A reconciliation

  I don't know if it means anything but having just left an interesting debate on RT about the causes of the terror we see on the streets of France and Germany I came upstairs to hear my radio, tuned into the BBC, talking about the issue of being charged for plastic bags at the supermarket. (Perhaps this says something about editorial).

It's very important to listen to all sides of any argument. Russian Television has its own bias as does Fox in the States and Sky in the UK. They all line up a plethora of speakers to fulfil the narrative they wish to put across and it's only by listening to each, can one get any semblance of what is actually going on.

Plastic bag charges aside, the introduction of Wahhabism and Salafism into the conversation was a welcome enlightenment on the muddy story of Muslim separatism and the terrible clashes we see on the streets of the Middle East which spill over in another form as terrorism in Europe.

The search for a pure form of religious observance is not unique to the Muslim faith. 

The ultra-orthodox  Haredi sect of the Jewish faith are equally strict and equally intolerant of people who don't follow their stricture.

One of the difficult things for western non-Muslims to get their head around is the basis for the wanton killing of Muslim on Muslim. This is particularly so when you question Muslims living in this country who know of the separation of Shia and Sunni but are unconcerned. Some have been taught by parents and family living in their mother country to revile the Sunni or Shia but they are not clear why they should do so and the hatred dies out. 

I suppose the conflict between the Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland has a similar ring to it a hatred which over time will wither away.

Wahhabism grew in the 18th century from the religious teachings of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703 - 1792) and was interconnected with the political rulers of what became, in 1932, Saudi Arabia, the Saud family. 

The export of Wahhabism or Salafism has created hardline Muslim sects all around the Middle East and it is this ultra -conservative interpretation of the Islamic faith within the nationalistic construct of the Middle East which has provided the extremes and invoked an excuse to wreck mayhem in the name of the faith.

This doesn't let, in my view religion off the hook but at least it highlights the age old problem,  "there will always be extremists". People who drink too much, people who eat too much, people who gamble too much, people who do anything to excess bring what ever they do into disrepute. The reaction of society is to impose laws which punish the meek on behalf of the wild and it's unfair. We are led by headlines and conditioned by headlines, we become putty in the hands of the headline writer, we are the doll at the end of the marionette controlled string. We have to, as a society learn to take back our own, common sense founded rationalism which is as much based on our own findings as on what others tell us. We might know a few extremists friends who drink too much or never stop eating but whilst they remain friends we would never dream of excluding them. Of course religious extremism is on a different level altogether since the religious extremist is usually very intolerant of people who are not the same. There is a wall of exclusion through which communication is extremely difficult if not impossible.

To make sense of it all one must remain open to ideas and opinion from all angles since in the brew there are threads of commonality which connect us as human beings and with some effort, that's as good a place to start the reconciliation as anywhere.