Fundamentalism (General)

by dhw, Friday, October 31, 2008, 19:40 (5865 days ago) @ Walter

Walter has drawn a distinction between the religious fanaticism of the Muslim suicide bombers and the motivation for western interference in other societies. - Thank you for this, and welcome to the site. Perhaps my post was a bit too elliptical. I wrote that "we condemn the fundamentalists for their pitiless campaigns to destroy the fabric of our society and to impose their values on us", but we have been doing the same thing for centuries. I didn't mean to imply that we were always motivated by religion, and you are absolutely right that greed has been and still is a major factor. So too is fear. I think that during the Communist era, that was a major influence on US foreign policy, and it is clear that 9/11 has triggered a similar backlash. I'm also interested in David's response to your post, in which he says that in Arab countries "there is little education in Democracy and it will take a generation or two to develop it" ... which seems to be based on the questionable assumption that everyone ought to adopt the western system of democracy. In brief, though, I was simply trying to point out that while we so readily (and in my view rightly) condemn the violence of the fundamentalists, we in the west are no less violent in our treatment of those who for whatever reason stand in our way. The Iraq war is a prime example of brutal western interference (though of course that does not vindicate Saddam's own brutality). - As for the Arab-Israel conflict, perhaps I could refer you to my post at 12.56 on 23 September under "Islam".