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Safron
Joined: 05 Feb 2007
Location: portland, or
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 Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:41 am Post subject: Why are Muslim Areas Poor Part II - Solutions |
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| We know that the reason why the Irish/English violence stopped is that the Irish are too busy making Money to bomb anyone at the moment (and taking their poodles to the vet, getting a hair-do, etc.). Will this ever happen in the Middle East? Peace through prosperity. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:59 am Post subject: Re: Why are Muslim Areas Poor Part II - Solutions |
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| Safron wrote: |
| We know that the reason why the Irish/English violence stopped is that the Irish are too busy making Money to bomb anyone at the moment (and taking their poodles to the vet, getting a hair-do, etc.). Will this ever happen in the Middle East? Peace through prosperity. |
In Ireland, it was not quite that way. The Irish got tired of the killing and so did the British. The Israelis and Arabs have to get tired of the status quo enough to move in a direction that suits them both, come to a reasonable enough compromise. Much of the excuse for not making progressive change was the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, that is not being used as much by governments and some governments are making economic and social reforms, but an end to the conflict would help to take away the final fig leaf. The Syrian Government uses the excuse that there is a state of war with Israel to deny the intellectuals who are clamoring for democracy and change and closer relations with Europe.
That will eventually change. Syria should have taken a leap and gone with Rabin to sign a peace agreement. They missed their chance. Hopefully, another one will come. |
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Safron
Joined: 05 Feb 2007
Location: portland, or
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:00 am Post subject: |
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| I would venture to say that the battlefronts for Muslims are not exclusively along the Israeli border. There are fronts in India, Thailand, Philippines, Europe, Russia, China, etc. By solving the Israeli conflict, how will this position these other disputes? Does Islam have the ability to achieve peace through prosperity? If so, please cite examples somewhere within the ranks of it's 1 billion members. |
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Khenan
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| Safron wrote: |
| I would venture to say that the battlefronts for Muslims are not exclusively along the Israeli border. There are fronts in India, Thailand, Philippines, Europe, Russia, China, etc. By solving the Israeli conflict, how will this position these other disputes? Does Islam have the ability to achieve peace through prosperity? If so, please cite examples somewhere within the ranks of it's 1 billion members. |
U.A.E. |
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desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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Money buys a lot of peace here in Saudia, as well.
I understand the last time things went a bit awry here (actually about 1 km from my villa- google "Oasis Compound") 3 or 4 years ago, a good bit of cash changed hands and we got a lot of peace.  That's a bit oblique, but inquiring minds can do the research.
If it is shared just a little, wealth can create a lot of peace. If it is jealously guarded at the top, well, people don't feel quite so quiescent. A modest amount of wealth sharing seems to keep things calm on the Arabian peninsula. It seems the only real problems here are in Yemen.
I am not sure where this conversation about Islam and poverty is supposed to go- but I don't find it a very useful variable for understanding the problems of the region. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Safron wrote: |
| I would venture to say that the battlefronts for Muslims are not exclusively along the Israeli border. There are fronts in India, Thailand, Philippines, Europe, Russia, China, etc. By solving the Israeli conflict, how will this position these other disputes? Does Islam have the ability to achieve peace through prosperity? If so, please cite examples somewhere within the ranks of it's 1 billion members. |
In Russia, it can be argued the Russian Government is the aggressor. The Chechnyans don't want to be under Russian control, and they were gobbled up by the Russian Empire, and the worst war crimes possible have been committed there making the Israelis look like boyscouts when dealing with the Palestinians, perhaps. I am not ignoring the terrorist elements or fanatical elements among the Chechnyans, but horrible atrocities have occured in Chechnya, and the media doesn't cover it as if it is not happening or has never happened. Yes, it was covered a bit....
I don't know about Thailand. I think the southern areas were incorporated by the Buddhists. Maybe, someone on this board who knows about them can make a comment, but they are not ethnically Thai is what I heard. Are they treated with equality in Thailand? Do they feel discriminated? I don't know.
In China, do you necessarily blame the Turkic Uighurs from wanting to be absorbed by the Han Chinese anymore than the Tibetan Buddhists want to be. I think you are painting things with one brush and that Muslims are always wrong when they are fighting someone, because the other party is not Muslim. India and the Phillipines are a different cases than the rest cited above.
As far as peace through prosperity and an Islamic state being able to do so, it was done in the past when Europe was in darkness and then the Muslim world went backward. Today, the UAE is prosperous and stable.
Kuwait is relatively prosperous and stable. I haven't heard of any major problems in the Sultanate of Oman.
When Israel was brought up, it had much to do with the Arabs and the Israelis and also the fact that an end to that conflict would take out some of the wind out of the sails of the fanatics of that region. It doesn't address Chechnyans fighting for independence or what have you.
The Palestinians and Israelis are not fighting simply because Israelis are Jews and the Palestinians are mostly Muslim. You can't simply just reduce things to religion and make everyone of a particular religion out to be the same. Are the people of Catholic Ireland the same as the Catholics of Croatia (Hrvatska)? I don't think so. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject: Re: Why are Muslim Areas Poor Part II - Solutions |
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| Safron wrote: |
| We know that the reason why the Irish/English violence stopped is that the Irish are too busy making Money to bomb anyone at the moment (and taking their poodles to the vet, getting a hair-do, etc.). Will this ever happen in the Middle East? Peace through prosperity. |
I'm not optimistic. We are faced at present with a challenge to and assault upon our society, freedom, life mounted by a faith-based, monotheistic fanaticism that is utterly cruel, utterly nihilistic, utterly reactionary and utterly without any doubt of its own rectitude. Elements of this crusade, or jihad as it calls itself, have managed to form a secret army within the borders of the United States in ghettos and some of the mosques paid for by spoilt and opportunist wahabbist princes. This secret army seeks to destroy us all (in the name of faith).
Let�s look at the Israel/Palestine dispute. Former Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban (RIP), gave many great lectures and seminars on this. He always opened up with the ease of sulubility of the conflict. What could be simpler? There are two nations � one Arab and largely Muslim and one an ancient yearning for a Jewish homeland there. The solution has been self-evident for a long time � partitian and two states, one each, with room for both, both in theory recognizing the other as national movements. Well, it is that simple as a matter of fact. There is nothing making it toxic except what?
The intrusion of religion into the human simplicity of this argument. There are those among the zionist leadership that think that God gave them all this land and there�s nothing to argue about with anyone who just happens to live there who isn�t Jewish. They are an inconvenient population condemned by prophesy. Likewise, there is no shortage of Muslim spokesmen who say �nope, you have it entirely wrong. It belongs to the ancient empire that will come again if the faithful bear witness long enough and the Jews will all be destroyed�. As if that wasn�t decorative enough, there are plenty of US Christians who argue all this is a great launchpad for armageddon and the return of the messiah (since his last visit was so unpersuasive). Unfortunately, all the Jews will have to convert to Christianity or go straight to hell. That�s in the small print.
These three wonderful monotheisms have made a perfectly normal human dispute insoluble and poisonous, all hoping that the solution to this matter will lead to the destruction of us all. They don�t consider the latter a risk they are running, rather a favor they are doing. Support from the US goes to the fanatical massianic settlers, to the Saudi princes, to the fanatical Christian zionists in the US. So all this is being paid for by your tax money, a conspiracy of religion, a shady Hitler-Stalin pact between the monotheisms that really does risk the destruction of the human race. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: Why are Muslim Areas Poor Part II - Solutions |
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| Justin Hale wrote: |
The intrusion of religion into the human simplicity of this argument. There are those among the zionist leadership that think that God gave them all this land and there�s nothing to argue about with anyone who just happens to live there who isn�t Jewish. They are an inconvenient population condemned by prophesy. Likewise, there is no shortage of Muslim spokesmen who say �nope, you have it entirely wrong. It belongs to the ancient empire that will come again if the faithful bear witness long enough and the Jews will all be destroyed�. As if that wasn�t decorative enough, there are plenty of US Christians who argue all this is a great launchpad for armageddon and the return of the messiah (since his last visit was so unpersuasive). Unfortunately, all the Jews will have to convert to Christianity or go straight to hell. That�s in the small print.
These three wonderful monotheisms have made a perfectly normal human dispute insoluble and poisonous, all hoping that the solution to this matter will lead to the destruction of us all. They don�t consider the latter a risk they are running, rather a favor they are doing. Support from the US goes to the fanatical massianic settlers, to the Saudi princes, to the fanatical Christian zionists in the US. So all this is being paid for by your tax money, a conspiracy of religion, a shady Hitler-Stalin pact between the monotheisms that really does risk the destruction of the human race. |
The United States has a very hard time, because it must deal with 16% of its Evangelical Christians who have blind support for Israel whether Biblical principals of justice are violated or not, because they are focused simply on rapture and their animus toward Muslims. In that sense, they are mirrors of the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia in some ways. The US does not support the settlers but does not act against them. Building settlements is a violation of international law, but no one gets prosecuted in the US as an American Jew if he or she bankrolled a settlement, but if you send money to Hezbollah or Hamas, you will go to jail. So, there is a problem with double standards.
You do have a point about Jews and Muslims are using their inerpretations of their religions to poison the conflict. If Jews focused more on the words of the Nevi (prophet) Isaiah and the spirit of turning swords into plowshares, a way to share Jerusalem instead of having people die in the name of a God both Muslims and Jews call merciful. The Jews was Rahamim and the Muslims Rahim for merciful, but they show not enough mercy for each other. I am optimistic, but not without believing that the road to serenity for the two may be paved with tons of fear and bloodshed. The Arabs and Jews are very afraid of each other and they have big political egos at stake.
I am optimistic, but I think the road will possibly be paved with red, more blood of innocent Jews and Arabs. Europeans didn't learn to cool it until they butchered each other across Europe over their differences.
Sometimes, people have a way of behaving in an insane way whether Protestant versus Catholic or Muslim versus Jew. |
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