You do realize I hope that during the French Revolution (as well as after), the French WERE considered quite violent. This was at the height of the whole head cutting off thingy. In fact, you might have heard of a little known Corsican artillary officer named Napoleon perhaps? Do some reading about the Napoleonic Wars to see how violent the French were regarded as in this period. You might be surprised.
Or think of it this way…at THIS period, American’s are considered a ‘violent’ culture/civilization. I don’t particularly think of us as violent, but we are perceived by outsiders in that light. Its an insight into what the OP is asking for IMHO…if you think it through.
1972 - Palestinian terrorist group Black September kill 11 hostages at the Munich Olympics
1988 - Lybian terrorists destroy Pan Am flight 103
1989 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini proclaimed a fatwa requiring Salman Rushdie’s execution for writing The Satanic Verses
1993 - The World Trade Center is bombed by Islamic terrorists
1998 - The US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
2000 - The USS Cole is damaged by an Al Quada suicide bomb
2001 - Al Quada hijacks 4 aircraft destroying the World Trade Center and damaging the Pentagon
2005 - The London train bombings
2005 - The publication of cartoons featuring Muhammad in a Danish newspaper leads to violence in the Islamic community
2006 - Hezbollah attacks and kidnaps several Israeli soldiers prevoking a war between Israel and Lebenon
Your OP is intentionally dishonest. Is Islamic civilization inherently violent? Probably no more or less than any other civilization made up by humans. But there have certainly been enough violent incidents directly caused by individuals loudly proclaiming to represent the Muslim world to discredit the notion that Islam is a “religion of peace”.
THE USA IS a violent country as an international player. The blood on its hands from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia through Chile, El Salvadore via not meeting a blood thirsty dictator it didn’t want to arm to the teeth to GW2 makes the rest of the world look like dilletantes. Getting the point yet?
Several actually. One point could be that outsiders perceptions of a ‘civilization’ are often formed by the more spectacular aspects of a country…like the US invasion of Iraq forming the perception that the US is a violent nation bent on conquest. Another point may be that a minority in a culture or civilization often impact how that culture or civilization is perceived by outsiders to a greater proportion simply because its what outsiders are most likely to see or hear about. There are several other points but I think those hit the highlights. I’m frankly surprised it needed to be pointed out to be honest…seemed rather obvious to me.
Yes, exactly the point I was making. Which is why Islam is in the exact same boat. When you look at a collective its the perceptions of outsiders which form whether or not an entity (civilization, culture, country, ect) is ‘violent’…and often this impression is formed by a minority. Not all citizens in the US, nor all administrations are ‘violent’…and taken in perspective, the US really isn’t an overly violent nation. Its PERCEIVED to be because some administrations (like the current one) ARE quite violent. Doesn’t mean all American’s are violent however, nor that by and large the US is a violent nation. Same with Islam as a collective.
This should be …and often this impression is formed by the ACTIONS of a minority. IOW, its the spectacular events which have the greatest impact on the perceptions of people judging an outside culture/civilization/country/whatever. So, the violent minority in Islam have a disproportional effect on the over all perception of Islam to outsiders. Human nature.
What’s the point of all of this? People are inherently violent. Trying to divide the planet’s population into subgroups, and say this or that group is somehow more violent than others, or to suggest that one group’s way of fomenting or carrying out violence is better or worse than another’s is patently absurd. Trying to pin violence on religion is equally absurd. Of the major religions, Buddhism would seem to be the most peaceful. That must explain why Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, and Sri Lanka have such tranquil histories :rolleyes:.
Like other species, humans are particularly prone to violence when they feel threatened in any way. They are also prone to threatening behavior, and to buying into the idea that they’re under threat when someone screams it loud enough. How do we deal with that? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t by pointing fingers.
And a lot of that is the fault of outsiders-who supported the Shah of Iran for decades, even overthrowing a democratically elected president in the 1950s in order to return Reza Pahlevi to the throne?
I highly recommend the Sam Harris book, The End of Faith. Mr. Harris is talking about Islamic religion, not civilization, but I think it is difficult to separate them; indeed, that is his premise.
Harris argues that religion is inherently violent, but some have mellowed over time and with sophistication. Christianity had evolved into a different animal since the Crusades, but Islam is now where Christianity was then.
Except instead of spears and catapults, they now have nuclear weapons. Imagine what the Crusades would have been with tanks, bombers and helicopters.
And the tolerence now present in most branches of Christianity and other, milder religions (cf. Buddhism), Islam teaches that non-believers must be executed and cannot be allowed to co-exist. Kill 'em all, let Allah sort 'em out!
To support his point, he includes 6 pages of short quotes from the Koran. If you thought the bible was violent, you should read these. No matter how much someone may say that Islam is a religion of peace, the primary source book for Islam seems to say otherwise.
The Kurds might disagree. Certainly those poor lads at Gallipoli would. Or the Greeks at Dumlupinar. He was a military officer, afterall :). One with a highly paternalistic and mildly authoritarian streak, at that. Doesn’t remove his accomplishments and he was certainly “progressive” within certain parameters. But he wasn’t Gandhi.
Um…why would this be important one way or the other? The OP asked why people call (perceive) Islam to be violent. The reason they do is that people who purportedly represent Islam are seen to do violent things…therefore Islam is PERCEIVED to be a violent civilization/religion.
Whether or not the folks doing the violent things ‘represent’ Islam in some fundamental way is beside the point. Thats not how people think about such things…and the OP was asking why PEOPLE call Islam violent. If you guys want to debate whether or not Islam is in fact violent thats a whole other debate. I say this because it seems several people in this thread are unable to distinguish between those two things.
In that post I was not responding to the OP but to msmith537, who asserted there have been enough violent actions by extremists “to discredit the notion that Islam is a “religion of peace”.”
