If Islam is Peaceful, Why Are Muslims Killing Each Other in Darfour?

[The Cleaner]

This morning on NBC Today Show, they aired a segment from Darfour explaining what's going on over there. I guess it never really hit me that the government-backed Arab militias are killing their fellow Muslims in this "ethnic cleansing" that's going on over there.

Muslims raging against their own? Why? What makes the Arab militias so murderous? And if Islam is peaceful, why the killing - of their own no less?

Please, please don't think this is meant to inflame: I want to understand this, really i do.

[Gato Moteado]

1. religious fundametalism is dangerous.....

....no matter what the religion.

[CJCRANE]

2. Why do people kill people?

It's the same question.

[htuttle]

3. What does this have to do with anything?

Do the Troubles in Ireland mean that Xtianity is fundamentally peaceful or warlike?

Religion is just an excuse in both these cases. God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

[wakeme2008]

4. See Ireland and the killing that went on there

in the name of religion.. :shrug:

[SteppingRazor]

5. Is it sort of like Christians killing each other in, oh, every European war...

for the last 1,500 years?


Islam is not the point in Darfur. The fight is between ethnic groups, and while the slaughterers (northern Arabs) tend to be more Muslim than the slaughterees (southern Africans), who are Christian more often than not, religion is not the point here. Ethnicity is.

[petronius]

46. I think you're confusing your Sudanese conflicts

The north/south war, which was mainly Muslim vs. Christian, ended with a peace agreement recently. Darfur is in the west, and while you're correct that the conflict is based in ethnicity, I don't think there are many Christians involved (it's Arab Muslims vs African Muslims).

[havocmom]

6. Also killing Christians in Dafur. Not about religion, about power

Religion is just the excuse

[seabeyond]

7. if chrisitianity is peaceful why were christians killing christians

in the civil war, revolutionary war, wwI, wwII.....

what a question

[gollygee]

8. People in general don't seem to be particularly peaceful

religion doesn't change that nature. Not Islam, not Christianity either.

[1932]

9. It's for political power in the oil-rich region in the south, IIRC.

No matter what religion prevailed in the country and the region, there'd be powerplays there.

[ET Awful]

10. If Christianity is peaceful, what was the purpose of the Inquisition?

Or, for that matter, the burning of protestants at the stake in England by the monarchy?

Or, as mentioned already, the emnity between protestants and Catholics that continues today in Northern Ireland?

[malaise]

11. So why did catholics and protestants murder

one another for centuries?
sp.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LynnTheDem]

18. LOL!!!

I agree with your posit...but it did make me snort my coffee. :D

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. Agreed.

[Hutzpa]

13. I will say the same reason Democrats

are fighting....its all about power, who gets the bigger cut int the pie.

[ContraBass Black]

14. This is idiotic.

That war is about poverty, land, and ethnicity, and the southern victims are majority Christian.


"Please, please don't think this is meant to inflame"

You just called Muslims and Arabs raging and murderous their own, and you don't mean to inflame?

[mondo joe]

15. For the same reasons Christians have spent centuries killing each other.

[JCMach1]

16. AS Christians should know, there are many other things

that can trump religion when it comes to killing one another... Ethnic hatred, stupidity, misunderstanding... need I go on...


Give me a break...

[porphyrian]

17. People are not Islam. Islam is a religion.

Why do Christians have no problem with killing others?

[Kelly Rupert]

19. There over 1 billion muslims.

If there are a hundred thousand murderous extremists, that is 0.01% of all Muslims.

[sarge43]

20. Oh let's see.

There's Ireland, two World Wars stated in Europe, our Civil war, going back a ways the 30 Years War - pretty much 'peace loving' Christians saddling up and butchering one another. In other words, Muslims have no corner on murderous inhouse stupidity. Why people do this - greed, intolerance, fear, lack of courage, name any negative emotion and they sure in the hell aren't limited to any one group.

[Kali]

21. ...

:popcorn: ? or maybe pizza?

[CJCRANE]

22. Why do the Lord's Resistance Army

in Uganda call themselves christians?

Why did the christians in Rwanda massacre a million people?

Why do the Tamil Tigers kill other Sri Lankans?

What is the difference between political affiliation, clan, tribe, ethnicity, culture and religion?

[Ms. Clio]

23. "please don't think this is meant to inflame"

and please don't take me seriously when I say I believe you.

[BlooInBloo]

24. Because muslims are just like christians, which are just like (favorite religion)...

They lie - there are no peaceful religions. Or just. Or intellect-nurturing. Etc.

[ck4829]

25. Lots of Muslims here Columbus Ohio, but there isn't a civil war here.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lurking Dem]

27. Jews are responsible for Darfur?

[WilliamPitt]

29. I knew it

Those bastards.

:eyes:

[Lurking Dem]

30. We're EVERYwhere!

:+

[CJCRANE]

28. "Islam is Peaceful"

seems to be a false set-up, as if you're assuming that's a left-wing talking point, when it isn't.

[mesobob]

31. Islamic culture is not our own

Attempts to understand another culture through the lens of our own will always yield a distorted view.

[seabeyond]

33. not to mention christians have been kiling christians for ever... so

even though we cant see thru islamic lens, we can see thru our own lens, why we kill each other. ergo, i dont think it is a challenge to understand

[newyawker99]

36. Hi mesobob!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[mesobob]

42. Thanks!

[Ms. Clio]

37. There is no "Islamic culture"

There are 2 billion people in dozens of countries, each with its own culture, who practice Islam.

[mesobob]

40. Good point.

Cultures.

[nomo]

32. Feh. No religions are EVER peaceful

Islam isn't, Christianity isn't, Judaism isn't. Religions by definition are about divide and conquer. What's going on in Darfur is about resources, as all wars ultimately are. Religion is just a figleaf.

Religion and religious people is what's killing the planet. Start thinking for yourself.

[CJCRANE]

34. I thought people like X weren't wifebeaters

but now hear someone like X is a wifebeater.

What's up with that?

Please defend X and put my mind at rest because I'm not so sure about him anymore.

[Jcrowley]

35. Take a look at the history

This has little to do with religion. The first question to be asked is, "What are the effects of colonialism in Africa?" and from there explore the past as it moves to the present.

Here's a good article to start with:

Darfur: Rwanda Next Time?
by Aaron Tesfaye
October 06, 2006
Pambazuka News

About two million people have been driven from their homes in three years of fighting in Darfur. Aaron Tesfaye argues that the situation in Darfur is a grim reminder "of the after-effects of colonialism and hastily cobbled, post-colonial states in Africa that cannot deliver political and economic goods to their people."

<snip>

Roots of the Conflict

The Darfur insurrection is connected to the conflict between state and society in southern Sudan. The insurrection and genocide has its roots in the complex milieu of inter-ethnic relations where ecological niches of the Fur, Zagawa, Massalit farmers, and Baqqara pastoralists were stressed due to famine and competition over space and water. But this connection between scarce resources and conflict must be understood through a glimpse of the past.

Modern Sudan is the creation of two imperialisms: Egyptian and British. Darfur was an important independent kingdom that was tacked onto Sudan by the British in 1916. Eventually, neglect by the Nile riverine elite of Khartoum led to the emergence of political protest in the 1960s and eventually to the current conflict. But two important factors added fuel to the fire. First was the venture of Libyan leader Muammar al Gaddafi into Chad in the 1980s with the resultant conflict over the Aouzou strip, rich in gas and other resources, and the mobilizing and arming of an "Islamic Legion" of the Sahelian "Arabs" and Turegs in his expansionist ambitions.<1>

Second was the 1986 decision of the prime minister of Sudan, Sadiq al-Mahdi, an important leader of the Umma Party, to launch an offensive to crush the secessionist Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south led by the late Dr. John Garang. This decision exacerbated the situation in the west because the Sudanese state armed with modern weapons the Baqqara and Ben Habla Fursan, "Arabs" (Janjaweed) including mercenaries from former Libyan Islamic Legionnaires of the failed Libyan expansionist war. As noted by an astute observer of Sudanese politics, it was "counterinsurgency on the cheap."<2>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11130

The two key reasons for the desire of the West, and particularly the US, to control Sudan are oil and water. Water is strategically important, given that the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet in Sudan and constitute the lifeline of Egypt immediately north. Recent pressure from Anglo-American interests led Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to question the old Nile treaties with Egypt, which has extensive interests in Sudan.

[Ms. Clio]

39. amazing this bigoted flame bait is still here n/t

[Cleita]

41. Because humanity as a whole isn't peaceful.

To me it has nothing to do with religious tenants but using religion as an excuse for violence. Look at the history of the troubles in Ireland. Although on the surface the excuses for killing each other are because of religious differences, as a whole Catholics and Protestants around the world are not at war with each other. Both those Christian religions also preach peace.

[noonwitch]

43. The issue in Darfur is more than religion, it's race

The lighter-skinned arabs are slaughtering the darker-skinned africans. They're killing them regardless of whether they are muslims, christians or whatever.

[RethugAssKicker]

44. Christians have been killing Christians forever !... Sorry, but this

is a STUPID question.... and insulting!

[sweetheart]

45. because of class warfare and racism

What has it to do with religion? Is it not a tribal matter regarding
alliances, not excusing the barbarity?

[Parrcrow]

47. locking

Broad brush smear.