D
droid
Guest
IdleRich said:I guess that that's what I was asking really. Liberalism cannot just tolerate a fundamentalism that hates it can it? Is it possible for these different views to be reconciled?
I was actually being sarcastic there... I dont believe that the vast majority of Muslims 'hate our freedoms', any more than I believe the vast majority of Christians support the executions of abortionists, or acts of 'Christian' terror such as the Phalange massacres in Lebanon, IRA/UDF bombs in Northern Ireland, or torture in Abu Ghraib... 'They hate our Feedoms' is a ridiculous soundbite designed for the vacuous and repeated only by the unredeemably brainwashed.
Overblown as it may be, I think some of the reaction to the cartoons HAS to be down to the fact that many Muslims in the Middle East feel like they are under physical and psychological attack from the West (and theyd be right to a large extent IMO) - the predictable reaction to which is to ignore their own internal problems and focus on the external attack - turning to the only things that seem to offer any kind of resistance, ie: extremism and religious conservatism.
Not that Im justifying this reaction - merely pointing out that its utterly predictable...