Quote:
Originally posted by stevepaa
If we work to raise the economies, I think the people within their own countries will reject the extremist point of view.
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Add education to the mix and I think we have a pretty good recipe for success. It is interesting to note that Islam is the religion of choice in the poorest, least educated regions of the world. I'm aware that that is a pretty broad generalization. Islam is also embraced by some of the most highly educated people on Earth. The very noticable difference is that they don't seem to have the problem with the extremism associated with it in the poorer / less educated areas.
Communism vs. Islamic extremism is kind of a hard comparrison to make. Communism has historically been forced upon unwilling populaces by missguided idealists. With Islamic extremism, we have missguided idealists (so to speak) leading a willing populace that embraced Islam on their own. That in itself makes it far more difficult to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if these extremist Mullahs really believe their own rhetoric, or if they are very cynically using their relatively unneducated followers as a means to their political, rather than religious ends. Kind of like communist leaders - how many bought into the lifestyle they were imposing upon their people? It was all about their power then, and I suspect it may at least partly be today, in another flavor. The difference we must deal with now is that they have buy-in from their people.