Rejection of opposition based on subjective and non-empirical opinion

Submitted by Calahas (United States), Dec 18, 2010 at 17:37

Most posters on this article's thread keep repeating the mantra that Islam is a danger while not elucidating the evolution that regions that underwent Islamic conversion went through. This is sad.

We live in an Age of Industrialization and in some phase of it - 5th or 6th - depending on which wave of technological, scientific, socio-political and economic growths we are talking about. This is part of World Systems Theory. I am not an expert on it. But the constant push for industrialization coupled with unrelenting demographic growth in all quarters of the world is the main reason for increasing casualties and chances of encounter too through wars. What we see now is due most in part due to this reason than the violent religion itself.

To state that Islam is a religion of peace or evil is too simplistic. The underlying socio-economic currents starting from the 7th Century AD influenced Islamic peoples. Where are the comments on those conditions?

Jewish people were given shelter supposedly in Moorish Spain and tolerated to an extent. Incidents of such character abound through Islam's history. So do incidents where the opponents were butchered. There has to be a balance in reporting on such incidents without resort to generalizations. Unfortunately, the side that condemns the violent strains of Islam today becomes as extreme as the Nazis to counter violent Islam. An ideology is being created which is reactionary to Islam much like Nazism was created to counter Communism and to persecute perceived anti-German minorities like the Jews etc. And this ideology is being encouraged as the right counter to Islam of all strains. When the birth of a political ideology is itself reactionary and if that ideology gets to rule a nation-state, war appears to be a certain outcome. The most recent example is the German-Russian war of World-War II. Another example is Vietnam War. Yet another example can be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is still in its infancy per my thinking.

More effort should be put in understanding the socio-political reasons for past conflicts and using them to prevent conflicts in the future. That is the only way to prevent mass murder and genocides. Otherwise this cycle of endless human suffering in one or the other part of the world never stops in Human Civilization.

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