Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
But, seriously -- you think that "violent Islamic radicals" are motivated by who owns the means of production? Somehow, that fails to explain, to me at least, why the scion of a staggeringly wealthy construction family, for example, would promote violent extremism. Or wealthy, supremely well financed Wahhabi clerics would preach it. Or why such violence occurs in so many different places with so many different characteristics -- from Indonesia to Pakistan to Holland to Algeria to Nigeria and throughout the Middle East.
I believe this violence traces directly back to the way in which Muslims are being taught. Not to the Koran (I'm not a big fan of Penske's rantings), because the Koran like the Bible can be read in any number of ways. But to the people who are preaching the Koran in a particular way -- generally, the Wahhabi clerics and similar types who appear to be dominating the education of young Muslims. And, of course, to the absence of a conflicting message from other Muslims -- which, unlike you, I do not see as merely a failure of "x and y not to criticize z", or however you put it, but rather a contributing, causal factor to the culture of violence.
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My reference to the means of production was an effort to invoke non-cultural explanations relating to things like economic development and geography, etc. For example, I think that Wahhabi views are far more influential than they would have been had the Wahhabis not had the good fortune to find themselves on such an enormous amount of oil. Saudis have used that money to proselytize, and the Saudi government has encouraged these activities in other countries to deflect threats to their own rule.
I'm open to an argument that Islam has characteristics that promote violence, relative to other religions. But I'm with wonk when he points out that other religions have been violent, too. Ten years or so of suicide bombings doesn't seem to me to make the case.
eta: I see something in the suggestion that the problem is not Islam per se, but in the Islamic world's encounter with modernity. Fundamentalism is, perversely, a modern phenomenom.
