The Sectarian Conflict in Iraq

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jun 162014
 

There is a fair bit of news around at present with respect to the current sectarian conflict in Iraq, including the news of mass killings by ISIS. And of course we have a number of talking heads appearing on TV talking about the causes of the sectarian conflict. And often blaming the US intervention in Iraq.

Which is of course a complete red herring.

The previous regime in Iraq kept the lid on sectarian conflicts between Shias and Sunnis with extreme repression. Even a very superficial look at the history of the conflict shows that sectarian conflict was almost inevitable after the removal of Saddam Hussain.

And the blame for that conflict lies with the extremists within both Shia and Sunni communities – not with the Americans or British who fought to remove Saddam Hussain. Whilst the western forces may well be guilty of many things – including human rights abuses – this sectarian conflict is not something they brought about.

Ultimately sectarian conflicts in Iraq can only be solved by the Iraqis themselves.

 

Faith-Based Schools: Just Say No

 General, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jun 092014
 

The issue of certain faith-based schools is in the media today. Specifically whether certain schools in Birmingham were targeted for take-over by islamic extremists. Lots of allegations floating around with lots of denials.

Determining the truth of the matter is not likely to be easy – do I believe Tory ministers or religious nutters? By nature, I’m inclined to ignore both.

But there is a simple answer to this problem. Take any sort of faith out of all schools; schools are supposed to be about education and not about fairy stories. Any kind of faith activity should be classified as an extra-curricular activity that takes place outside school and has no interference with the normal school curriculum.

It is probable that most faith based schools are relatively harmless, although even the best will lead to a sense of exclusion for those in attendance whose faith does not match that of the school. And of course teenagers are probably the most likely group to change religion or reject religion altogether.

But whenever faith-based schools are permitted, there is always the chance that some form of extremism may creep into the curriculum. And that includes all religions – there are extremist christians who want to block the teaching of evolution as well as extremist muslims, hindus, etc.

Ban ’em all.

The “Crime” Of Apostasy

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jun 052014
 

Apostasy can be loosely defined as renouncing a religion either to become an atheist or to convert to another religion. It has been in the news recently because of a Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy.

Of course in her case it’s not apostasy, but following her childhood religion – her mother was a christian and her absent father was a muslim. But Sudan does not recognise the mother’s religion in such cases.

However you slice it, the concept of apostasy is ridiculous – it basically forces people who have “lost their way” to pretend to follow a religion. Forcing someone to go to a mosque (or a church, etc.) will just annoy and bore the victim. And yes listening to some holly roller prattle on about his imaginary friend is very boring.

It is noticeable that only islamic countries have a criminal sanction for apostasy, and probably only for deserting islam. In fact that is not quite true – other countries have had laws against apostasy … or herest which to an unbeliever is pretty much the same thing. After all apostasy is along the lines of “you don’t believe in what we believe” and heresy is merely a slightly different flavour of “you don’t believe what we believe”. The “best” example of a christian country executing someone for apostasy is probably Poland,

Although there are plenty of other examples.

But countries with a history of christianity have progressed on from a primitive medieval society that executes people for “crimes” as ridiculous as apostasy. Ignoring the rights and wrongs of it, apostasy is another group’s convert. And executing someone for being a protestant, a jew, a muslim or an atheist is nothing more than persecution of a minority group and will sooner or later (hopefully very much sooner) lead to all sorts of problems with such a society.

After all, a persecuted minority does not have much interest in protecting the status quo – they might well want to start a revolution and kick out the leaders.

Islamic law-makers need to look at implementing apostasy laws even handedly and prosecute christians, jews, and atheists who convert to islam – because they are apostates too. And of course babies are not born with a knowledge of islam, so they can be considered apostates as well. If you threaten to execute islamic apostates, then you need to threaten to execute all the other apostates too.

And then you might realise just how foolish laws against apostasy are.

And The UKIP “Earthquake”

 Politics  No Responses »
May 272014
 

Time to eat humble pie seeing as the results for the European elections show UKIP leading the race – which was not what we were seeing in the local elections. But having admitted I was wrong about the UKIP earthquake, the way it happened is rather curious.

The massive increase in votes for UKIP is only apparent with the European elections. Could it be that voters are happier voting for UKIP when they think the votes don’t matter? It will be interesting to see how next year’s national elections pan out … but I suspect that UKIP will fade away to a certain extent. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them get an MP or two, but not into double figures.

But perhaps I should prepare some custard for the forthcoming humble pie.

Having said that, if the UKIP voters don’t take European elections very seriously, then Europe needs to fix that. Partly by increasing the power of the European parliament at the expense of the European Commission, but also by taking credit for all the good work that Europe does.

The UKIP Earthquake … What Earthquake?

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
May 232014
 

In my opinion, there is one clear thing from the local election results: Lazy journalism. UKIP merrily announced before the election that they were expecting to cause a political earthquake, but the results have been nothing like that at all. Lazy journalists picked up on the earthquake phrase and misused it to talk about the results.

UKIP has done quite well; they’ve even exceeded their internal prediction of getting 100 councilors. But they have not done nearly well enough to cause a political earthquake. That would be more along the lines of getting enough councilors to push one of the big two into third place (or lower).

The numbers aren’t all in yet, but UKIP looks to have won 155 council seats which is still less than half of the next biggest party (the Liberal Democrats on 399 seats), despite the fact that the Liberals were slaughtered – they’ve lost more councilors that UKIP has yet are still in third place. In fact both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats lost more councilors than UKIP gained, and Labour gained a lot more than UKIP.

And UKIP controls not a single council. It’s still an “also ran” party.

Ignoring the fact that UKIP is the kind of party that nobody with more than two brain cells wants to see in power, UKIP is in the position of being a minor party. A single-issue party that has yet to break into the mainstream. If they continue to progress at the rate they are doing (unlikely in the extreme), they may start winning councils in another decade.

No earthquake in sight.

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