Tuesday, September 18, 2012

It's geopolitical and theological

Muslims in Egypt riot and burn and kill because somebody insulted their prophet, and a lot of people have very strong opinions as to just why they do this. Is it because of poisonous and violent teachings in Islamic theology? Or is it because of geopolitical circumstances, that put people in desperate situations with no effective rule of law?

Well, it's both, obviously. Those who want to reduce it to nothing more than geopolitics need to ask themselves what exactly these people would be rioting about if their holy book wasn't giving them an excuse. (And if the answer is that instead they'd riot against their ineffective governments and the negative influence of Western economic interests in the region, good for them!) And those who want to reduce it to nothing more than the negative influence of Islam need to ask themselves what was so different about the medieval period/Islamic Golden Age, when the successful countries were all Muslims and the angry witch-burning riot-prone idiots were represented by Christendom.