Clash of Religions

                When you think of what makes us different, as a people, one of the biggest things that comes to mind is religion. They don’t believe in the same god as I do, or perhaps they don’t believe in any god, or maybe not the right way. I do not follow Hinduism, sure, but I do not wish them harm;  nor will I condemn them for believing as they do. Is it ok to disagree with them? Sure it is, but it is not ok to wish their deaths simply because they don’t see things your way. It is also not ok to condemn a whole religion of people because of what a small portion of them have done.  Based on what has happened lately I do not believe people are making a distinction between a small portion and the whole.

                Just three days ago marks the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in America.  It was a tragic event and many lives were lost. Al-Qaeda planned four plane attacks. Three were successful, taking out the World Trade Center (the Twin Towers) and the Pentagon.  Naturally, Americans were very angry. They were looking for someone to blame. Because Al-Qaeda is an extremist Muslim organization, many Americans turned to the Muslims for blame, claiming that all of them were terrorists (or are in some cases), which is not true. Anyone can be a terrorist, even Christians.

                Al-Qaeda was formed based on their perceived need for a jihad or a war on the world's Christian people, due to the Crusades in about the 12^th century. I agree, that yes, the Crusades were a horrible thing and should never have happened however, I do not agree that they constitute a war today. The Crusades happened over 800 years ago. That’s almost a thousand years; we’re talking several generations down the line. In today’s modern Christianity the Crusades would be absolutely unacceptable. That and the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn’t kill only Christians.

 Let’s simply look at the attack on the Twin Towers, which is probably the most remembered part of the whole attacks.  Approximately 3,000 people were killed in these attacks (World Trade Center, http://www.wtc.com/). Out of the 3,000 people, it is hard to believe that they were all Christian. There could have been Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, and any other number of religions present at the time of the attacks. If this were truly an attack on Christianity, why strike there? Why not go for a large church on Sunday? It was a World Trade Center, surely people from all over the world were working in those buildings the moment they collapsed.

Still the anger is there, and on both sides. Recently Pastor Terry Jones had plans to burn the Koran to mark the 9^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. United States officials, including the president, argued that he shouldn’t burn the Koran and that it would endanger our troops overseas and cause unrest. It did cause unrest even though he never burned them. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39113743/ns/us_news-security), However the unrest he and the media caused still led to several deaths.

According to the New York Times, 16 people died in Kashmir alone. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/world/asia/14kashmir.html?ref=terry_jones_pastor) All because of the threats to burn the Koran. Seems a bit drastic doesn’t it? And yet, can the Christians say they wouldn’t react in a similar way to threats for burning the Bible? Or any other religion’s reaction to the burning of their holy book. But is the pastor the only one to blame? I don’t think so, though yes, I do agree some of the blame belongs to him, but the media’s blowing this story out of proportion led to these people believing it would happen and protesting it. I bet that there were lots of people in America burning Korans or even posting hateful comments about Muslims during the anniversary of 9/11 however, they haven’t caused protests because the media has not reported on them, or made such a huge deal out of them.

Basically it is one giant misunderstanding that has only made tensions between Christianity and Islam worse.  Just as many Christian Americans view Muslims as guilty for the attacks because of the actions of Al-Qaeda, Muslims now view many Christian  Americans  as guilty for burning the Koran. Who is right? No one! Because an entire population of people cannot be blamed for the  actions of a small group. If Americans want to protest the attacks, they should only protest against Al-Qaeda, and if they really must burn things, they could burn Al-Qaeda’s name or something very specific to Al-Qaeda. On the other side,  Muslims wishing to protest the potential burning of the Koran should focus specifically on that church, and not all of America, or all American Christians. It is because of misconceptions like these that there is so much hate between religions. If they could only see it in a more individual way, there wouldn’t be so much bloodshed.
Picture is from http://www.ussartf.org/images/ATT390715.jpg