Category: Religion

Divorced at 10 in Yemen

Nujood is a Yemeni girl, and it’s no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists (and now, thanks to Nujood, children who have been divorced). Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.First, those countries usually have very high birth rates, and that means a youth bulge in the population. One of the factors that most correlates to social conflict is the proportion of young men ages 15 to 24.

Second, those countries also tend to practice polygamy and have higher death rates for girls. That means fewer marriageable women — and more frustrated bachelors to be recruited by extremists.

Consider Bangladesh. After it split off from Pakistan, Bangladesh began to educate girls in a way that Pakistan has never done. The educated women staffed an emerging garment industry and civil society, and those educated women are one reason Bangladesh is today far more stable than Pakistan

via Op-Ed Columnist – Divorced Before Puberty – NYTimes.com.

Moderate Muslim Leaders Beat Extremists

In 2005 a man of wisdom and moderation, King Abdullah, formally ascended to the throne and inaugurated a large-scale political and intellectual effort aimed at discrediting the ideology of jihadism. Mullahs were ordered to denounce suicide bombings, and violence more generally. Education was pried out of the hands of the clerics. Terrorists and terror suspects were “rehabilitated” through extensive programs of education, job training, and counseling. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus said to me, “The Saudi role in taking on Al Qaeda, both by force but also using political, social, religious, and educational tools, is one of the most important, least reported positive developments in the war on terror.”

Perhaps the most successful country to combat jihadism has been the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia. In 2002 that country seemed destined for a long and painful struggle with the forces of radical Islam. The nation was rocked by terror attacks, and a local Qaeda affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah, appeared to be gaining strength. But eight years later, JI has been marginalized and main-stream political parties have gained ground, all while a young democracy has flowered after the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship.

Moderate Muslim Leaders Beat Extremists – Newsweek.com.

Globilization’s Religious Revival

Here’s the indisputable reality: All of the world’s major religions were formed during the Malthusian era of human economics, before the Industrial Revolution shifted Western societies from a subsistence paradigm to questions of how to deal with abundance.

Survival economies demand a strict code, but abundance offers a choice: Do I adapt the ancient rules to this economic liberation or do I reject it as a socially driven moral evil?

Once the “go forth and multiply” logic is disrupted, then long-held strictures regarding marriage, family, sex, homosexuality, and other social institutions are suddenly put in jeopardy. This is where globalization’s economic connectivity generates revolutionary social change, unleashing personal freedom that by historical standards is stunning — even perverse.

The upside, of course, is the commensurate unleashing of personal creativity and innovation, something we’ll need in superabundance for the many resource-utilization challenges that lie ahead.

Globalization divides societies into short-term economic winners and losers, for the simple fact that some people adapt faster than others. The temptation for those who come out on the losing end is an end-times ideology that promises deliverance from these unacceptable circumstances. Such fundamentalism pursued peacefully presents no problem. The faithful simply live apart from the “evil world.”

This is how religion’s fundamentalist variants came to replace communism as the worldwide organizing principle for violent resistance to capitalism’s continued evolution and expansion around the planet.

via WPR Article | The New Rules: West Must Bridge Globalization’s ‘God Gap’.

It’s Always About Sex – Jihad That Is

It is no coincidence that the Arabic word “fitna” has two meanings – beautiful woman and social chaos.

Glazov writes that in many Islamic societies, “women are supposed to dehumanise themselves in order to be tolerated … Women are considered to be the incarnation of shahwa [desire] which comes from the devil. In this environment the pathological notion arises that a man and a woman cannot be alone without the ominous threat of evil in their midst.

“The men denigrate the object of their lust so as to diminish their own shame. In this dynamic of sexual repression and misogyny, love is reduced to violent domination which becomes directly intertwined with terrorism against societies that allow women freedom, especially sexual freedom.”

viaFrustration fuels acts of hatred. Continue reading “It’s Always About Sex – Jihad That Is”

History of Violence in Buddhism

Armed Buddhist monks in Thailand are not an exception to the rule; they are contemporary examples of a long historical precedence. For centuries monks have been at the helm, or armed in the ranks, of wars. How could this be the case? But more importantly, why did I (and many others) hold the belief that Buddhism=Peace (and that other religions, such as Islam, are more prone to violence)?

It was then that I realized that I was a consumer of a very successful form of propaganda. Since the early 1900s, Buddhist monastic intellectuals such as Walpola Rahula, D. T. Suzuki, and Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, have labored to raise Western awareness of their cultures and traditions. In doing so, they presented specific aspects of their Buddhist traditions while leaving out others.

You have monks taking up arms and marching in the Russo-Japanese War, or earlier messianic battles in China when they thought killing people would bring them closer to enlightenment (a Ten Stage Process). Buddhists have fought against non-Buddhists, or other Buddhists. Japanese Buddhists fought to cleanse the impure Buddhist lands in China and Korea. Thai and Burmese fought for centuries against each other, each claiming religious authority as Cakravartins. This is what the book covers.

via Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence | RDBook | ReligionDispatches. Continue reading “History of Violence in Buddhism”

Is Ayatollah Sistani Iran Regime’s Biggest Threat?

Yet ironically, the regime may face its greatest threat not from within, but from outside the country. Ever since June’s contested election, observers have been keeping a close watch on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who hails from Iran but resides in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq), considered the highest living authority in all of Shiite Islam. Sistani comes from the “quietist” tradition of Shiite theology, one that, unlike the Islamic Republic’s ruling doctrine of velayat-eh faqih, holds that clerics should abstain from becoming directly involved in politics. So far, he has refrained from condemning the regime’s actions. But his clout is so strong in the Shiite world that, were this to change, the Islamic Republic would arguably no longer face just a political crisis within Iran, but also a crisis of religious confidence among all Shiites.

via WPR Article | Iran Faces Down Its Grand Ayatollahs.

Cracks in the Jihad

Today, the holy war is set to slip into three distinct ideological and organizational niches.

The first niche is occupied by local Islamist insurgencies, fueled by grievances against “apostate” regimes that are authoritarian, corrupt, or backed by “infidel” outside powers (or any combination of the three). Filling the second niche is terrorism-cum–organized crime, most visible in Afghanistan and Indonesia but also seen in Europe, fueled by narcotics, extortion, and other ordinary illicit activities. In the final niche are people who barely qualify as a group: young second- and third-generation Muslims in the diaspora who are engaged in a more amateurish but persistent holy war, fueled by their own complex personal discontents. Al Qaeda’s challenge is to encompass the jihadis who drift to the criminal and eccentric fringe while keeping alive its appeal to the Muslim mainstream and a rhetoric of high aspiration and promise.

Al Qaeda’s altered design has a number of immediate consequences. The global jihad is losing what David Galula called a strong cause, and with it its political character. This change is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish jihad from organized crime on the one side and rudderless fanaticism on the other. This calls into question the notion that war is still, as Clausewitz said, “a continuation of politics by other means,” and therefore whether it can be discontinued politically. Second, coerced by adversaries and enabled by the Internet, the global jihadi movement has dismantled and disrupted its own ability to act as one coherent entity. No leader is in a position to articulate the movement’s will, let alone enforce it. It is doubtful, to quote Clausewitz again, whether war can still be “an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will.” And because jihad has no single center of gravity, it has no single critical vulnerability. No matter what the outcome of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan and other places, a general risk of terrorist attacks will persist for the foreseeable future.

via Cracks in the Jihad.

Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes to Protest New Law

Freedom of Relgion should include freedom from religion. Well not in Ireland anymore. On 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine ($40,000). The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defenses permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

via Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes | blasphemy.ie.

From September 2001 To June 2009 – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

This is a deep struggle in the Muslim soul – a struggle to come to terms with its own sectarian past, the bloodiness of some of its scriptures, and the real and present threat of modernity as it crashes down on their medieval order with the power of technology they cannot control.

This process will take time, and Americans’ well-meant determination to fix this state of affairs is, however understandable, naive. The arc of history is far slower than our 24-hour news cycle or our ADD blog-posting. The resurgence of religious fundamentalism at this moment of technological marvel and global integration is an utterly predictable phenomenon, and it will not end soon. And when it does end, it will do so by collapsing under its own lies and delusions and denial, just as communism did. We can do a little to nudge this along, but we cannot be the decisive force – or we will merely reignite the civiliizational conflict. Maybe a hot war is inevitable. But if it is, it is essential to our civilization and its core values that we do not initiate it. If Iraq did not convince us of that, nothing will.

I believe that the election of Obama and the Green Revolution in Iran were signs that the next generation understands the magnitude of this crisis and are seeking a new way to overcome it. I believe that in my heart and soul. Which is why I found those events as inspiring as they are now imperiled.

via From September 2001 To June 2009 – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.