A quick note that was pointed out by someone in a class last year but I think is a mincing of words occuring quite often and liberally.
The word 'fundamentalism' refers to the philosophy of following a religion (or other ideology) to the letter, based directly on The Book (whatever that Book is), strictly adhering to whatever it tells you because you believe it to be the word of the Divine (where the Divine is God, Allah or Ayn Rand)... coming from fundamentals
The word 'radicalism' or 'extremeism' refers to ideologies that go beyond the general beliefs held and professed by everyone else in a given simliar group, and/or seizing on particular aspects while ignoring the whole of the philosophy (evidence, the Ayn Rand Institute) ... going extreme or radical
(yes, these are my off-the-top-of-my-head definitions and by no means constitute an exact definition but are required for the rest of the post)
Islamic fundamentalist are those who adhere stictly to the Koran, Islamic extremist / radicals believe in jihad.
Once you break the words down and pay attention to what they mean, while bin Laden may be both fundamentalist and extremist, it becomes pretty insulting to someone who peacefully abstains from alcohol and pre-marital sex and keeps Halal to wage war on the 'fundamentalists'.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment