Aielyn said:
Because there are about 7.5 million Hindus, 6 million Buddhists, and 2 million Sikhs outside of Asia, compared with somewhere around 500-600 million Muslims. Because they aren't being alienated by the media and by bigots (at least, not nearly to a similar degree - and usually the bigots target them because they think they're muslims). Because the countries that are the most "symbolic" to Muslims (such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc) are being actively oppressed by their governments, which have been routinely supported by various western nations, while those for the other groups aren't nearly so poorly-treated. Because too many leaders, both Muslim and non-Muslim, use fear as a tool to gain support, and the issues of "Islamic" terrorism and "western" oppression (both of which are rather extreme misrepresentations) are particularly effective tools to that end. Because we're stuck in a downward spiral, where the reaction to terrorism is to ramp up the very conditions that create terrorists, and so the "Islamic" terrorism ends up resulting in more of the same. The conditions, by the way, are poverty, oppression, and inadequate education.
I'm not going to claim that Islamic scripture (more often the various Hadith, rather than the Quran itself) isn't contributing to the problem... but this can happen with just about any religious text. Heck, there are "Buddhist" terrorists in Sri Lanka and in Myanmar who use Buddhist teachings to justify their terrorism (and Buddhism explicitly bans violence and "taking of life"). The conditions above simply aren't there for the other religions at this time, to turn it into a worldwide problem. And the solution, by the way, is to reverse those conditions - we need to deal with the oppressive governments, lift people out of poverty, ensure good and widespread access to quality education, and stop playing into terrorists' hands, by refusing to allow their actions to impact life, refusing to allow fear to spread. |
Other religion aren't alienated because their religion don't tell them that those who do not believe in their god must be killed.
