Islam: Not the Cause of Middle Eastern Violence

Muslims and their religion have been under intense scrutiny and undeserved criticism after the September 11th attack by conservative radicals who don’t know the least bit about Islam. To be frank, I feel embarrassed that many in my country are so unworldly, ignorant and asinine as to call out the Muslim religion for being violent, backwards and evil, with only scant observations and shallow speculation to defend their opinions.

Lets take a look at one idiotic argument against Islam. They observe the Middle East and see that it is an unruly, impoverished, violent and uneducated area. They also observe that it is the Muslim elite who rule those countries. Putting two and two together, the radical right has come to the conclusion that it is the Islamic hierarchy that is responsible for the violence and discord within the Muslim states.

Now let’s systematically destroy this. It is true that the Muslim elite manipulate many in the public into believing that the West, and anything supported by the West, is devilish and worth being destroyed by utilizing Jihad. Of course, it is also true that the Christian elite manipulated the layman in the middle ages into a violent surge against the Ottoman Empire during the Crusades. They stirred the men in Europe into an angry frenzy with religious and inflammatory rhetoric (similar to the rhetoric that Islamic Clerics use), saying that Islam was evil, sinful and needed to be wiped out if they were to please God.

It is also important to note that in the middle ages, it was Christian Europe that was disorderly and uncivilized, and the Islamic states that were sophisticated and the center for intellectual development. It should be clear after this that there is clearly no correlation between religion and passivity, intellectualism and progressive thought.

What does inhibit these qualities is not religion, but the style of government. The similarity between both Europe in the Middle Ages and the Middle East in the present day, is that both types of governments are designed to keep control over the masses. The main way they do this is by keeping the citizens uneducated, so that they are more easily persuaded into believing whatever the leadership tells them. This, consequently, also leaves them vulnerable to religious demagogues who can use their subjects to carry out their own personal agenda.

Religious followers have been taken advantage in both the Christian and Muslim faith. It is not unique to just Islam, contrary to the pejorative claims made by the religious right in this country. Religion is indeed one of the most powerful ideas to ever grace our world, but in the wrong hands, it can be one of the most deadly. It takes a well educated public to keep ambitious religious leaders in check. Therefore, if the radical conservatives want the violence in the Middle East to stop, they should start pushing for political reforms, rather than ranting about a topic they don’t have a clue about and inflaming an already tense situation.