as yet untitled
Saw a news report this morning regarding a new, (and from what I understand, somewhat pre-hyped), video has surfaced that features an ex-patriate American exhorting soldiers to quit the losing side and join with the Islamists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The video also invites Americans to either convert to Islam or to withdraw, and to keep our 'poison' from the world.
It made me wonder what we are up against.
I will say, without reservation, that the tone of the prosletyzing sounded a lot like what I can get here at home, from the various evangelists in the media and in various churches. Nothing really wrong with that, it is good to be adamant about ones faith, and to act on it with bravado. I am going to stop right there for now, but I wonder, is that what all of this is about?
The short answer is, I don't think so, but there are some marked similarities.
Here in our own little cultural cocoon, the publicized religious instruction/comentary and what have you is strictly about power and influence, the ends to which these means are to be employed is not always clear. It seems that might be at least partially the case in the mideast as well, although wealth and international influence are also at play, owing to the regions reserve of hydrocarbons.
It sometimes appears that faith in ones own abilities and interpretations of scripture and history seem to play an occasional role in the domestic religious agenda----once these people gain adequate influence and/or power, they will set things right, to the benefit of all. At other times, the acquisition of wealth seems to be a motivator; (at least that is fairly easily recognized, understood and dealt with). But what of the situation in the mideast? we as a people tend to see things in both black and white and monolithic terms, in other words, we tend to lump all of Islam into the same bucket, and judge it by our own experience and interpretation of truth, but I think we are short-changing ourselves here.
I have often accused our political leadership of being woefully ignorant of the ways of the world, (particularly this part of the world), but at this moment, I realize that my base of knowledge is not too much better. In coming week, I wil try to rectify that somewhat.
Does anyone have a comment on this, or possibly some knowledge of Islam and how it relates to terrorism and the current war?
Is there a unified front to the Islamic threat that we face? Or, are we fighting a series of smaller skirmishes with a factionalized enemy, with slightly differing or even competing agendas? Are we at war with a belief system, or with the perceiption of wrongs committed against them? Is it possible to be accepted for what we are, (and conversely, can we accept them), rather than as an infidel whose ways are to be changed?
These are questions that are larger than I am, but it seems incumbent on me, as well as us, to try to grapple with them, before we leap to conclusions about this war and how it should end.
It made me wonder what we are up against.
I will say, without reservation, that the tone of the prosletyzing sounded a lot like what I can get here at home, from the various evangelists in the media and in various churches. Nothing really wrong with that, it is good to be adamant about ones faith, and to act on it with bravado. I am going to stop right there for now, but I wonder, is that what all of this is about?
The short answer is, I don't think so, but there are some marked similarities.
Here in our own little cultural cocoon, the publicized religious instruction/comentary and what have you is strictly about power and influence, the ends to which these means are to be employed is not always clear. It seems that might be at least partially the case in the mideast as well, although wealth and international influence are also at play, owing to the regions reserve of hydrocarbons.
It sometimes appears that faith in ones own abilities and interpretations of scripture and history seem to play an occasional role in the domestic religious agenda----once these people gain adequate influence and/or power, they will set things right, to the benefit of all. At other times, the acquisition of wealth seems to be a motivator; (at least that is fairly easily recognized, understood and dealt with). But what of the situation in the mideast? we as a people tend to see things in both black and white and monolithic terms, in other words, we tend to lump all of Islam into the same bucket, and judge it by our own experience and interpretation of truth, but I think we are short-changing ourselves here.
I have often accused our political leadership of being woefully ignorant of the ways of the world, (particularly this part of the world), but at this moment, I realize that my base of knowledge is not too much better. In coming week, I wil try to rectify that somewhat.
Does anyone have a comment on this, or possibly some knowledge of Islam and how it relates to terrorism and the current war?
Is there a unified front to the Islamic threat that we face? Or, are we fighting a series of smaller skirmishes with a factionalized enemy, with slightly differing or even competing agendas? Are we at war with a belief system, or with the perceiption of wrongs committed against them? Is it possible to be accepted for what we are, (and conversely, can we accept them), rather than as an infidel whose ways are to be changed?
These are questions that are larger than I am, but it seems incumbent on me, as well as us, to try to grapple with them, before we leap to conclusions about this war and how it should end.
posted by eccentric recluse at 10:16 AM
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