From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 09:14:03 MDT
Amara Graps wrote:
> Instead of the world being more open,
> and differences between cultures and religions being accepted and
> understood better, now the world is more closed, much much less free and
> several orders of magnitude more paranoid than it was before.
Perhaps, but I am encouraged by readings in the Washington Post about
how debate is increasing in the Muslim world about what kind of society
they really want. It seems radical Islam may be on the decline.
Of course, Israel and its policies remain a clear demarcation point
between 'us' (western Christian civilization) and 'them' (Islamic
civilization). Jews have suffered much throughout history, and so it
seems to me that part of the problem is that Islam isn't helping us
relieve our guilt any by endlessly harping on Israel.
Every civilization has its share of massacre, but nothing tops Western
civilization's penchant for institutionalized mass killing. In comparing
Civ vs Civ, *we* killed millions of Jews (quite recently in historical
terms), and however many desperate suicide bombers blow themselves up in
nightclubs and eateries, it's the proverbial drop in the bucket compared
to the efficiency of machine guns, gas chambers and ovens.
And yet the suicide bombers keep reminding us of that again and again.
No wonder we hate them.
-Mike
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