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Originally Posted by pensacola_niceman Well, I'm currently living in a Muslim country (Iraq) and I just heard a round of mortars go off a few minutes ago. Try to name one Muslim nation that is totally at peace and the only one I can think of is Jordan. All that being said, I share my concern along with everybody else and hope you remain safe. | United Arab Emirates is probably the best example; but, if you think about it, no country is "totally at peace". What do you consider to be less peaceful? Nations with incidents of home-grown terrorism, or nations that are aggressive toward other states? Because our own country has both characteristics.
There are a lot more reasons why those countries are at war than religion. The Middle East has been, historically, a hotly contended region. You can see obvious reasons why geographically; it is a pretty strategic location controlling commerce between the East and West, it controls vital waterways and trading routes, it has precious resources. Not to mention world cultural significance (Jerusalem).
Obviously, it would be a contradiction for a Jain or Buddhist to blow up a marketplace, so I wont deny that religion reinforces the violence and vice-versa. However, much of the Muslim world hasn't had the same kind of enlightenment that western and other eastern cultures had simply because they haven't had the opportunity (they're too busy fending off imperialism and rivalries). With all the geo-political problems and utterly hopeless situations Muslims find themselves in in some of these countries (especially Palestine), ideas like paradise after martyrdom catch on. In this way violence begets violence, and only calm begets calm. For this reason the Iraq war is a contradiction; we're trying to spread western democracy at the end of a gun (not to mention we're asking a historically oppressed culture to accept their national, secular, and democratic identities before their religious/cultural identifiers ([Sunni, Shi'a, Kurd, etc.]). "If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Economic Left/Right: -9.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72
Last edited by Katczinsky; 11-10-2007 at 10:06 AM.
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