Before anything else, a state — or an organization that wishes to approximate a state — must be able to provide some degree of law and order. Terror and state-building went hand in hand.
After a country collapses and descends into warring factions and rampant criminal activity, any group that hopes to reconstitute order must assume a monopoly over the use of force. This means defeating any pretenders to the throne. In an already brutal war zone, brutality can, unfortunately, work.
Instilling terror in the hearts of your opponents undermines their morale, making them more likely to stand down, flee, or surrender on the battlefield. Once territory is captured, what comes next? More challenging is channeling the focused brutality of battle into actual governing. Yet, in fairly quick order, with the international community paying little attention, ISIS began setting up well-developed institutional structures.
With this in mind, it becomes somewhat easier to understand how some residents — in a region that has long lacked law, order, and government services — might have gone along with or at least remained neutral toward ISIS rule.
In Iraq, Sunni populations had found themselves marginalized or worse. By that standard, ISIS rule may have seemed like an improvement. Of course, it would be a mistake to overstate the level of governance that ISIS actually provided. Byman Tuesday, October 29, Essay The believer: How Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became leader of the Islamic State William McCants Tuesday, September 1, It matters that many people prefer cruel governance to no governance, and, whether we like it or not, it will always matter in places where governments are weak and lack legitimacy.
The Taliban seemed defeated after the initially successful U. Many Muslims throughout the world are not justifying what happened, but they are saying we need to look at U. Their question is, Why does America hate Islam? There are 1, years of relationship between Muslims and Christians or the West. They include the Crusades, which were based on the idea that if you killed an infidel in this case, the infidel is the Muslim you go straight to heaven; you get an expiation.
The history includes the Inquisition in Spain, when Muslims were told to convert, leave, or die. It includes colonialism, when European powers, starting in the 16th century, expanded all over the Muslim world. Today, of the 56 Muslim countries in the world, only two have not been occupied by European countries.
Muslims are aware of this historical relationship and many believe that the West wants their resources, wants to keep them oppressed. President Bush's recent comment about mounting a crusade, and Secretary Powell's comments about we, the civilized world, reinforced that notion. We don't know if the President's remark about a crusade was a slip of the tongue or a Freudian slip.
But Muslims heard: Here they come again. They hate us; they want to destroy us. Arabs immigrating to the United States initially were not allowed to become citizens. The influx of new immigrants after has brought in many Arab professionals who are helping our economy doctors and computer scientists and others. Do they feel at home in America?
They did. But after September 11 it has become very, very difficult. Arab Americans have no access to policymaking and feel disenfranchised. Money they donate to candidates is returned because of the stigma.
It's not just a question of assimilation. The March raids in Northern Virginia targeted people the U. It also targeted Dr.
His home was ransacked by federal agencies in March. President Bush asked Americans not to stereotype Muslims and Arab Americans, but there's a difference between his words and the actions of the Justice Department. The Muslim community worldwide fears that the U. They don't see it as a war on terrorism. In the 20th century, Islam became a modern religion: it deemphasized predestination, Muslims took on the burden of history and responsibility to act for change.
They created resistance movements against European colonization. Bin Laden represents a type of Islam that was developed to fight communism, encouraged by the U. The United States supported, trained, and armed bin Laden's movement as a wall against the spread of communism.
We hang on to stereotypes about how Islam treats women. You can't generalize from the practices in one country, such as Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. Islam values peace; the traditional greeting, as-salaam alaikum, means peace upon you. Muslims support peace for all; we believe that all humans are equal in creation. There is no difference between Muslim and non-Muslim. We have one creator, and life is the gift of our creator.
We believe in accountability for our actions: we will, on the day of judgment, answer to our creator for everything we do. Islam condemns suicide and homicide because life belongs to human beings as a gift of God. There are about , Bosnian Muslims in this country. I came to the United States because I wanted freedom; I was jailed during the German occupation and again during the communist regime. I chose a country of freedom and I came with faith in America. In President Roosevelt spoke about four freedoms, including freedom of speech and expression, freedom of faith and worship, and freedom from fear.
I'm determined to try to see what is best in America as well as to remind myself what has sometimes been wrong in America in the past. Slavery was wrong; lynching was wrong. Sign up to hear more and get involved. Helena St. Lucia St. Martin St. Outlying Islands U. For full information on the use of your data please see our privacy policy. Thank you. This example once more stresses that citizens across the Arab region are neither all the same, nor united in their hatred of America ns.
Pockets of good will can be found across the region. However, when the US intervenes, it not only strengthens the resolve of its enemies; it actually drives potential allies away. The simple conclusion of our study could be that Arab citizens detest America, and there is nothing the US can do about that. But that conclusion simplifies the complexities that those designing and assessing foreign policies would be wise to consider: the interrelatedness of societal and political anti-Americanism and their causes.
US interventions decrease empathy with US citizens, while this empathy with America ns might be an important barrier against not judging terrorist attacks. To keep pockets of good will, and perhaps even strengthen alliances, the US should think twice about repeating the same interventionist policies in the region. Niels Spierings is an associate professor in the sociology department of Radboud University, and works on issues of inequality and participation, with particular foci on gender, politics, and Islam.
He tweets at NielsSpierings. Religion, as a motive for hatred and violence, is not mentioned in this article. Jews and Muslims hate each others for religious reasons. If this is true, how can WE resolve this issue without issues of religion being addressed? While many of the perpetrators of violence are religious, their goals and intentions are often secular and strictly political in nature.
I certainly know more people who dislike America because of their backing of Israel and their invasions of Iraq than any religious reason. On the topic, I should also note that, theologically speaking, Muslims and Jews agree on quite a lot. Certainly more than Christians and Jews or Christians and Muslims do.
Steven is correct. Stop waving the flag and look at it in third person for a moment.
0コメント