage than any other faith. I would posit two reasons for this:
-
Islam, being more explicitly militant theologically than other major world faiths, with its notion of armed defense of the Islamic community, is indeed more easily twisted to violence than some others. As has been pointed out, all religious ideologies ( and quite a few political ones ) can be so twisted. But I don’t think I’d quibble with the notion that it is a little easier in Islam than most.
-
Islam has been for the most part been centered in what we today call the third world. It is a younger faith than its Judeo-Christian congeners and has in the last few centuries been mired ( for the most part and please note that this is an admitted gross generalization ) in poverty and ignorance. Modern notions of the integration of the relgious with the secular and an accomodation to new democratic ideals only started percolating in certain intellectual circles ( mostly Ottoman and in British India ) in the very late 18th century and to some extent took a beating during the post-WW I colonial phase in the ME. Islam, despite the reactionary backlash ( almost all of it of modern origin and a response to the Islamic world’s decline on the world stage during the era o European dominance ), is continuing to liberalize IMHO. Indeed part of the most recent reactionary backlash is, I think, a backlash against this progress. But progress is inevitable. Turkey need not be an aberration.
So we have confluence of circumstance and a somewhat more malleable ( in terms of justifications for violence ) faith. Now - Does the fact ( if it is, some might disagree ) that Islam is more easily turned to extremism in this day and age, sufficient to declare it and bankrupt and evil faith? Certainly not. You don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater and I’ve yet to see any evidence that most Muslims think it is just jim-dandy to go out and slaughter infidels left and right.
Is it sufficient to say there is something wrong with Islam? Judgement call. Personally I think there is something a little bit wrong with all religion, not believing in God, god’s, or any other element of spirituality myself. However who am I to judge how some people find comfort? At any rate, the proper response to issues of violent extremism in a faith is not to condemn the entire faith and label them all as ignorant, violent barbarians ( which they demonstrably are not ), thus giving ammunitions to those very extremists, but rather to support the non-extremists. The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa used to lend theological support to apartheid ( especially in the period of 1948-1978, but lagging into the early 90’s ). Today it does not ( it finally came out in 1997 with a statement saying that it rejected apartheid “as wrong and sinful not just in its effects and operations but in its fundamental nature.” ).
Or whatever Kimstu said ;).