>Do you think the wars and other conflicts in the region are likely to slow down, even in recognition of Ramadan this year?<
I don't think they will.
Today's modern Jihad extremists don't seem to be bound by any of the major tenets of Islam - No more so than the Crusaders who sacked Jerusalem in the last millenium were bound by the ideals of Christianity.
The extremist elements who are creating most of the violence are really involved in an identity movement, in which being a Muslim is a part of their cultural identity - Practicing Islam is something altogether different.
It is similar to "Christian identity" movements of the far right, and Nazi preoccupation with Germanic legend, and Odin, as a cultural phenomenon that bound Germans together under fascism.
This explains a great deal of the exaggerated anger at Pope Benedict. Underneath the rallys, and banners, it isn't that Muslims are angry over insults directed at the Prophet, or Islam-
The problem is that, as Muslims, Arabs, non-caucasians, they feel personally threatened and insulted.
The level of anger over Benedict's statements seems directly correlated with the extent to which the Muslim in question perceives his/herself part of the modern Western world.
A Muslim in an office in Istanbul is no less a Muslim than a Bedouin in Yemen - Yet their takes on the Pope's statements are likely to be vastly different!
The problem, of course, is that as the politics of modern Islam becomes increasingly culture and race driven, non-Arabs, and non-Muslims become less sympathetic, and less able to empathize with them.
The recent response to Benedict's statements are so far out of proportion, and so clearly founded in cultural duplicity, that it is nearly impossible to have any sympathy for Islam on this point.
Pretty much what they seem to want from Catholicism, is for Catholics as infidels, worshippers of a false God, and adherents to an immoral pagan faith, to apologize for a quote taken out of context in an academic speech Benedict made regarding the early history of Islamic/Christian relations, in which he was careful to present Islam as an authentic, yet different belief.
It is so bigoted, and one sided, that I find it quite repellant.
If I find it repellant - It is a fair guess that nearly every non-Muslim does!
Tim
Edited 9/22/06 by TimR
Edited 9/22/06 by TimR | 
