**Rowland Croucher** wrote:
> Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
>
> Posted May 5, 2008
>
> Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become
> the latest projectile in the world's most im****tant culture war: the
> zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam.
IMO, the long predicted war between western materialism and Islam has
now started, and I find it very interesting that it was the west who
invaded first. It may be that our strategists thought it better to get
at the oil before they bought so much of the western world with their
petro-dollars that they would control us almost completely even before
we realised what they wanted to do, but I think that implies too much
intelligence within our political apparatus. I also don't think anyone
thought that the US would go into terminal decline (economically) so
quickly, thus devaluing all those dollars invested in the US by the
arabs. I also think that many overestimatated how long it would take to
reach peak oil production, and the drastic effects of global warming on
energy consumption.
Now that all these factors have come into play more or less
simultaneously, we have a very interesting situation, thanks largely to
George W. I certainly wouldn't want to be the next president!
Is this a a conflict between civil society and Islam? I don't think so.
It looks more like the traditional conflict between power blocs to me -
one on the way up and one on the way down. The only complicating factor
is the rise of the Chinese, who seem set to take over the economic power
of the US in a decade or two. The Arabs may have the oil and the dollars
invested, but they have little manufacturing industry or food
production, except in other countries. To oppose the Chinese, they would
need to be in alliance with the US and particularly Europe, or to have
taken them over completely. I really cannot see radical Islamists
becoming the new industrialists anywhere!
My guess is that the arab leaders will have to rein in the radicals in
the next few years. The main question is how they do this. Fanatical
muslims seem very good at destroying their own (eg Sunni vs ****a), and
the Muslim world is very well split between the two. To unite them, a
war against the west is a good idea, but even in Iraq, they spend most
of their time fighting each other. And such a war must leave their
assets intact, something which is rather difficult, if it became nuclear
for example. They need a strong leader to unite them, and I know of none
in the Muslim world at the moment who can bring them together.
Of course, we are seeing a rapid spread of Islam in the west, and it may
be that this will make a big difference. How can Islamic countries wage
war against other countries with significant Islamic populations? Those
groups will have absorbed many of our western ideas about democracy and
human rights, even freedom of religion (as in Bosnia), so will not
necessarily sup****t the attacks by radical Islamists. Many left poor
Islamic countries for a better life, and will not want to return to
poverty.
So should we be so ultra-sensitive to islamic concerns? Perhaps, because
as christians we may soon be in a minority position and will want them
to be sensitive to ours. We have lived in harmony before, so surely
there is no reason why we cannot now. I think the main thing is to try
and separate power politics from religion. They are not really connected
- its usually just a way to convince soldiers that they should be
willing to die for the power elites who never put their own lives at
risk. If we could remove the obvious injustices in the Middle East it
would help, but they are likely to get greater rather than less because
of corruption and vested interests. The main thing will be not to
atagonise them to the point where they unite against us, and hope they
can sort out their own mess themselves. We can't do it for them.
> Wilders,
*rest snipped*
Chris
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