There’s something I’ve been trying to work into a post but, since I haven’t been able to do that and don’t want to sit on any longer, I’ll just put here. The Thirty Years War is a misnomer. What really happened is that there was a series of wars lasting from the first part of the 16th century with the German Peasants War right up to the War of the Spanish Succession in the 18th century. It included but was not limited to the Thirty Years War, the Polish-Swedish War, and the Portuguese Dutch War. These wars had a strong religious component, Catholics against Protestants. Even my own ancestral country of Switzerland was not spared. The Swiss fought several Catholic-Protestant wars during this period.
Millions of people were killed. They weren’t minor skirmishes but some of the bloodiest wars in history.
That’s what I think about whenever somebody foolishly says that Islam needs a Reformation. This is the Muslim Reformation. We’re just caught in the crossfire.
That’s what I think about whenever somebody foolishly says that Islam needs a Reformation. This is the Muslim Reformation. We’re just caught in the crossfire.
Two problems: One, can we wait while they’re fighting such a war in the age of ICBMs & nuclear weapons?
Two, is anyone in the Muslim world actually trying to reform anything, or is this more of the usual Muslim/Arab bullshit, just without some empire riding heard on the Arabs?
A nice thought but probably misleading. While the violence is mostly internal, it seems hardly targeted at a real reform movement.
Rather we see either secretarial violence where religion is but the cover for underlying real issues (Boko Haram) or the attempt to force conformity to an increasingly obscure dogmatism.
Or, to put it in American terms, the fact that there is a tea party does not mean that there really is a widespread hard liberal agenda that it counters. Extremism works well even without a balancing opponent.
I’m suggesting something very different, EA, that the Reformation was largely a violent contest for power portrayed as a difference of opinion on doctrinal issues and what people really should be seeking is an Islamic Enlightenment rather than an Islamic Reformation. What we’re seeing now is quite a bit like what the Reformation looked like if you were living through it.
I can se the parallels with the Reformation, but it seems like a bit more than that. Rather than just battles between factions in Islam, I think there is also pushback against Europe and the US for our interference in their affairs. I think some of the terrorism in Europe and the US is the result of failed integration into the larger society. Religion is probably used as an excuse for angry young men to do what angry young men have always done.
Steve
I see it more as pushback against the U. S. for European interference in their affairs but I take your point. The United States never had colonies in the Middle East or Africa, we still don’t, and you’ve really got to jump through your rear end to define our relationship with those countries as “colonization”. England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain all had straight-out colonies there.