IS

21.09.2014 14:12

earlier known as ISIS and ISIL.

The unimaginable violence and brutality that characterize IS upset and surprise us Westerners. Where IS expands everyone with other beliefs than themselves are killed. Even Muslims, except the most extreme Sunni Muslims, have everything to fear when the well-armed IS-warriors are expanding into their territory. Men, women and children are killed. Many get their throats cut or are buried alive! The women and children spared are sent back to IS controlled areas and sold as sex slaves or household slaves. Especially vulnerable are Christians.

 

We are horrified by their atrocities, but one must keep in mind that concepts like freedom, justice, equality, empathy, democratic values, the protection of the weak, the right of every individual to seek his own happiness, to critically examine facts and allowed to reject the prevailing perceptions and to having an atheistic belief system are Western values​​. They grew out of the Enlightenment in the mid1700s, particularly in England and France. Science and reason would replace superstition and authoritarianism. (Thanks Newton, Darwin, Voltaire, Linnaeus, Celsius, etc.) The basis is of course the 2000-year-old Christian conception of justice with the Ten Commandments and Jesus' admonition to love one's neighbor and turning the other cheek.

In Asia and Africa, people generally do not have those values. In countries where the whole population is muslim they have the highest intolerance, for example, in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Criticism of religion leads to death. Countries with a big part of muslims, such as India, have somewhat higher tolerance but violence often explodes between Muslims and Hindus. In countries with small Muslim populations such as Thailand and the Philippines clashes occasionally occurs between Muslims and Buddhists or Christians. In Europe and the United States with a small but growing proportion of Muslims, hatred of Western values exploodes ​​in violence against vulnerable systems that are easily accessible due to our open society. Extreme islamists like IS members strikes against spectacular targets such as the aircraft crashes into the World Trade Center, the bombing of London's public transport and the Madrid bombings.

The West's leaders must work together to prevent extreme Islamists to travel to Europe, the Americas and Australia. The West's youth who travels to the Middle East to fight with the IS should have their passports revoked. The risk is, of course, otherwise they get home as fully trained assassins with war experience and an evil ideology.