So is it just me or is it frightening to see the kind of reaction we have seen regarding the cartoon insulting Mohammad? I was thinking about it the other day from a very non-political point of view. Just step back and think about the difference in people. (Not all Muslims but clearly there is a substantial sized group of radicals) When you see a reaction like this to something that would merit no more then a slot on 60 minutes or the O'Rielly Factor had the cartoon insulted the God i believe in. Not to say my reaction would be better or worse because that is not the point. The point is the difference in reactions. My fear is that the reaction we are seeing is so violent; it really highlights a huge divide between civilizations.
Are we seeing the foundation being built for the 3rd World War where all religiously mixed countries are involved? Is politics really what is driving this? Is there really anything we can do to derail this runaway train?
Or is it just the news story of the week?
Blogging is more fun then building sales presentations!
It is disturbing, and it does seem to be more than just this week's hot story.. the one point I would make is that a lot of these talking heads on TV are hyperventilating about how when Jesus is made fun of, *they* don't care. But I think that misses the point. It's forbidden in Islam to depict the big Mo at all - Where in Christianity images of Jesus/God are a-ok. I don't know what an accurate analogy for us would be - there probably isn't one.. which just makes the cultural divide that much harder to cross. The other thing I would assert, but obviously don't know, is that there is a lot more beneath the surface of the mass demonstrations/outrage than the cartoons - the cartoons may have just been the proverbial spark.
ReplyDeleteOn the Clash of Civilizations idea - there's a good book (of the same name) written by Samuel Huntington - it basically explores the idea that future conflicts will be more civilizational (Asian, Muslim, Western, African, etc.) than between states - and that wars between states that belong to different civs have much more potential to spark larger conflicts. So a war between, say, two African nations would warrant less concern than one between an African nation and a Muslim one - given that other African/Muslim nations would be more likely to pick sides and be drawn in.
So what are we to do? How do we change things? Part of me wants to go with the 'people are animals' line... i.e. massive / brutal / life and death conflicts have been and always will be a part of 'human nature' and here we go again.
ReplyDeleteThat's really a defeatist argument... change is irrelevant if we're always going to end up killing each other.
I understand the culture war idea, and yea it takes time to create a culture and it probably takes more time to change culture. I also think culture can change 'at the top' and from the bottom (i.e. governments and their economic / social policies can change the playing field). At the same time, societal attitudes and needs can influence government policy (government and society are closely related... ohh yea, can't forget religion, damn that whole separation thing has warped my world view).
... this whole comment takes me back to grad school and political/economic geography... the issues are too complex to be resolved in a blog post.
Once I again I gotta mention global voices... they're harvard trained and scanning the global blogosphere.