You really know jack-shit about Buddhism, don’t you?

Guilty as charged! And I couldn’t give a proverbial, so don’t bother.

… lack of independent thought and uncritical acceptance of a mode of thinking/ perspective on reality..

Kinda like Huntington yah? Which was the point, but anyway…

As for Buddhism - Buddhists are just as likely to engage in terrorist acts (by which I mean an act of politically motivated violence), as any other ideological adherent. Though Buddhist terrorists tend to direct that violence at themselves rather than not. Remember the self immolating Buddhist monk of the Vietnam era? That was the use of violence/force (towards himself), to make a political point - in other words a terrorist act. Just ‘cos it didn’t kill other people doesn’t mean it wasn’t an act of terrorism.

Ok, so genocide is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, as is an imperialist Buddhist! But it is possible…

But anyway… the thread is old and we’re off topic. Let’s leave it there

I don’t hold any brief for Christianity but please explain to me the commonalities of Islam and Buddhism. Where has Buddhism engaged in genocide and imperialism?

Both require an adherent to give up their independent thought and uncritically accept a mode of thinking / perspective on reality that will influence the adherents actions. Refer “ism�. Once an adherent accepts without question, inhumane actions (of which genocide is one pinnacle) are sure to follow eventually. Just a matter of time really.

You really know jack-shit about Buddhism, don’t you?

Your entire post is a demonstration of the lack of independent thought and uncritical acceptance of a mode of thinking/ perspective on reality that you condemn.

GregM:

things that have occurred in the course of the history of Islam in which Western institutions simply weren’t there and therefore had no role to play.

I have to agree - it is after all Islamic history. So getting back to one of my earlier points: throughout history the nature and reasons for religious war have changed with the nature of their societies… dating from the 1980s, Islamic notions of jihad seem to have altered more drastically then at previous points of contact… What happened in the 80s -> Afghanistan -> US/Pak/Saudi/Chinese/etc support of an international jihad to be waged against the Soviets. In other words we taught them how to internationalise it, and furthermore actively assisted jihadist groups to travel and train with the mob that would go on to form Al-Q, JI, and every other major Islamic ‘terrorist’ group of the 21stC.

Islam is a very assertive and at times aggressive religious ideology.

What, unlike Christianity? Or Judaism? All ism’s share these features.

You ascribe a victimhood to it, a popular theme on this site, that it doesn’t deserve.

Islam deserves it’s victim-hood as much as does Judaism… or XPism, Hinduism, etc, etc, in fact anything that ends in “ism” tends to have some notion of victim-hood within it - even Liberalism.

It makes its own decisions and, from our perspective, mistakes according to its own sense of what is right.

Yes, because the Islamic ‘church’ is so centralised and consistent across the world… just like, say, Catholicism and the Vatican’s standardised/globalised message…? Wtf?

It ran a slave trade

So did everyone else at some point in history. So what?

Then you indulge in the convenient moral relativism of arguing that all religions are much the same

They are - they’re all utter nonsense, usually based on some pseudo-scientific, non-causal nonsense.

with the standard caveat that Christianity is the worst of them all

Naaaa, that was just trolling/flaming. I’ve already apologised to JohnG for that. If I was doing the same to you I’d make comments about Buddhism instead ‘cos you seem to be hung up on it (in previous comments), but not because I have a serious expectation that you’re Buddhist.

I don’t hold any brief for Christianity but please explain to me the commonalities of Islam and Buddhism. Where has Buddhism engaged in genocide and imperialism?

Both require an adherent to give up their independent thought and uncritically accept a mode of thinking / perspective on reality that will influence the adherents actions. Refer “ism”. Once an adherent accepts without question, inhumane actions (of which genocide is one pinnacle) are sure to follow eventually. Just a matter of time really.

I don’t blame some ephermeral ‘west’, I blame individuals within the governments, businesses, NGOs, etc within what Huntington would call ‘The West’.

Tony, the problem with that is that you are blaming Western institutions or the individuals within them for things that have occurred in the course of the history of Islam in which Western institutions simply weren’t there and therefore had no role to play. Islam is a very assertive and at times aggressive religious ideology. You ascribe a victimhood to it, a popular theme on this site, that it doesn’t deserve. It makes its own decisions and, from our perspective, mistakes according to its own sense of what is right. It ran a slave trade based upon the violent seizure of people up and down the east coast of Africa for hundreds of years before Vasco da Gama (and Bartholemew Diaz before him, just in case there is a dreary pedant lurking) rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Its violent invasion of India and persecution of its Hindu population occurred long before there was any Western contact with that subcontinent.

Then you indulge in the convenient moral relativism of arguing that all religions are much the same, with the standard caveat that Christianity is the worst of them all, when you say to JG:

So I take it you’re a christian then? If so - we won’t agree about Islam then, no matter what. Your opinions of the nature of Islam is pretty much what I ascribe to all religions, but especially christanity…

I don’t hold any brief for Christianity but please explain to me the commonalities of Islam and Buddhism. Where has Buddhism engaged in genocide and imperialism?

That’s OK!

H may not actually say it, but that is his implication…

H is approaching things from the End of Ideology/History position so popularised by US ‘victory’ in the cold war… they forget their classics… “War does not determine who is right, merely who is left.” Thanks Bertrand!

Mere assertion is hardly ‘nailing.’

Ahhh, sorry I’m not so hip with the blogger lingo homie, UR 2 L337 4 me! I’m an computer engineer, semantic games bore me.

Oh and the XP thing was due to this comment:

Islam was founded on both genocide and imperialism and The Koran is humanity’s most unapologetic panegyric to both.

That anyone would claim this about a particular religion, without allowing that it’s pretty common across all of them… usually means that some buttons are being pushed. Sorry for misinterpreting you!

Where do you get the idea I am a Xian? I am an atheist for goodness sakes.

I don’t blame some ephermeral ‘west’, I blame individuals within the governments, businesses, NGOs, etc within what Huntington would call ‘The West’.

These problems are human in nature, not anything else.

Never asign to conspiracy that which should rightly be asigned to incompetance. I think that’s the saying anyway.

John G:

So I take it you’re a christian then? If so - we won’t agree about Islam then, no matter what. Your opinions of the nature of Islam is pretty much what I ascribe to all religions, but especially christanity…

On a purely tactical level it appears to me that OBL’s latest video missive is designed to be an incitement to Bush to provoke him to maintain or perhaps to ramp up the US military effort in Iraq.

Indeed. Personally I think both Bush and bin Laden are dizygotic twins whose rise on the earth was prophesised in The Book of Revelation.

When the Jews return to Zion, and a comet rips the sky, And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. (UN in New York)

These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. From the Eternal Sea, He rises, creating armies on either shore, turing man against his brother, till man exists no more.

And you are correct on this too.

OBL expects the triumph in Iraq of the hated “Persians� (Sunni code for Iran and Shiites interchangeably) will provoke an upsurge in Sunni fundamentalism grafted on to Arab nationalism.

There has been a bizarre trend in Gaza since Hamas’ election where at Fatah meetings, when Hamas is mentioned the crowd starts chanting “Shia! Shia!” and hissing about “Persians,” even though Hamas is clearly neither!

Culture is not destiny. Destiny is destiny! As some of your more desire straits and incentivized plundits and filosophers whistle, if you’ve got the power, you take what you want easy like sunday afternoon delight.

Your “cultures” are just the double ripple rum and raison flavoring on the same lactose tolerant hydrocarbon products up for the smash and takeaway in all your star bucks outflows. But you all want the big big juicy scoops first.

But when you are finally enfiladed into the warm bosoms of Boskone, you will realise just how big big 42 double scoops can be when we brazierly napalm the bra of “culture” and let it all hang down, visage of humanoid simulacra marketed for spawn.

Shaun nails it: Culture is, indeed, not destiny.

1. Shaun is fighting paper tigers, as Huntington has never said anything like this.

2. If this is the case, Shaun certainly does not ‘nail it.’ Mere assertion is hardly ‘nailing.’

The traditional Islamic concepts of Jihad however does not allow, for example, deliberate targeting of civilians. Note the use of the word ‘traditional’.

Unmitigated bollocks. Islam was founded on both genocide and imperialism and The Koran is humanity’s most unapologetic panegyric to both.

See what I’m driving at? Change has occurred within the fundamental nature of jihad - it has become more ‘westernised’ over time. Possibly dating from ‘lie back and think of England’ boy’s days exercising his royal prerogative in the ME sun, you never know.

The evidence doesn’t seem to support you. While you may be right that Huntingdon makes no allowance for the changing nature of cultures but nor is it helpful to blame the West for everything that happens in the world. “Jihad” has changed over time, and long before any Western influence can be ascribed to that change.

So you’re saying that Timur’s campaign was jihad?

Mere “cynical political manipulation of religious traditions for personal/state advantage (either internally or externally to Islam).” if it could be called a jihad. Though Timur’s wiki page says that while “he thought of himself as a ghazi, .. his biggest wars were against Muslim states.” Reading wiki further it sounds like the man was steeped in political expediency, not Islam.

There is one mention of jihad - under Mahmud of Ghazni. The section describes behaviour consistent with traditional jihad if you believe the Holt ref’s.

But getting back to Huntington, Shaun nails it: Culture is, indeed, not destiny. H makes no allowance for the changing nature of cultures. As the saying goes, we have a lot to learn from , and sometimes we can learn what not to do. And learn.

The traditional Islamic concepts of Jihad however does not allow, for example, deliberate targeting of civilians. Note the use of the word ‘traditional’.

I’m not sure that the Hindu population of India quite remembers it that way, and their contact with Muslim invaders pre-dates anything Western. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Timur_the_Lame.27s_Campaign_against_India

I’m confused, all your tree references may actually make sense if only you knew what my gaming nic was, but then again who knows?… Yah sorry for the heavy anti-us shtick, shouldn’t do it you’re right. Rats in barrel etc I know, I know. Though I admit to semi-trolling, granted.

I wasn’t clear enough; I was referring to 1979 Afghanistan mujahideen fighters, the ones Reagan called the moral equiv of America’s founding fathers. As in the ones who were supposedly to eventually inspire an Islamic war against the ‘Evil Empire’ and be good little proxy fighters for the US… That particular attempt at inspiring crusade/jihad is what I should have specifically said I was referring to in that comment… todays “The Movement”/AQ… that came later and for more complex reasons, like Iraq 1991. But the AQ ideology seems to be grounded in the jihadist notions and ideas developed in and during and as a result of the 20thC Afghan wars.

Sayyid Qutb, Hasan al-Banna, and Ruhollah Khomeini, you are all hereby excused. You too, 19th-century Sudanese Mahdi. Oh, and you too, numberless Muslim persecutors of Armenians, Copts, and assorted other kuffar rabble unlucky enough to live within the dar al-islam.

Yah, and you forgot Faraj too, apparently. Seriously though, compare the goals and character (for want of a better term) of Saladin to of those modernish instances and then to Afghanistan circa 1980s. Today is different again.

Of a traditional western crusade it could be said that all it’s participating members’ are provided religious justification for their barbaric behaviors. Since it’s all for the greater glory of god etc it’s apparently ok. Thus targeting civilians is perfectly excusable.

The traditional Islamic concepts of Jihad however does not allow, for example, deliberate targeting of civilians. Note the use of the word ‘traditional’.

See what I’m driving at? Change has occurred within the fundamental nature of jihad - it has become more ‘westernised’ over time. Possibly dating from ‘lie back and think of England’ boy’s days exercising his royal prerogative in the ME sun, you never know.

Reactionary politics certainly accounts for some and probably the historical bulk, particularly in some of the examples you cite. Organic change yet more. Cynical political manipulation of religious traditions for personal/state advantage (either internally or externally to Islam) accounts for some more.

“For every complex problem, there is a simple solution. And it’s usually wrong.”

But hey, I ultimately blame those pesky Zoroastrians. If they hadn’t formalised the whole Good vs Evil thing way back when, none of this would be happening.

Toynbee, that’s who it was! Thanks Jack!

I think that he is right to “culturalise� political conflict. But I think his scaling is all wrong. The culture war is all about local regions rather than global civilizations.

I suspect it may be more along the lines of clans, tribes, ethnic groups, cultures, religions and even urban gangs. Where H goes wrong I think (aside for not allowing for change), is that he focuses on 1 thing only. There’s more to the rich chaotic complexity of human life than just culture and religion.

Jihadist gangs remind me of rock bands and art collectives the way they ape the sub-cultures of the sixties and seventies in its DIY, tech-savvy approach.

Yeah, sad isn’t it. That Al-Qaedaism could become almost fashionable says a lot about the ‘western’ counter-narrative.

It’s also interesting to note that for a generation, western conservatives have not only been uninterested in culture but proudly philistine. Churchill and Menzies not only regarded Shakespeare as important but believed his works contained practical lessons about human behaviour. Modern conservatives regard Shakespeare as something to be foisted on children, like cod liver oil. This also undermines Huntington’s thesis, because you have to believe that Cheney, Bush, Howard et al really are guardians of the traditions of Voltaire, Mill, Locke, (insert non-marxist western theorist here). Not only is this logically flawed, it’s actually quite funny.