I woke up this morning, saw the news about Iran’s attacks, and went straight down a rabbit hole of looking up how to try and survive nuclear fallout. Short story is I’m probably fucked. But I’m legit getting a bad feeling about where we are heading.
Sadly, it seems unlikely - my concern is that right now it seems to be growing arms and legs, with various smaller disputes and conflicts all becoming intermingled. And given the second last point, that’s a pretty scary prospect.
I don’t give damn being judged for telling the truth, so it’s obviously Islam which is common in most of the cases mentioned above (not the actual religion but the political Islamic idiology which has been innovated surrounding it). It’s just … why even is it there and why is so much violence around it ?
It’s probably not unrelated to the fact that most of the people living in those countries happen to be Muslim.
Whereas in countries where a majority are Christians, conflicts tend to be fought mostly by… Christians. Eg Russia/Ukraine, many South American countries, even the events of the US Capitol on 6 Jan. Doubt there was a majority of Muslims “fighting like hell” that day. Not to mention both of the World Wars in the last century and a bit.
Meanwhile, there’s places like Myanmar where, I’d feel fairly safe in betting that the majority of combatants in recent conflicts are Buddhists. As were those in Cambodia in the 70s. You could also even double up and consider the Vietnam war where Buddists and Christians were the actors.
So maybe it’s just religion generally? Probably not though, since China’s population is majority atheist, but that didn’t help the students in Tiananmen Square any more than it helped Hong Kong.
The point is, humans in general have a seemingly neverending thirst for conflict, and not all of it can be lazily attributed to which religion they happen to be.
Perhaps right now there is more conflict in Islamic countries, but it wasn’t always so and it won’t always be so either. Snidely hinting that Islam is the problem is not helpful.
It’s not Islam that’s the problem. Rather the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of India were decisions made by western governments, primarily the British. It was a classic colonial tactic to set the interests of various ethnic and religious groups against each other in order to maintain colonial domination. The British were experts at it.
They no longer had the capacity to maintain an empire after WW2 but they still wanted to maintain some level of economic domination over their former colonies. As such, they made sure to draw borders and empower certain ethnic groups in such a way that it would almost guarantee future conflict. The US inherited this strategy and has been deploying it ever since.
Ok, so… (in no particular order)
Added 18 Jan:
Anything else? (Loads, obviously)
What a fucking mess :-(
I woke up this morning, saw the news about Iran’s attacks, and went straight down a rabbit hole of looking up how to try and survive nuclear fallout. Short story is I’m probably fucked. But I’m legit getting a bad feeling about where we are heading.
If you really want to scare/depress yourself, check out the BBC TV movie Threads. It’s bleak as hell. Very good though.
Is there any chance all of this circus ends peacefully soon?
Sadly, it seems unlikely - my concern is that right now it seems to be growing arms and legs, with various smaller disputes and conflicts all becoming intermingled. And given the second last point, that’s a pretty scary prospect.
Can you guess what’s common in them?
Probably lots of things - what did you have in mind?
I don’t give damn being judged for telling the truth, so it’s obviously Islam which is common in most of the cases mentioned above (not the actual religion but the political Islamic idiology which has been innovated surrounding it). It’s just … why even is it there and why is so much violence around it ?
It’s probably not unrelated to the fact that most of the people living in those countries happen to be Muslim.
Whereas in countries where a majority are Christians, conflicts tend to be fought mostly by… Christians. Eg Russia/Ukraine, many South American countries, even the events of the US Capitol on 6 Jan. Doubt there was a majority of Muslims “fighting like hell” that day. Not to mention both of the World Wars in the last century and a bit.
Meanwhile, there’s places like Myanmar where, I’d feel fairly safe in betting that the majority of combatants in recent conflicts are Buddhists. As were those in Cambodia in the 70s. You could also even double up and consider the Vietnam war where Buddists and Christians were the actors.
So maybe it’s just religion generally? Probably not though, since China’s population is majority atheist, but that didn’t help the students in Tiananmen Square any more than it helped Hong Kong.
The point is, humans in general have a seemingly neverending thirst for conflict, and not all of it can be lazily attributed to which religion they happen to be.
Perhaps right now there is more conflict in Islamic countries, but it wasn’t always so and it won’t always be so either. Snidely hinting that Islam is the problem is not helpful.
It’s not Islam that’s the problem. Rather the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of India were decisions made by western governments, primarily the British. It was a classic colonial tactic to set the interests of various ethnic and religious groups against each other in order to maintain colonial domination. The British were experts at it.
They no longer had the capacity to maintain an empire after WW2 but they still wanted to maintain some level of economic domination over their former colonies. As such, they made sure to draw borders and empower certain ethnic groups in such a way that it would almost guarantee future conflict. The US inherited this strategy and has been deploying it ever since.
Indeed - as Yes Prime Minister put it…
“Normally we partition the place. It’s what we did in Ireland, Cyprus, India and Palestine. It always worked.”
“Doesn’t partitioning always lead to civil war? It did in Ireland, Cyprus, India and Palestine.”
“Yes, but it kept them busy, and instead of fighting us they fought each other.”