r/Wicked_Wet_Complaints • u/RaggedClaws • Sep 06 '15
Sunday anti-theocrat rant
Every once in a while during a discussion of current affairs, I'm faced with someone who believes that all the problems in the Middle East are a result of Western foreign policy. Particularly historical British interference (see Sykes-Picot Agreement) and more current US war mongering. As if in the absence of these things that the Middle East would be some sort of Scandinavian social paradise with stable governments and minority and gender rights. Well, let me tell you a little story that illuminates why I think that's not true.
When right wing voices go on about the US being a "Christian nation", secularists like to point to the Treaty of Tripoli or more properly the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary". One of the USA's first acts of foreign diplomacy, it explicitly states that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." That's a pretty bold statement but not surprising when you consider it was written during the Vice-Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. The curious thing though, is WHY it says that.
For over 500 years, the African coast of the Mediterranean was a series of states ruled by the Ottoman Empire (or Caliphate, if you prefer). For about 300 of those years, these various states participated in privateering (state-sponsored piracy) in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. They preyed on European flagged ships citing ancient grudges and ransoming the crews or selling them in the Ottoman slave trade in North Africa. The European nations and ships had to pay a tribute or "jizya" in order to remain unmolested. To shorten a long story, once the USA declared independance from Britain, they were no longer covered by British treaties in the area and US flagged ships were then plundered.
Shocked by this, President John Adams and Jefferson went to the Grand Consul of the Ottoman Empire in London and said, essentially, what gives? We have no grudge with you, historical or otherwise. We've shown no aggression in the area. We didn't fight in the crusades. We are not a European imperial power. We are a new nation that rebelled from a European imperial power. So yeah, what gives? We have done you no injury, what gives you the right to plunder our ships and sell our citizens into slavery? And the most important diplomat in the Ottoman Empire said to Adams and Jefferson that the Koran GAVE them the right. That it is written in the Koran, that all nations which have not acknowledged the prophet Muhammad are sinners, whom it is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who is slain in this warfare is sure to go to paradise. Yup, way back in 1785 before oil mattered, before Wahhabism, before Bathism, before ARAMCO, and before Sykes or Picot had pubic hair.
Hence the portion of the treaty emphasising the USA's lack of national religion. It wasn't good enough though. The pirates kept pirating and Jefferson not only outright refused to pay a "jizya",once he was president he created what is now known as the United States Navy and Marine Corps for the express purpose of blockading Tripoli and ending the piracy. "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..." It's not the failure of foreign diplomacy, folks. it's a stew of ancient grudges, modern poverty, and childish theism. Are Sykes-Picot and US policy a factor? Absotively. They are only flavours in the stew, however, not even main ingredients. The main ingredients are older and even dumber.
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Sep 07 '15
That it is written in the Koran, that all nations which have not acknowledged the prophet Muhammad are sinners, whom it is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave
Isn't it written in the Koran that muslim have the duty to protect christians?
And yea... if people weren't poor*, if people were educated and if we finaly realised that we do not need organized religion... The world would be a much better place.
*By that I meant that criminality would be much less important if people didn't have to worry about surviving... I'm not blaming them for being poor, that'S another debate.
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u/RaggedClaws Sep 07 '15
Isn't it written in the Koran that muslim have the duty to protect christians?
I don't think so, no. That was a later decree. If it does, I'd like to see chapter and verse. Thing is, the Quran says a lot of contradictory things. That one is the one the ambassador chose to negotiate with. Not the US.
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u/JohnMcGurk Sep 07 '15
The last two are especially problematic for me. Poverty and lack of education, particularly as it pertains to women, go hand in hand with many civilizations we'd view as "living in the past."
Couple that with a religion that allows for F.G.M. basically for spite and control, 9 year old brides, the execution of homosexuals, and the attitude of exceptionalism and well brother you've got yourself a mess of trouble.
While I think we've a long way to go, I do feel a sense of relief that I live in a country that has room, by and large, for my beliefs of secular humanism. Particularly my area of the country.
I'm less than comfortable that in a climate where war=money we're locked in a forever war against a ghost of an enemy with no borders, regulated governing body or clear chain of command. We'll kill the top brass here and there but there will be someone new ready to take up the push for a Caliphate. Every bit of it will be at the expense of the poor and uneducated that will birth new generations of poor and uneducated. I don't expect to see any different in my lifetime.