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The Roots of Muslim Rage

Oozlefinch said:
Yea, I guess that England should have left them as part of the Ottoman Empire. Things were so much better then we all know.
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The Ottoman Empire was getting progressively weaker, as you well know. England's mistakes were to arbitrarily draw the boundary lines for Saudi Arabia, Iraq and (IIRC) Afghanistan without much (if any) consideration of different clans or sects, like the Kurds, or who was Sunni and who was Shi'a. On top of that, they had promised Palestine to the Palestinians, but when English chemist Chaim Weizmann developed a synthetic form of gunpowder during WWI (the German U-boat blockade was choking off their supply of gunpowder, which meant that the English Navy would have become impotent) and thus made a huge contribution to winning the war, the Crown offered him anything within its power to give, and he chose a homeland for Jews. (I got all that from "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", the Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Richard Rhodes - I strongly, strongly recommend that book!)

Chaim Weizmann, IIRC, was also the first prime minister of Israel.

And that is why the Palestinians call Israel the "twice-promised land". They believe it should have been theirs since they had occupied it since the Jewish diaspora so many centuries before, and they believed the land was theirs. England, however, had taken it over, and now they were handing the Palestinians' homeland to the Jews.

So between England's arbitrary border-drawing and their inserting a homeland for the Jews, we have a wonderful recipe for unrest in the region...and for the life of me, I see it as nothing less than a diplomatic Gordian knot, and like the legend from so long ago, it's one that I fear can only be untied with a sword.
 
Chomsky said:
This is a really well written article, Jack.

Thank you for posting it.

Excellent points, and I agree - much has transpired in the intervening 35 years since the article was written.

But I believe there's a seminal overarching force here, which the author has astutely recognized: There has never been an all encompassing religious geopolitical reformation involving Islam in the East, as there has been with the Protestant Reformation in the West - effectively decoupling religion from state. [my paraphrased summation]

I believe this item is the crucial element, and the author presented it quite well:

"THE origins of secularism in the west may be found in two circumstances -- in early Christian teachings and, still more, experience, which created two institutions, Church and State; and in later Christian conflicts, which drove the two apart. Muslims, too, had their religious disagreements, but there was nothing remotely approaching the ferocity of the Christian struggles between Protestants and Catholics, which devastated Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and finally drove Christians in desperation to evolve a doctrine of the separation of religion from the state. Only by depriving religious institutions of coercive power, it seemed, could Christendom restrain the murderous intolerance and persecution that Christians had visited on followers of other religions and, most of all, on those who professed other forms of their own.

Muslims experienced no such need and evolved no such doctrine. There was no need for secularism in Islam, and even its pluralism was very different from that of the pagan Roman Empire, so vividly described by Edward Gibbon when he remarked that "the various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful." Islam was never prepared, either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship. It did, however, accord to the holders of partial truth a degree of practical as well as theoretical tolerance rarely paralleled in the Christian world until the West adopted a measure of secularism in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
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I must disagree. First of all, while it is true that mainstream "Christianity" was much bloodier until about three centuries ago, the schism between Protestantism and Catholicism is not nearly as deep as that between the Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. There was an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School named Vali Nasr, and he wrote a book called "The Shi'a Revival" which was recommended reading for all Navy officers. In the book he relates a quote by Zarkawi, second-in-command of al-Qaeda under bin Laden, who said, "Keep up the fight against the Zionists and the Great Satan, but never forget that the real enemy are the apostate Shi'a."

That's not an absolute exact quote, but it's close, and the gist is exactly the same. Anyway, the point is that al-Qaeda is Sunni, and by the quote you can see what they thought about the Shi'a. The book goes on to describe how and why there is such a deep divide between the Sunni and Shi'a...and shows how great a mistake it is to address Islam as a whole instead of addressing Sunni issues to Sunnis, and Shi'a to Shi'a.

The author's reference of Gibbon's epic "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" only increases his error, for not only is Gibbon addressing Islam as a whole instead of addressing each in turn, but it's been long noted that Gibbon was not careful to refrain from inserting his own prejudices into his work.

Now, to strengthen my point further that ISIS' use of religion is a tool, an excuse, note that not only is Shi'a-led (and Shi'a-puppeted by Iran) Iraq fighting ISIS, but strictly-Sunni Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE have also been launching airstrikes against ISIS, on top of which the (hated-by-Sunni-and-Shi'a) Kurds are attacking from the north. These three sectors - Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurd - are not working together by any means (except as loosely coordinated by the US), but to my knowledge they have NEVER fought the same enemy at the same time...

...which makes it obvious that this bout of "Islamic" terrorism isn't Islamic at all. Islam is only being used as a tool, an excuse, a means to recruit the poor and ignorant as a path to secular power.
 
Jack Hays said:
Honestly, I don't think you have any business characterizing what "most Americans simply don't get." As a people I think we have bent over backwards to avoid Islamophobia. the point of Lewis's brilliant essay is that the "roots" of Muslim rage predate anything we (or the Brits) have done.
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Jack, with your experience in the region, you know - you must know - how much the Sunni and the Shi'a hate each other...and how much both of them hate the Kurds. Thing is, right now the Shi'a in Iraq are fighting ISIS, the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Jordan have been launching airstrikes against ISIS, and the Kurds just took a northern town back from ISIS.

This isn't to say that the Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurds are working together - they certainly are not unless it's secretly being coordinated by America - but I don't think there's any time in history that the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the Kurds have all been fighting the same enemy at the same time. Well, maybe against the Mongols, but even that one can be debated.

Thing is, if this were really a religious matter, then the extremist-Wahabbi-Sunni ISIS would not be being attacked by "mainstream" Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish forces at the same time, particularly since Saudi Arabia is led by a Wahabbi-Sunni family. Therefore, despite all the religious rhetoric being thrown back-and-forth, ISIS' leaders are only using Islam as an excuse and a tool in their grab for secular power.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Jack, with your experience in the region, you know - you must know - how much the Sunni and the Shi'a hate each other...and how much both of them hate the Kurds. Thing is, right now the Shi'a in Iraq are fighting ISIS, the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Jordan have been launching airstrikes against ISIS, and the Kurds just took a northern town back from ISIS.

This isn't to say that the Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurds are working together - they certainly are not unless it's secretly being coordinated by America - but I don't think there's any time in history that the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the Kurds have all been fighting the same enemy at the same time. Well, maybe against the Mongols, but even that one can be debated.

Thing is, if this were really a religious matter, then the extremist-Wahabbi-Sunni ISIS would not be being attacked by "mainstream" Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish forces at the same time, particularly since Saudi Arabia is led by a Wahabbi-Sunni family. Therefore, despite all the religious rhetoric being thrown back-and-forth, ISIS' leaders are only using Islam as an excuse and a tool in their grab for secular power.
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All overshadowed by the ISIS struggle to form the Caliphate called forth by Mohamed.

From Lewis:

In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam. But the greater part of the world is still outside Islam, and even inside the Islamic lands, according to the view of the Muslim radicals, the faith of Islam has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated. The obligation of holy war therefore begins at home and continues abroad, against the same infidel enemy.
 
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Jack Hays said:
I have had to post this often enough that I decided it deserved its own thread. This was written in 1990, before Desert Storm. Islamic terrorism does not result from anything we have done or not done. Rather, the poverty and weakness of Muslim lands compared to the wealth and power of the West seems to mock Allah, and by extension those who follow Him. They don't "hate us for our freedom" but they hate us for our wealth and power, which are rooted in our freedom, and for their own weakness and poverty, which make them feel humiliated.

The Roots of Muslim Rage - 90.09

ragehd.gif

Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified

by Bernard Lewis
The online version of this article appears in two parts. Click here to go to part two.
IN one of his letters Thomas Jefferson remarked that in matters of religion "the maxim of civil government" should be reversed and we should rather say, "Divided we stand, united, we fall." In this remark Jefferson was setting forth with classic terseness an idea that has come to be regarded as essentially American: the separation of Church and State. This idea was not entirely new; it had some precedents in the writings of Spinoza, Locke, and the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It was in the United States, however, that the principle was first given the force of law and gradually, in the course of two centuries, became a reality. . . .
Islam is one of the world's great religions. Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that part, though by no means all or even most, of the Muslim world is now going through such a period, and that much, though again not all, of that hatred is directed against us. . . .
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Lewis is a former Marxist who became a militant Zionist and claims there was no Armenian genocide. Hardly a person I would believe with since his motives are suspect. And yes, the West has been messing around with the region since before the 1990's.
 
VanceMack said:
Nothing has changed for them. Thats the point. The roots of Muslim extremism are rooted in their faith, not 'the west'.
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The same with any extremism. Be it Muslim, Christian, Secularism, Atheism, Socialism, or any other religion or belief.

TO me, it does not matter what the extremism is "in the name of", if you are willing to kill for it, you have gone to far.

Glen Contrarian said:
The Ottoman Empire was getting progressively weaker, as you well know. England's mistakes were to arbitrarily draw the boundary lines for Saudi Arabia, Iraq and (IIRC) Afghanistan without much (if any) consideration of different clans or sects, like the Kurds, or who was Sunni and who was Shi'a.
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I love whenever people bring this up.

First of all, the region was not partitioned by "England", it was partitioned by the Leage of Nations. For example, much of what we know today as Iraq was actually the Ottoman Province of Mosul, which became the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. Much of the rest was in the French Mandate, which was also largely partitioned by the League of Nations. Generally following the lines that had been set up centuries earlier by the Ottoman Empire.

For example, Palestine was broken up into 2 different parts. The major region to the East became Transjordan (and later Jordan), and the rest Palestine. The French Mandate of Lebanon was broken up into 2, with the Northern part becoming Syria. And things like religion were taken carefully into account. Especially in Lebanon, where the majority Sunni population of what is now Syria was broken off from the far more cosmopolitan population of Lebanon (with large Jewish, Druze, and Christian populations).

Unless the region was broken into 10,000 states, there was no way they could ever have made everybody happy. But I do admit I always love hearing those claims.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
That's part of it...but it is a great mistake to ignore what America - and (to a much greater degree) England - has done that resulted in so much of the unrest and resultant poverty endemic in much of the ME.
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We have certainly had a hand in the "unrest" part of it, but the long-time sunnia/shia conflict plays an even greater role.

Their culture is simply not Western culture and it would behoove us not to interfere unless truly warranted. What caused the rise of ME terrorism and ME threat to the Western world, in general, was the discovery of "our" oil under their sands, which put ME cavemen in designer jeans. Figuratively speaking, of course, but the billions we pumped into those nations gave them the wherewithal to become a threat. On a large scale and on a smaller scale as well.

Saudi Arabia is now trying to break the West through an OPEC glut, but I have a feeling they're only cutting their own throats. We suddenly "found" that the US has even more crude. LOL
 
PoS said:
Lewis is a former Marxist who became a militant Zionist and claims there was no Armenian genocide. Hardly a person I would believe with since his motives are suspect. And yes, the West has been messing around with the region since before the 1990's.
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Hmmm.

Bernard Lewis, FBA (born 31 May 1916) is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. He is also noted in academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.[SUP][1][/SUP]
Lewis served as a soldier in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and Intelligence Corps during the Second World War before being seconded to the Foreign Office. After the war, he returned to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern History.
Lewis is a widely read expert on the Middle East and is regarded as one of the West's leading scholars of that region.[SUP][2][/SUP] His advice has been frequently sought by policymakers, including the Bush administration.[SUP][3][/SUP] In the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Martin Kramer, whose PhD thesis was directed by Lewis, considered that over a 60-year career Lewis has emerged as "the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East."[SUP][1][/SUP]
Lewis is known for his views on the Armenian Genocide. He acknowledges that massacres against the Armenians occurred but does not believe it meets the definition of genocide.[SUP][4][/SUP][SUP][5][/SUP] He is also notable for his public debates with the late Edward Said concerning the latter's book Orientalism (1978), which criticized Lewis and other European Orientalists.


Bernard Lewis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis


Wikipedia


Bernard Lewis, FBA (born 31 May 1916) is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political ...‎Biography - ‎Research - ‎Views and influence on ... - ‎Debates with Edward Said
 
HowardBThiname said:
Their culture is simply not Western culture and it would behoove us not to interfere unless truly warranted. What caused the rise of ME terrorism and ME threat to the Western world, in general, was the discovery of "our" oil under their sands, which put ME cavemen in designer jeans. Figuratively speaking, of course, but the billions we pumped into those nations gave them the wherewithal to become a threat. On a large scale and on a smaller scale as well.
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Not really. That region of the world has had constant conflicts and strife for over 3,000 years. There is absolutely nothing new about the feuds and factional fighting in that area of the world.

However, much of the rise has to do with the Cold War. Both the US and USSR used the region for flooding in weapons and "experts". However, during most of that time period, most of the nations took aid from the Soviets, the US largely supported a single nation, Israel.

But by the early 1980's, this started to change. After several failed wars with Israel and years of broken promises by the Soviets, several key ME nations started to move away from the USSR and towards the US. This hesitant stepping turned into a flood after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, then the collapse of the Soviet Union. And in the decades since, many are realizing that the most stable nations in that area of the world are ironically the older Monarchies and Principalities that have been there for over 50 years. It is the Republics-Dictatorships that have been shown to be the most unstable.

Then add in the other source of instability, religious uprising. Which interestingly enough almost all comes from the one non-Arab Islamic nation in the region.

But the oil has little to do with it. But this region has always been of greater importance then it should be. For almost all of the past 3,000 years, it has been because of where it sits between 3 Continents because of trade. Only in the past 50 years or so has it been about oil. Oil may have replaced the trade in importance (which is still of critical importance), but it is not the only one.

Imagine a hypothetical caliphate rising in the area, and cutting off all trade through the Suez Canal, and refusing any overflights of their airspace. Then tell me again how the only thing important is oil.

Interestingly, whenever I find such a simplistic answer ("it is only about XXX"), what I find the person really means is "I only care about XXX".

Myself, I only care about the people in the region.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
The Ottoman Empire was getting progressively weaker, as you well know. England's mistakes were to arbitrarily draw the boundary lines for Saudi Arabia, Iraq and (IIRC) Afghanistan without much (if any) consideration of different clans or sects, like the Kurds, or who was Sunni and who was Shi'a. On top of that, they had promised Palestine to the Palestinians, but when English chemist Chaim Weizmann developed a synthetic form of gunpowder during WWI (the German U-boat blockade was choking off their supply of gunpowder, which meant that the English Navy would have become impotent) and thus made a huge contribution to winning the war, the Crown offered him anything within its power to give, and he chose a homeland for Jews. (I got all that from "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", the Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Richard Rhodes - I strongly, strongly recommend that book!)

Chaim Weizmann, IIRC, was also the first prime minister of Israel.

And that is why the Palestinians call Israel the "twice-promised land". They believe it should have been theirs since they had occupied it since the Jewish diaspora so many centuries before, and they believed the land was theirs. England, however, had taken it over, and now they were handing the Palestinians' homeland to the Jews.

So between England's arbitrary border-drawing and their inserting a homeland for the Jews, we have a wonderful recipe for unrest in the region...and for the life of me, I see it as nothing less than a diplomatic Gordian knot, and like the legend from so long ago, it's one that I fear can only be untied with a sword.
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Palestine did not exist before 1920, prior to that it was called the levant and people there identified by religion rather than country, jews muslims christians and many smaller religions all co-existed in that region. Palestine itself was based off the roman word slur for phillistines, who were ancient enemies of the israelites until they were defeated by the assyrians, and later merged in with the cultures of the region.

Palestine itself was a creation by britain, and never existed prior, prior to that it was a mix up of different tribes and religions living together in the levant.
 
I tend to see it in psychological terms, and see the rage as a result of cognitive dissonance.

Islam is more than just a religion, as it also acts as a supremacist ideology. A warlord who's very business was to invade and kill people created it as the ideological basis for binding his warriors to him, and he did so by utilizing a simple reward/punishment system that invoked God in order to pursue his worldly objective of domination and control. It was all about us vs them and crafted in such a way as to elevate the warrior and diminish the opponent. It is all about creating a vision that following the warlord elevated the status of the warrior. They are better. They are entitled. They are the only way. Everybody else is lesser. Everybody else is undeserving. Everybody else is wrong.

Now, fast forward to today to the age of communication, and the charade of superiority vanishes. People look around and they see western civilization that far surpasses them in every way imaginable, and the reason for this is BECAUSE of the very ideology that insists they are superior. Instead of embracing new ideas, they are rooted in ancient ways. Instead of innovation, they are stagnant. Instead of women being fully functional members contributing to society, they are treated as lesser. Instead of dialogue and the free exchange of ideas, they are superstitious and censoring. Instead of looking inward and examining themselves in order to improve, they only look outward, convinced of their superiority.


Now, something's got to give when supremacists are able to perceive evidence that they aren't supreme in any conceivable way, and this lashing out is the method with which they deny the evidence. It can't be THEM responsible for their failures since they have been indoctrinated to cultivate the notion that they are destined to reign supreme, therefore, it must be those who remind them they aren't superior by outproducing them, creating things they cannot create, advancing the human condition when they are steeped in tradition and advancing their interests instead of the interests of the Ummah.
 
beerftw said:
Palestine did not exist before 1920, prior to that it was called the levant and people there identified by religion rather than country, jews muslims christians and many smaller religions all co-existed in that region. Palestine itself was based off the roman word slur for phillistines, who were ancient enemies of the israelites until they were defeated by the assyrians, and later merged in with the cultures of the region.

Palestine itself was a creation by britain, and never existed prior, prior to that it was a mix up of different tribes and religions living together in the levant.
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FYI, the REGION very much did exist - just because it hadn't been given that particular name or had its border specifically drawn before then does not obviate the fact that the majority who were living in that region were what we would today call Palestinians, and the original promise had been made to them.

And while you yourself may not care about that promise, the people who live there, who had been the majority of the people living in that region for well over a thousand years, and it is they who feel that England backed out on what the Crown had promised, and that their land has been stolen from them.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Not really. That region of the world has had constant conflicts and strife for over 3,000 years. There is absolutely nothing new about the feuds and factional fighting in that area of the world.

However, much of the rise has to do with the Cold War. Both the US and USSR used the region for flooding in weapons and "experts". However, during most of that time period, most of the nations took aid from the Soviets, the US largely supported a single nation, Israel.

But by the early 1980's, this started to change. After several failed wars with Israel and years of broken promises by the Soviets, several key ME nations started to move away from the USSR and towards the US. This hesitant stepping turned into a flood after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, then the collapse of the Soviet Union. And in the decades since, many are realizing that the most stable nations in that area of the world are ironically the older Monarchies and Principalities that have been there for over 50 years. It is the Republics-Dictatorships that have been shown to be the most unstable.

Then add in the other source of instability, religious uprising. Which interestingly enough almost all comes from the one non-Arab Islamic nation in the region.

But the oil has little to do with it. But this region has always been of greater importance then it should be. For almost all of the past 3,000 years, it has been because of where it sits between 3 Continents because of trade. Only in the past 50 years or so has it been about oil. Oil may have replaced the trade in importance (which is still of critical importance), but it is not the only one.

Imagine a hypothetical caliphate rising in the area, and cutting off all trade through the Suez Canal, and refusing any overflights of their airspace. Then tell me again how the only thing important is oil.

Interestingly, whenever I find such a simplistic answer ("it is only about XXX"), what I find the person really means is "I only care about XXX".

Myself, I only care about the people in the region.
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Well said! But when you say "the one non-Arab Islamic nation in the region", are you referring to (Shi'a) Iran? Because ISIS is an extremist organization that follows (or, perhaps more accurately, claims to follow) fundamentalist Wahabbi Sunni theology.
 
Oozlefinch said:
The same with any extremism. Be it Muslim, Christian, Secularism, Atheism, Socialism, or any other religion or belief.

TO me, it does not matter what the extremism is "in the name of", if you are willing to kill for it, you have gone to far.



I love whenever people bring this up.

First of all, the region was not partitioned by "England", it was partitioned by the Leage of Nations. For example, much of what we know today as Iraq was actually the Ottoman Province of Mosul, which became the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. Much of the rest was in the French Mandate, which was also largely partitioned by the League of Nations. Generally following the lines that had been set up centuries earlier by the Ottoman Empire.

For example, Palestine was broken up into 2 different parts. The major region to the East became Transjordan (and later Jordan), and the rest Palestine. The French Mandate of Lebanon was broken up into 2, with the Northern part becoming Syria. And things like religion were taken carefully into account. Especially in Lebanon, where the majority Sunni population of what is now Syria was broken off from the far more cosmopolitan population of Lebanon (with large Jewish, Druze, and Christian populations).

Unless the region was broken into 10,000 states, there was no way they could ever have made everybody happy. But I do admit I always love hearing those claims.
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And during the partition, who in the post-WWI League of Nations (of which America was not a party)? England and France. What they said was pretty much what was going to happen. I think you'd have to agree with that.

What's more, this morning I ran across a story about the 1961 Paris massacre of 200+ Algerians by the French police (who were led, ironically, by a former WWII collaborator who would subsequently stand trial for war crimes). And then I remembered that France once held much of what is today Syria.

In other words, a significant factor - though certainly not a main factor - may be a sense of revenge for France having essentially once been Syria's colonial ruler.
 
Jack Hays said:
All overshadowed by the ISIS struggle to form the Caliphate called forth by Mohamed.

From Lewis:

In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam. But the greater part of the world is still outside Islam, and even inside the Islamic lands, according to the view of the Muslim radicals, the faith of Islam has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated. The obligation of holy war therefore begins at home and continues abroad, against the same infidel enemy.
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I would not use the word "overshadowed" since that implies that such is somehow an overarching factor...and it's not, as is made plain by the attacks by Shi'a, (mainstream) Sunni, and Kurdish forces against the same organization even though each of those three sects deeply dislike and distrust each other. The Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish sects are each larger, much longer-established, and - with the possible exception of the Kurds - much more powerful than ISIS.

So...no. I would agree that Muslims do see the world in a fashion roughly analogous to that of mainstream "Christianity" - saved or not saved - and as with mainstream "Christianity", the overwhelming majority of Islam, Sunni and Shi'a alike, no longer see it as any kind of obligation or duty to spread their religion by the sword.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Well said! But when you say "the one non-Arab Islamic nation in the region", are you referring to (Shi'a) Iran? Because ISIS is an extremist organization that follows (or, perhaps more accurately, claims to follow) fundamentalist Wahabbi Sunni theology.
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I am refering to the fact that the people of Iran are not Arabs (Semitic), but of Caucasian descent. Like the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Not everybody who is a Muslim in that area of the world is an "Arab".

Glen Contrarian said:
And during the partition, who in the post-WWI League of Nations (of which America was not a party)? England and France. What they said was pretty much what was going to happen. I think you'd have to agree with that.

In other words, a significant factor - though certainly not a main factor - may be a sense of revenge for France having essentially once been Syria's colonial ruler.
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No, it was not entirely done because of what France and England wanted. In fact, Turkey also had quite a bit to say over how it's former possessions were administered, as did the people themselves (a prime example is the territory of Hatay, which choose to rejoin Turkey rather then become an independent country). Syria for example was set up specifically to give the Sunni Muslims in the far North of the Lebanon Territory more control of their region, without having to negotiate with the more diffuse government in Beirut.

In fact, were you aware that the French Mandate was originally broken into 6 different territories? They are Damascus, Aleppo, Alawites, Jabal Druze, the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, and the State of Greater Lebanon. These were all drawn up taking great care to resolve possible factional fighting, but from almost day 1, fighting broke out between each of these but the territory of Lebanon. Finally it was decided that only a single country with a strong central government could keep the factionalism at bey, so all the others were rounded up and Syria was created. Other then that of Sanjak of Alexandretta, which is now the aforementioned Hatay and is part of Turkey.

One thing that could be said for the Monarchies created in that region, they were able to keep the factionalism at bay for decades. And in the cases where the monarchies were replaced, it was by coups not popular unrest. And they were replaced by even more brutal dictatorships. So of course once those dictatorships collapsed or started to collapse, the factionalism returned with a vengance. That is why in that region of the world, I favor the return of the monarchies, not some kind of republic that is doomed to fail under infighting.

And no, France was never the "Colonial Ruler" of Syria or any other of the Mandates, no more then England was. It was a Protected Mandate, and the goal of the LoN and France-England was to administer these regions until they were ready for independence. Remember, these were territories that had been part of the Ottoman Empire for over 1,000 years. They had none of the structure in place to become independent nations at that time. And as each created those structures and established stable governments, they one by one became independent and the protectorates ended.

Much like what the US did with the Philippines and Cuba. Control as a way to allow the country to prepare itself for independence. Much better if you ask me then simply casting a new nation to the wolves, and hoping that everything works out in the end.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
I would not use the word "overshadowed" since that implies that such is somehow an overarching factor...and it's not, as is made plain by the attacks by Shi'a, (mainstream) Sunni, and Kurdish forces against the same organization even though each of those three sects deeply dislike and distrust each other. The Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish sects are each larger, much longer-established, and - with the possible exception of the Kurds - much more powerful than ISIS.

So...no. I would agree that Muslims do see the world in a fashion roughly analogous to that of mainstream "Christianity" - saved or not saved - and as with mainstream "Christianity", the overwhelming majority of Islam, Sunni and Shi'a alike, no longer see it as any kind of obligation or duty to spread their religion by the sword.
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The Kurds are not a sect. They are a nationality. As far as ISIS is concerned, Kurds, Shi'a and non-radical Sunni are all members of the House of Unbelief. They all attack ISIS because ISIS attacks them.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
FYI, the REGION very much did exist - just because it hadn't been given that particular name or had its border specifically drawn before then does not obviate the fact that the majority who were living in that region were what we would today call Palestinians, and the original promise had been made to them.

And while you yourself may not care about that promise, the people who live there, who had been the majority of the people living in that region for well over a thousand years, and it is they who feel that England backed out on what the Crown had promised, and that their land has been stolen from them.
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Yes the region did exist, it went by names like levant canaan etc. But prior to the british mandate the area was very sparsely populated, even with a majority muslim population, Its overall population was small, after the british mandate it exploded in population.


Further arguing about a group of people who lived there a thousand years being more important than people who lived there around 4000 years does not bode well in an argument. The jewish people have viewed it as their holyland as far back as written history can record, and have been forcefully removed from it. While much of its post mandate population is from muslim and jewish immigrants.

It does not sound like they were really ripped off on the deal, they were promised a country that did not exist from land they took by force numerous times through history, and their gripe seems to be that the land was not solely under muslim control, in the jewish christian and samaritan holy land.
 
beerftw said:
Yes the region did exist, it went by names like levant canaan etc. But prior to the british mandate the area was very sparsely populated, even with a majority muslim population, Its overall population was small, after the british mandate it exploded in population.


Further arguing about a group of people who lived there a thousand years being more important than people who lived there around 4000 years does not bode well in an argument. The jewish people have viewed it as their holyland as far back as written history can record, and have been forcefully removed from it. While much of its post mandate population is from muslim and jewish immigrants.

It does not sound like they were really ripped off on the deal, they were promised a country that did not exist from land they took by force numerous times through history, and their gripe seems to be that the land was not solely under muslim control, in the jewish christian and samaritan holy land.
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Uh-uh. The great majority of the Jews left. Those who remained behind were what we would today call Palestinians. You can't say, "hey, we lived there for thousands of years, yeah, most of us left for over a thousand years but now we want our land back." And while many were forced out, many also left voluntarily.

Nope. Your argument makes no sense.
 
Jack Hays said:
The Kurds are not a sect. They are a nationality. As far as ISIS is concerned, Kurds, Shi'a and non-radical Sunni are all members of the House of Unbelief. They all attack ISIS because ISIS attacks them.
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Yes, the Kurds are a nationality - I quite agree with that. I should not have referred to them as a 'sect'. However, it's an obvious mistake to lump them in with either the Wahabbi Sunnis of Saudi Arabia or the Shi'a of Iran. The majority are Shafi Sunni, some are Shi'a, and some are Sufi...and many belong to sub-sects of these larger sects. But they do not by any means share the extremist Wahabbi Sunni faith of ISIS, and you know from your own experience that they are not allied with any of the nations in the region.
 
Oozlefinch said:
I am refering to the fact that the people of Iran are not Arabs (Semitic), but of Caucasian descent. Like the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Not everybody who is a Muslim in that area of the world is an "Arab".



No, it was not entirely done because of what France and England wanted. In fact, Turkey also had quite a bit to say over how it's former possessions were administered, as did the people themselves (a prime example is the territory of Hatay, which choose to rejoin Turkey rather then become an independent country). Syria for example was set up specifically to give the Sunni Muslims in the far North of the Lebanon Territory more control of their region, without having to negotiate with the more diffuse government in Beirut.

In fact, were you aware that the French Mandate was originally broken into 6 different territories? They are Damascus, Aleppo, Alawites, Jabal Druze, the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, and the State of Greater Lebanon. These were all drawn up taking great care to resolve possible factional fighting, but from almost day 1, fighting broke out between each of these but the territory of Lebanon. Finally it was decided that only a single country with a strong central government could keep the factionalism at bey, so all the others were rounded up and Syria was created. Other then that of Sanjak of Alexandretta, which is now the aforementioned Hatay and is part of Turkey.

One thing that could be said for the Monarchies created in that region, they were able to keep the factionalism at bay for decades. And in the cases where the monarchies were replaced, it was by coups not popular unrest. And they were replaced by even more brutal dictatorships. So of course once those dictatorships collapsed or started to collapse, the factionalism returned with a vengance. That is why in that region of the world, I favor the return of the monarchies, not some kind of republic that is doomed to fail under infighting.

And no, France was never the "Colonial Ruler" of Syria or any other of the Mandates, no more then England was. It was a Protected Mandate, and the goal of the LoN and France-England was to administer these regions until they were ready for independence. Remember, these were territories that had been part of the Ottoman Empire for over 1,000 years. They had none of the structure in place to become independent nations at that time. And as each created those structures and established stable governments, they one by one became independent and the protectorates ended.

Much like what the US did with the Philippines and Cuba. Control as a way to allow the country to prepare itself for independence. Much better if you ask me then simply casting a new nation to the wolves, and hoping that everything works out in the end.
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While I agree with and appreciate much of what you say, when it comes to France not being the "Colonial Ruler" of Syria, that's largely a matter of semantics. Yes, they were never an "official" colony, not in the sense that, say, America was once a colony of England. But when France had the mandate, their word was pretty much law...as was the case with all the other examples you presented. It walks like a duck, and so forth.

And think on this - we could tell the locals in each of these nations that they were never "ruled" by the nation that held the nation that held the "Mandate" till we're blue in the face, and the locals would simply look back at us like we're stupid. They would know better - it was their grandparents who lived underneath the mandates. And seeing as how THEY think that they were for all intents and purposes colonized, it stands to reason that some might still carry that anger across the generations...and I think you would agree that grudges there are often held for much longer than most Americans would expect.

What do you think?
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Yes, the Kurds are a nationality - I quite agree with that. I should not have referred to them as a 'sect'. However, it's an obvious mistake to lump them in with either the Wahabbi Sunnis of Saudi Arabia or the Shi'a of Iran. The majority are Shafi Sunni, some are Shi'a, and some are Sufi...and many belong to sub-sects of these larger sects. But they do not by any means share the extremist Wahabbi Sunni faith of ISIS, and you know from your own experience that they are not allied with any of the nations in the region.
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I've been to Erbil.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
What do you think?
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Of course they were ruled from France and England, I never said they were not.

However, it was the very intent of the Mandate that this only happen until they were ready for independence. And there are other major differences as well.

In a Mandate like this, Local Law applied. The only reason for the oversight is to allow the new nation to set up a functioning government and get on it's feet.

In a Colony, it is permanent. The laws of the parent country is all that matters, other then what they choose to give them. Local governments are only for local purposes.

In a Mandate, the land and it's resources belong to the people. If a French company exploits the resources, they have to pay the local government.

In a Colony, all resources belong to the home country. Companies pay the home country for resource rights, and do whatever they like, wealth returning to the home country.

Now there are a great many differences between the two, but those are the biggest ones.

Now did French companies get preferences and good deals in setting up in the French Mandate? Of course they did, I am not stupid. But the fact is the moneys were paid to the Local Government, not to France. Compare say the situation in the French Mandate with that in French Indochina, and it should be obvious what I am talking about.

So it is much-much more then semantics. Yes, the French "ruled", which is a far-far cry from the French "owned". And if people can not understand the differences and want to use it to beat up on the French or others, then to hell with them for the most part.

The United States "ruled" Cuba and the Philippines as well, but you do not hear them bitching about it decades later (well, Cuba does but then again they bitch about almost everything).
 
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