From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 23:12:08 MST
On 6 Feb 2002 at 5:21, L' Ermit wrote:
> <snip>
> [Hermit 4] So, from Herodotus, war in Africa, including widespread
> multi-tribal war featuring temporary alliances and tributary relationships
> between usually feuding tribes dates back to at least 500 BCE - which
> precludes Mohammed and his followers from having anything to do with
> inventing it - unless you assert reincarnation... while Islam is a very
> modern idea - especially in Nigeria.
>
> [Joe Dees 5] I shudder at the suggestion that Islam could be in any manner
> construed as modern; for the greater percentage of Muslims that are
> extremist than belong to any other extant major faith, the mindset is more
> medieval, fundamentalist, literalist, and jihadic than any other extant body
> of religious extremists.
>
> [Hermit 5] You are wrong. Islam easily traverses ethnic barriers
>
Not in the 20th century, as far as I have seen; Islamist states' main method of
dealing with other ethnicities inside its borders seems to be to kill them (check out
the ba'hai's in Iran), reduce them to dhimmitude, or expel them (600,000 Jews so
far this half-century from islamic nations). Their methods of dealing with infidel
countries seem to be confined to open warfare and covertly sponsored religiously
motivated terrorism.
>
> which
> neither Judaism (non proselytizing) or Christian (proselytizing, but
> unlikely to be adopted by any rational society except after defeat) appear
> capable of. Islam is also a personal and ethically bound religion, rather
> than a group religion with an authority determining its meaning. But this
> was not what I meant. I meant that Islam is new to Africa, while warfare is
> not. Notice the last sentence of this next paragraph.
>
> [Hermit 4] As far as Nigeria
> goes,[url]http://africanhistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uiowa.edu%2F%7Eafricart%2Ftoc%2Fcountries%2FNigeria.html[/url]
> [quote]Nigeria had an eventful history. More than 2,000 years ago, the Nok
> culture in the present plateau state worked iron and produced sophisticated
> terracotta sculpture. The history of the northern cities of Kano and Katsina
> dates back to approximately 1000 A.D. In the following centuries, Hausa
> Kingdoms and the Bornu Empire became important terminals of north-south
> trade between North African Berbers and the forest people, exchanging
> slaves, ivory, and other products. The Yoruba Kingdom of Oyo was founded in
> 1400s. It attained a high level of political organization. In the 17th
> through 19th centuries, European traders established coastal ports for slave
> traffic to the Americas. Commodity trade, especially in palm oil and timber,
> replaced slave trade in the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the
> Fulani leader Usman dan Fodio launched an Islamic crusade that brought most
> of the Hausa states under the loose control of an empire centered in Sokoto.
> [/quote]
> [Hermit 5] Two hundred years of Islam applied on top of at least 2,500 years
> of fighting for ethnic reasons. I call that a modern phenomenon.
>
And look how quickly it becomes, for its adherents, THE reason to wage war.
>
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