.... Islamic State may wrap itself in the flag of jihad, but its success owes more to medieval lawlessness than medieval religious enmity – helped by the very 21st-century decline of the global behemoth.
Our world is being shaken, but the persistence of religion is more a symptom than a cause. The larger problem, as old as mankind, is power and the lack of it. For sometimes weakness can be just as dangerous as strength.
[A TOP COMMENT] I am pretty sure it's both. I don't know about you but those IS fellows seem pretty zealously religious to me.
It seems that the mistake was made by the West, it was assumed that the Middle East was in the 20th/21st Century when in reality it was still very much in the Middle Ages with just a veneer of modernity layered over the top. Once that veneer was stripped away it revealed the true horrors beneath.
In addition to the Yazidi its Israel I feel sorry for, trying to run a modern liberal-capitalist democracy amongst the chaos that swirls around it.
[ANOTHER] We might well all live in a world with enormous knowledge available, but we're still born with the same complete and utter ignorance that we were some 3,000 or even 30,000 years ago. In countries where education is restricted by religion in both breadth and depth we cannot expect 21st century attitudes towards human and civil rights.
Perhaps we should bear this in mind when giving evermore freedom to religions, and - in doing so - religious bigots, taking over the education of our children in this country.
[ANOTHER] "It isn’t religious zeal, it’s the collapse of state power that makes the clash in Iraq feel like a return to the dark ages"Sorry, for me its definitely the religious zeal that makes IS (great rebranding, guys!) seem like they want a return to less enlightened times.
[ANOTHER] And yet another Guardian piece telling us that it all has little to do with Islam..... a power vaccuum, nothing else, no need to woorry. you can all go home then. [Guardian Cif] Read more
