Terrorism Simplified
Terrorism has nothing to do with mental health as some seem
to indicate on social media. It’s basically a type of new age guerrilla warfare. Religious Extremism is basically a learned set of belief systems which is in turn an extremely conservative version of conventional religion. These type of radical conservative elements exist in all religions (cult christian militias in the southern US is an example). The argument that Islam is a violent is unacceptable as the term Islamic terrorism was unheard of before second world war. Let me explain. These are some of the wars going on in the world right now:
- Taliban & Al Qaeda backed forces Vs Pak Army backed by US in Pakistan (164 children killed in a school in Pakistan a few months was an ARMY school)
- Isreali Jews Vs Palestinian Muslims (1 sided affair, I know)
- Shia Muslims backed by Iran Vs Sunni Muslims backed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen
- ISIS (Sunni Muslim extremists) Vs Shia Muslims (and also other religious groups) in Iraq
- ISIS vs Shia Muslims (president Bashar Al Assad is a Shia Muslim) in Syria
- Muslim extremists Vs other religions in Africa
- Pakistan backed Sunni extremist Muslims Vs India (majority of 15 crore Muslims in India do NOT have extremist views and have no intention of supporting or going to that hell hole created by Americans and Pak army)
- Shia Muslims vs Sunni Muslims in Pakistan
- Sunni muslim extremists Vs US and Allies (This seems like more of a cultural warfare due to the fact that western culture is more liberal as against conservative culture of Muslims especially the extremist)
The Players
Shia Muslims are a sect of Muslims who follow the teachings
of Prophet Ali instead of Prophet Mohammed (followed by Sunni Muslims) and are
not supported by Sunni Muslims. Iran is the only Shia majority country and
usually backs Shia groups in these wars.
Iran is in turn backed by Russia, China and its allies and
the US & allies usually backs sunni groups even though extremist groups
like al-Qaida, ISIS Taliban etc are at war with US. It’s a lot more complicated
mess there because of the cultural factors I mentioned above. So in short it’s
a complicated tripartite war which can be simplified as
- Sunni Muslim extremists Vs Shia Muslims
- Sunni Muslim extremists Vs western liberal culture (US and Allies)
- Sunni Muslims Vs Jews (Palestinians are not extremists at least not in my view).
- Sunni Muslim Extremists Vs other religions
Factors behind Extremism
There are 2 factors which propagate Muslim religious extremism in the world. They are:
American Myopia
The Americans educated (more like brainwashed) poverty stricken Muslims in various parts of the world into believing a radical extremist form of Islam so as to use them against the Soviet Union (as communists were atheists) during the Cold War. As the Soviet Union disintegrated and became a non threat, these extremist Muslims trained their guns against their masters, the Americans. This is due to the fact that the western culture is mostly liberal and Muslim extremism is extremely conservative. The Muslim extremist viewed this as threat to their lifestyle and existence.
Saudi conservatism
Saudi Arabia which is the Epicenter of Islam still
follows Wahabism an ultraconservative radical form of Islam even though it is
an ally to the US. This indirectly gives support and confidence to the
extremists and therefore uses violence to propagate this form of Islam. It should be specially noted that majority of Muslims in most of the other countries do not follow this form of Islam.
I know this might seem to be a simplistic account of a
complicated issue but that’s exactly what it is supposed to be.
