Greetings all!
This piece comes after a brief break I took in order to
work out the final weeks of my high school education. Now that it has been
concluded, I likely won’t be taking such leaves of absence for a while now.
Beyond that, I've decided to make Islam (and religion in general) a topic this
week due to some events as of late which convinced me to tear open the wounds
anew. The events I speak of range from the beheading
of a British soldier to the stabbing
of a French soldier. While the latter has not been confirmed as being in
the name of Islam, the events surrounding it would suggest so. This is in
contrast to the former, where Islamic extremism has been identified as the
clear cause. And while I’d love to go on about how Islam is not the religion of
peace its followers claim it to be, neither is any religion, and to go on about
one necessitates my action on all others. This week’s quote comes from Olof
Palme, an influential Swedish Prime Minister of the past whom I hold the utmost
respect and admiration for.
I’d like to note that, while fundamentalist Islam was
clearly the inspiration for the attack on the British soldier, there are other
factors at play we should not ignore. Ultimately, all conflict between people
is class conflict, and minority groups like Muslims and Afro-European British
citizens are subjected to societal repression. Like in much of Europe, British
economic and societal structures have a de facto trend to benefit the Anglican
White community. While the British welfare state helps to neutralize factors
that exacerbate differences between groups in the U.K., the system is not so
expansive or effective to negate such differences. This is especially true in light
of austerity in the U.K., a failed
policy. However, British austerity and economic recession has also
highlighted ethnic and social tensions which erupted into violent
riots in 2011. It should be very obvious that poverty and systematic poor
treatment of minorities is at play here.
But at the center of all this is Islam. It seems these
days that radical Islam is blamed for quite a bit of the violence in the modern
world, regardless of whether that violence occurs in a first-world European
capital or in the rural communities of a third-world Middle Eastern nation. In
truth, radical Islamic violence is not a huge problem in richer, secularized
countries. Many conservatives in the U.S. Congress claim
that it is, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of terrorist
attacks in America are not inspired
by Islamism. Most acts of terror are either committed by one side of the
political spectrum or another, or are acts of terrorism with no clear political
or religious role. In fact, religious terrorism in America is mostly dominated
by groups that are not Islamic.
Instead, Islamic terrorism is a much larger problem for
those nations which host majority-Islamic populations and have at least some
semblance of Islamic influence in the civil structure. For example, Islamic
terrorism is a much more prominent issue in Saudi Arabia,
where the constitution is defined as being the Qur’an itself. Saudi Arabia is
possibly the single most oppressively Islamic nation on Earth, and yet
terrorism is a greater threat there than where most people complaining about
Islamic terrorism are (Europe and the U.S.).
How you read the text of the Qur’an does not actually
have to be held as a large piece of my debate; whether you view the original
writings of Muhammad as peaceful or violent is up to you. Instead, what matters
is the effect said writing has on modern society and how humans interact with
each other. It is frequently held that Islam is a “religion of peace” by its
adherents. These Muslims often try to explain Islamic law and theory in the
most muted way possible, babying those who condemn Islam along to a point where
they hope tolerance is possible. One of the most noted points brought up by
Islamic apologists is that the term “jihad” does not mean war. This is true;
jihad means struggle, and this can be much more broadly applied than one would think. Hell, studying hard in order to pass a test can be considered jihad.
However, jihad has been extended to benefit those that
commit acts of religious war against Western and non-Islamic or secular
society. Even back in WWI, the Ottoman Empire declared
jihad against its enemies in order to inspire Muslim fighters towards victory.
Jihad continued to be used for political interests throughout the 20th
century; the 1979 Iranian Revolution was inspired by radical Islam. The Mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan during the Soviet War in the 1980s had declared a jihad
against communist and secular forces in the country. The followers of Osama Bin
Laden used jihad as an excuse to perform countless bombings in areas they
considered to be not Islamic enough. At this point in history, jihad is now
tied into horrid acts of violence, and the chances of it separating are little.
As it should be.
To explain, let me say that an idea, if absolutely noble
in its roots is perverted and corrupted in practice, should not be tossed out
entirely. Secular rule in Afghanistan was certainly plagued by such issues in
the brief time it was allowed power, but that does not mean the idea should be
thrown away. However, if the idea is not pure in its roots, it should be
removed. Jihad is not pure; while the strict translation from Arabic means
struggle, the Qur’an is clear in its interpretation of jihad. Physical jihad,
the highest level of jihad, guarantees those who practice it paradise, as long
as that physical jihad is justified righteously. We can argue all we like about
what the original intention of that justification was, but the reality of the
situation is that jihad is frequently used as a means of justifying incredible
violence. As such, Islam is no religion of peace.
At the same time, other religions are not absent of
guilt. Christianity is no religion of peace. Au contraire, Christianity and the
divinity of Jesus have been used to excuse countless generations of murderers
and oppressors. Nearly three centuries of war known as the Crusades occurred
blatantly to reclaim the holy land for Christianity. Colonizers of the new
world and Africa used Christianity to change local populations to suit their
own needs, eventually ingraining a foreign way of life into these people. The
Dark Ages were characterized by oppression of progress in Europe by the
Christian authorities. Even today, evangelical Christianity is used to
overpower populations of the United States for profit and influence.
Judaism is not clean, despite what many of my people
would like to suggest. While Jews don’t have nearly the same kind of
international influence, power, or arrogance of Christians or Muslims, Jews
very much do as they please in Israel. Israel is defined in its Basic Law as a “Jewish
state,” ignoring the fact that Israel has Arab Muslims, Christians, and secular
citizens which such a state would rightfully exclude. For much of its history,
Israel has conscripted citizens into the army, but Haredi Jews were allowed exclusion
from such service until recently (a subject of contentious
debate). The far-right Israeli Likud party supports settlements of
Palestinian lands, despite the obvious religious and social conflicts such
actions ignite.
Other religions in the world are just as guilty as the
Abrahamic faiths. The Hindu class structure has oppressed millions of Indians
over decades of improvement and progress in Indian society. Hindu extremists
have committed
violence against minority religions like Christianity and Islam in India;
indeed, it was a Hindu extremist that murdered Mohandas Gandhi himself. While
even some atheists give Buddhism slack, Buddhist monks have played a large role
in anti-Muslim violence
in Burma. Animist structures in central Africa have long played a role in
the dramatically backward patriarchy there.
My point is that, while Islam is most certainly not a
peaceful religion, no religion is. All religions, at some point or other, have
been used for violence. All religions have been used to oppress others. All
religions have been used to confirm backwards and/or unequal societal
structures. No religion is innocent. And so, to say that Islam is a violent
religion, I must qualify my statement by saying that all religions are violent.
And therefore, all religions contribute to the destruction of the world. All
religions make the world less safe and less tolerant. And lastly, the world
will not be safe and peaceful until all religions bite the dust.
That’s all for this week, and I hope I've got enough
sources for the point I've been making. Your feedback is encouraged through the
comments and, barring that, my email at zerospintop@live.com.
As always, I can be reached through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Steam,
DeviantArt, Tumblr, and Reddit as well. Good night, and this is KnoFear,
signing off.
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