Of course the past matters. Both as it was and as it is understood in the minds of those living. Past is prologue. Tidy of you to accept the importance of the past, then disregard it when it is unsuitable for your arguments or present mood.
Who is doing that?
My brief devolution into the murderous history of those fighting under the black flags of Islam was instigated by the uncritical implication by a poster here that Sultanic Turkey had been a light of goodness and understanding to the world.
The Ottoman empire especially was indeed pretty barbaric when considered in a modern context, but by contemporary standards perhaps a little less so.
Some have claimed as north of 300 million killed and as many more enslaved or forcibly converted at the hand of these "Sons of Allah" over 1400 years of warfare. It's a signifigant portion of the human race. But I'm supposed to ignore this as unPC ? Dismiss that mass murder and genocide may in point of fact be a contigous, integral and ongoing part the history of Islam ? (and yes a similar history of christianity is possible)
You seem to have been quite specific about Islam but provided only a passing wave to the documented atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity and others, so lets fill in some blanks. Of course these figures are impossible to verify with certainty, but that's true in general terms, Islamic atrocities included.
I read 270 million but why quibble. It's not UnPC it's just history. Much if not most of it
ancient history. The same applies to what follows of course but you can't dismiss
that on those
same grounds without undermining the premise of your own argument. So, can we assume both are valid for this purpose?
Of necessity and space limitations I am, regrettably, being selective and just trying to give a mere flavour of how benevolent the big R is. I've focussed primarily, but not exclusively on deaths resulting from events perpetrated by, largely involving or on behalf of Christians:
Ancient pagans - after about 350. Paganism was punishable by
death. Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius (408-450) had
children executed, simply because they had been playing in and around the remains of pagan statues.
In later times - in 782 Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. In 1234 when the peasants of Steding, Germany were unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes and between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children were slain for it. The Battle of Belgrad in 1456 resulted in 80,000 Turks being slaughtered.
The Crusades - well where to start, certainly about 100,000 Turks were killed in about 1098 and onwards, according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres on the fall of Antiochia - the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in (the enemy's) tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," Lovely.
60,000 killed in the capture of Jerusalam in July 1099 including Women and Children. The Battle of Askalon in August 1099 left about 200,000
'heathens' slaughtered according to contamporary reports - "
in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ".
Estimates for total fatalities by the fall of Akkon - Hotly debated but perhaps upwards of 2.5 million in the ME alone.
Middle Ages - very messy indeed. Heresy alone probably accounts for several hundred thousand, probably close to a million. Burning of witches, a few hundred thousand, about 80% women.
Wars - - 17th century: Catholics sacked the city of Magdeburg and approximately 30,000 Protestants were slain. In one church about fifty women were found beheaded.
In 1648 the Chmielnitzki massacres in Poland left an estimated 100,000 Jews slain.
Native peoples - though in fairness disease played a massive role in the death toll, for the most part said diseases arrived in the name of our Lord.
When the 16th century came to an ignoble end about 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas where it's estimated that by then more than 60,000,000 natives were now dead. A total of perhaps 150 million Indians across both Americas were killed one way or another in the period of 1500 to 1900. As I said, while perhaps 60% died as a result of smallpox and other epidemics, that still leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
Recent times -
Croatian Catholic camps, Jasenovac (run by a Franciscan Friar) for example. It's estimated that 300,000 - 600,000 died in these camps - mostly orthodox-Christian serbians and a substantial number of Jews. The Nazis even complained to Hitler about them, meanwhile the Pope turned a blind eye.
Rwanda, these is evidence that Catholic clergy were complicit, even in one case actively involved in the genocide that left close to 1 million dead. In some villages people will not enter Catholic churches because of this collaboration.
There are many incidents,
far too many to list, some resulted in a few hundred dead, or a few thousand. I can't add them up, but surely close to 100 million, maybe more.
I'm not trying to demonise Christianity per se, to be honest it doesn't need any help from me, I'm just trying to cast your historical crtique of Islam into it's a better perspective. The events I related cover the last 1700 years or so.
And more: The (attas)turks are now a beacon of modernity and rationality in all this madness you say? I say bullshit. Except of course for the blood of a few million christian armenian dead on their hands circa 1916. That is the protection of respected minorities in Islamic society for you.
I think the most pessimistic figure was about 1.5 million. But yes, it was a horrific event, and not the first of it's kind. The estimated death toll for similar events perpetrated by 'Turks' is put at perhaps 5 million. Still, even that figure pales when compared to the Stalin engineered Ukranian famine of 1932-33 where an estimated
7 million died.
Surely the turks recognize and have tried to reconcile themselves with this great tragedy ? Oh that's right, just saying it in turkey gets you jailtime or killed.
Well, not quite but there is certainly a healthy state of denial, not necessarily sinister in motivation about the events of 1915. I don't want to make this about Turkey, it's neither the Middle East nor a particular hotbed of Islamic radicalisation.
Do I think Islam has a perhaps unparalleled legacy of violence? Yes. I also think the worst excesses of Christianity come close, for ferocity, blind ignorant malice and bigotry even if not sheer volume. In that sense I do believe raw numbers tend to be misleading.
Do I think that makes every Muslim alive today a party to that legacy? No, no more than I consider modern Germans parties to the Holocaust, or Modern Americans to blame for their ancestors treatment of Native Americans, Christians for the Inquisition and so on, ad infinitum.
Do I think the 'peaceful' majority in
all religions could do a
lot more to disown and try to curb the excesses of the extremists within them? -
absolutely. But this isn't what I started this thread to discuss.
I started this thread to discuss the unfolding events in Lebanon, with a spin on western perception of them, not to start a world's worst religion throught history pissing contest. That may have its own merits for sure but, to be honest I don't think your mind is open enough to be entirely objective.
I see also the native americans drafted into the cause. If you really belive that the best way to organize this continent for the betterment of the human race is as a mostly unoccupied wilderness roamed by bands of scalping half-frozen tribal huntergatherers howling at the moon and nomadic farmers who live and die to a mean age of 20-something then I have a suggestion for you. Go to your closest Indian reserve and hand over the keys to to your car, house and other possessions to the tangental relatives of some of these people and get back to the slums of europe. Quick ! Otherwise: Get off your soapbox.
Did I really just read that....?