Re: Defining the Islamic State

Yes, I agree with you that the extent to which religion can and does destroy lives is frightening. I agree also with the argument that, for various social and political reasons (some of which I'll briefly mention later), the Muslim-dominated societies of the world are more at risk from this capacity than people living elsewhere. However, it would be wrong to claim that the Islamic faith is INHERENTLY more likely to lead its followers to brutality, or an unnecessary violent death.

Notwithstanding the long history of murderous crusades by European Christians into the middle east, or the brutal imposition of colonial rule in large parts of this region during the last few hundred years, people in Islamic regions have a more recent history that has, like elsewhere, been dominated by the emergence of global capitalism.

Partly because of a continuation of racism within the (still today, predominantly white and Christian) capitalist class, this history has left large numbers of Muslims in an exploited position, and with no recourse to their state for representation, because these states are largely in the hands of the same globally emergent white, Christian, capitalist establishment.

Not surprisingly, many of these exploited people are today turning to religious fundamentalism to explain their position. Like all religions, Islam is rooted in its own isolation from other faiths. Like most other religions, it has long years of historical experience of its own adherents suffering oppression from outside. And like other religions also, it has accumulated plenty of ideological material to justify attacks against those oppressors.

Examine Christianity, for instance. Inside rich western capitalist, and mainly Christian societies today, there are many, many thousands, who regard the word of the bible as both necessary and sufficient to explain their own oppression (that which I believe is really caused by their position in late capitalist society), AND to justify their governments' racism and brutality abroad. Clearly, one cannot claim that these people, with their computers and cars, etc, are not living in the 21st century. Without the boot of soldiers on their faces, or the sweatshop working conditions that one finds all over the poor world, these people are nevertheless capable of exhibiting all the rage and hatred against the other that one sees in the streets of Palestine.

Danny Dayus