ISIS

Mugwump · Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Location: Between London and Melbourne

^ well, yes, a percentage are certainly unstoppable, but i also believe that a significant number of atrocities in the UK have been stopped by the security services. Since one of the victims might have been one my children, and this is still a very good and liberal place in which to live, i'd say th balance is probably ok at the moment - though I do not know enough about the Australian laws to know whether they are right over there.

As regards invasions and support for despots, there is probably some truth in that. My suspicion, however, is that the Al Qaedas and would-be theocrats of the world hate the liberal democracies not because of what we do, but because of what we are - secular, sexually accepting, scientific and sceptical, powerful and - well - liberal. All of these things stand as an existential negative to their closed, masculine, priest-ridden, punitive and regressive rage against the modern world. If that hypothesis is true, then whatever we do, they will find grounds to murder us.

[/b]

David · I dare you to try Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda

But it's genuine anger that gives these organisations any power to begin with�the sort of anger that comes from more than just envy, or moral disapproval. Without that, organisations like Al Qaeda would be little more than the Westboro Baptist Church of the Muslim world.

Mugwump · Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Location: Between London and Melbourne

^ Sure, but what's not entirely clear is the source of the anger - is it what we do, or their frustration with their own societies displaced onto the "other" called the West ? The Nazis had genuine anger against the Jews too. It was displaced anger for Versailles, for hyperinflation, for the Depression, for the weakness and strife of Weimar. But it was far easier to blame the "other".

Because of the geopolitics of oil and the Israeli lobby in the Us, there has been enough Western involvement in the ME to feed this anger - but at least one deep source is the failure of Islam and almost all Arab governments to meet the modern world. Were the people who marched in favour of killing Rushdie in Birmingham in 1985 protesting against Western involvement in Iraq, or even (more arguably) Iran? I don't think so. The anger is real, and so are the bombs that may yet explode on our scapegoated streets - but that does not make it what it purports to be.

think positive · Side By Side Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere

David · I dare you to try Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda

Wokko · Come and take it. Joined: 04 Oct 2005

The USA is a Christian country, it is not changing laws for an immigrant religious minority, it is sticking to the ideals upon which it is founded.

If Westboro or any other Baptists went to, lets say Saudi Arabia, and started to agitate for changes in the law to make the country more Christian they'd be hanging from a lamp post before sunset.

swoop42 · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:16 pm

think positive · Side By Side Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere

David · I dare you to try Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda

stui magpie · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:04 pm

David · I dare you to try Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda

I definitely don't think it's wholly justified, but I don't think it's wholly unjustified, either. You've got to remember that the resentment isn't just about US foreign policy decisions, but the long history of European colonisation and partitions. If you understand how a lot of Aborigines feel about white Australia, you'll understand at least some of the resentment felt by Middle Eastern Muslims about the West in general.

1061 · Joined: 06 Sep 2013

stui magpie · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:17 pm