But if you did that, it might mean Europe has to go to Russia for it’s gas, instead of to Qatar. Don’t ruin things, it gets cold in Europe.
Here’s some more straw, stuff the other sleeve.
I’m gonna claim some overlap :). The mosque used to do a booming side business in magic potions.
Winter is coming!
Does anybody in Ireland really care any more about the religious differences as such? AIUI, “Catholic” and “Protestant” are more in the nature of tribal or national identifiers than religious, thus it is understood you can speak of “Catholic terrorists” in Ireland without tarring the Poles or Italians with the same brush. WRT Muslims, not so much.
I recall a panel from Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe, in a bit about the Islamization of parts of Africa – noting that “Their Islam was rarely pure, but mixed up with native beliefs” – a woman is sitting atop a big carved stone or wooden human head, holding a chicken and a knife, looking up and saying, “I’ll be right with you, God, just after I finish sprinkling chicken blood on the fetish!”
I find myself wondering if, nowadays, Boko Haram has a problem with that sort of thing . . .
Muslims aren’t a race, either. They come in many shades and aren’t all Arabs.
On one hand, you’re right- many “religious” conflicts are not really about religion, while in others religion is just one of many factors. Even so, nobody in the news media worried about hurting my feelings by speaking of “Catholic” terrorists. Why the concern about hurting Muslims’ feelings?
I can feel it right now. Do we want gas from an ever more fascist Russia, or from Islamic despots. Choices, choices… let’s insulate the loft instead.
Comparisons to the Irish “freedom fighters” are so far from reality that a separate thread would be needed.
The Catholic/Protestant divide was economic and Civil Rights based.
The Catholics were living in a place that denied them equality.
Membership of an “illegal organisation” was grounds for excommunication from the Catholic Church.
In no way, shape or form was it a religious conflict.
Seeking to circumscribe the rights of free speech and enquiry on religious grounds is a totally different question. All the more so if those who seek this censorship are happy to benefit from the results science has created.
For the time being ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda and numerous other Islamic terrorist groups are, like it or not, on one side of a Clash of Civilizations, the wavering and vulnerable Muslim “Street” is in the middle, and the rest of the world (including an unclear number of anti-terrorist Muslims) is on the other side. The West is by far the strongest player in the Clash, and the sooner it brings its strength to bear the better. The West’s second most dangerous enemy, and a strong second it is, is its own deluded irresolution. This irresolution compelled the US to depart from Iraq before it was safe to do so, and it is preventing Europe from accepting a significant military role, despite the obviousness of the need.
And NB people love winners, and any success by the Islamic terrorist evildoers will win them plenty of recruits. In fact to anywhere earn a local draw against the overwhelming strength of the West might justifiably be considered a victory, and pay off in spades as a recruitment factor.
ISIS might well by now have taken much more of Iraq, including Baghdad, and much more of Syria as well if not for the US bombing campaign. (If ISIS had been allowed these victories then the Clash of Civilizations might by now be so stark that even OP could not deny it) But ISIS is not going to be put out of business except by boots on the ground, and the West does not in its present irresolute state of mind state have the guts to do what it takes, which is to win a conventional war of conquest (yes, another one, this time against ISIS), and then stay for next goddam 50 years if we must. Such enterprises, world-wide, can only reasonably be a joint effort, but as weak-kneed as the US has now become, Europe is even worse, so don’t count on ISIS losing much ground, or any other significant positive development soon until ISIS commits a widespread many more European outrages on the scale of those in 11/15 France.
The ludicrous premise here seems to be that if Islamic terrorism is not everywhere as great a problem as ISIS, then it is not actually a problem we need to worry about anywhere else.
But ISIS is only represents the most extreme player in a now mostly decentralized world-wide campaign of Islamic terror, that has been ongoing since before 9/11, and includes numerous significant incidents in Indonesia:
Wiki: List of terrorist incidents in Indonesia
Also, this Clash of Civilizations we are now embarked on is still in an early stage. Bangladesh has been relatively quiet and let us hope it remains so, but google “Terrorism Bangladesh” and you will see that not all commentary is optimistic.
And I hate to think what might happen if the Islamic terrorist side of the clash were to win control of a large, oil-rich state, as ISIS almost did.
Hint: I don’t think it counts as a “Clash of Civilizations” if neither of the sides, as you describe them, constitute, you know, civilizations.
All you said was: “There’s are conflicts. Some people are in them.”
I should have said presently the biggest player. All of the Islamic terrorist groups are extreme.
I take as a premise the existence of both Western civilization. and Islamic civilization. Anyone who wants to debate that can start another thread.
Oh, that’s fine. At least in certain contexts. But:
does not equal either of those. Furthermore,
also does not equal either of those. Hey, and guess what:
isn’t either of those either.
All those listed are part of Islamic Civilization, obviously.
Equally obvious is the fact that the Clash does not depend for its existence on the commitment to the struggle of each civilization’s entire population.
Many may even join the other side: The ancient Greco-Persian Wars were a Clash of Civilizations, were they not? Well, in the culminating war Alexander faced 10s of thousands of Greek mercenaries in Persian employ. I can give you other historical examples if you want them.
In the interest of protecting myself against finnickyness, only the “anti-terror Muslims” are part of Islamic civilization.
It’s a clash of pipelines rather than civilizations.
[QUOTE= finnickyness.[/QUOTE]
Are you sure of your spelling here?
No.
No. No, they weren’t. They were wars between a coalition of Greek city states and the Persian Empire, over some pretty specific stuff. Details matter. They were not wars between “The West” (singular) and some vaguely imagined demonic “East”.
Speaking of Alexander: Most Greeks at the time (yes, I know, it’s my ballpark estimate) hated his guts, just as they hated his dad before him. The first thing that happened after he died was a Greek rebellion against Macedon. And ask any party in those conflicts (or, well, their descendants) how they felt when the Romans showed up later on. If you try selling them your “East vs West” metanarrative, they’ll probably tell you to get stuffed. “Western Civilization” doesn’t have much of a track record for being a unified thing. (And I’m not even out the classical age yet! Oh, boy, there’s a lot coming up, get ready.)
Neither does the East, for that matter. Oh, and as for “Islamic civilization”, it obviously won’t be invented for several hundred years, so if you ask the dudes in classical antiquity about that, they’ll just look at you funny.
Clashing of civilizations, especially between the “Good West” and the “Evil East”, isn’t really how history works. There are conflicts. Some of them involve some people from over here, depending on your definition of “here”. Others involve some people from over there, depending on your definition of “there”. Some of the time some of the people over there are on a different side from some of the people over here (although mostly not).
Hey, speaking of the Persians: Cut them some slack, they ended the Babylonian captivity, when Cyrus took Babylon. They get great press in the Bible. I mean, I assume you count the Bible as part of “Western Civilization”. Most people seem to, although it’s totally a Middle Eastern export, so who knows how that works. But I digress.