Religion has not played a major role in Nation State conflict in centuries, and it is not a driving force today.
I agree with this. The religious battles are often internal struggles. Or struggles that are not one nation state vs another nations state but one ideology vs another ideology.
The Taiping Rebellion was in the mid 1800s and was religiously motivated. Religion was a big motivator in the Bosnian Conflict, the Sudanese civil war was Mulims vs Christians and animists (there are many other reasons too), The Troubles in N Ireland had religious motivations, Jews, Muslims and Christians in Palestine (Israel vs muslims), The seperation of India and pakistan, Muslims vs Hindus in Sth E Asia, Christian vs Muslim in Cote D' Lvoire, Christians vs Muslims in Cyrpus (Peacekeepers still stationed and the two groups divided), Hindus vs Muslims in Kashmire, Muslims vs Christians in Kosovo, Muslims vs Christians in Macedonia (now at peace), Muslims vs Christians in the Phillipines, Christians vs Muslims in Uganda, Muslims vs Muslims in Iraq, Muslims vs Muslims in Pakistan and Muslims vs Muslims in Somalia.
I wont do what so many people seem to do and put WW2 in the list. There was so much more going on in the world to cause the conflict than religion. There was a religious element, but the main driving force was nationalism.
Religion is a major motivator in a lot of conflict. We cant get away from that. We also cant get away from the fact that people can justify doing the most horrible things because their chosen religious leaders tell them to. There are examples of people doing terrible things to each other for all sorts of reasons. Tribalism in Africa (Rwanda in particular) and the drug wars in Sth America would be two good modern examples. But just because there are other people doing bad things for other reasons does not mean that it is acceptable for religious people to use their religion to do bad things. It is very hard to find a modern example of a group of people who are willing to kill and die (even through suicide attacks) so quickly and publically as the extreme Islamic groups. A good modern example is the fatwa against Salman Rushdie by Irans spritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There is still a $2.8 million bounty on his head for writing a work of fiction. What other group would be so public about threatening a writer for something like that? In Australia, there has been recent examples of Islamic elders preaching hatred against Australia and all western nations. If we were to act with the same fire that he preaches, he would have been killed in a matter of days. There was a particularly unpleasant man in Perth who came under investigation after police were alerted by Australian Muslims. This was the perfect way for this to be done. People of his own faith denounced his statements publically.
Check out youtube videos of recent American white power rallies (i am not setting up a straw man, just picking something obvious that exists in our societies). In all cases, you will see white people publically denouncing their ranting. White politicians and business people on local TV, newspapers and radio speaking out against it. You even see white power groups on Jerry Springer getting hammered (not very current, they are reruns). What I dont think we see enough of is Islamic groups standing up against Islamic groups in Western nations. Coyote had some images of the Danish cartoon protests. There should have been twice the number of Islamic people protesting AGAINST these people on the street. The fringe elements need to be told by people of their own faith that what they are doing is wrong. I know this cant really happen in many Islamic nations. But in Western nations, it should be the nrom. Those protests should be the same as the race hate protests. The finge should be outnumbered 10 to 1 by people publically denouncing their hatred.
There was a bunch of religious world leaders who got together in 1999 because they saw how big the problem was and put a statement out about the religious conflict of the world. They recognised 56 ongoing conflicts with a significant religios motivation. Check it out.
A group of world religious leaders from the Buddhist
My favourite part is a quote from the Dalai Lama (I really love that guy)
He said that those who waged war in the name of religion had failed to look beyond their religion to other faiths which they opposed. If they did examine other faiths, they would recognize the same desire for transformation as in their own.
If Muslim nations posed no threats to Western nations, then Isreal would have no army and no one would care if Iran became nuclear capable. It depends on what you consider to be a 'real threat'. I would say that the folks in the Twin Towers and the people on the London buses who were killed saw a real threat.
I dont want this to sound like I totally disagree with your point though.
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