David Sanderson commented on 2020-05-30 12:34
I'm not sure why I'm expected to express outrage about every wrong or crime that has been committed, whether by a Muslim, a Christian or anyone else. What I've made clear all along is that I'm opposed (article 657252-12346)
Link back to commentI'm not sure why I'm expected to express outrage about every wrong or crime that has been committed, whether by a Muslim, a Christian or anyone else. What I've made clear all along is that I'm opposed to the bigotry, the 'existential threat', 'clash of civilisations' paranoia that Peter is pushing, the bigotry that paints Islam as a threat akin to 1930s fascism.
I've pointed to the causes of Islamic extremism that have nothing to do with any Islamic text:
"We are looking at societies that have been severely fractured by imperialism and Cold War rivalry. Nations that were arbitrarily created by imperial powers and were still distorted by imperial domination long after nominal independence. Iran and Saudi Arabia, both sources of 'extremism', and the nations Peter probably has in mind, are both the products of these forces. It was the US that chose to destroy Iran's nascent democracy and install it's handpicked patsy Shah thereby ensuring an inevitable reaction and revolution and the victory of the ugly theocrats we see in power today. The vicious determination of the Western powers (Western civilisation?), backed up by military and economic coercion, to thwart self-determination drove subjugated people towards increasingly extremist opposition.
In the case of Salafist ideology it has its centre and bulwark in the Saud family autocracy, largely created by Western powers and maintained to this day by the US, despite Salafism being the soil Al Qaeda grew from and the involvement of many Saudis in 9/11."
Peter's total response is this:
"cites a litany of alleged Western villainy as somehow explaining some of these pathologies"
That's it, that's his total accounting of how centuries of imperial domination, great power rivalry, Cold War machinations, post-imperial domination and wars have sown the ground for extremist movements. According to Peter that's all just a lame excuse, the real reason is that Islam is, always will be, a satanic force.
It's all plain and simple according to Peter and, like all fundamentalisms, it latches on to a couple of simple ideas and claims they explain everything.