Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
1) Let's remember that islamists being the main type of terrorists is a rather new phenomenon. Historically the main types have been extreme-right wing groups, extreme left wing groups, anarchists and separatists / independence fighters.
If it was actually Islam that made people prone to terrorism, we should see this pattern throughout history. But there is no such pattern, so clearly it can't be about Islam as such.
2) Sub-saharan Africa has tons of terrorist organizations. They just generally don't care about us in the West, which is why we don't hear from them. Latin Americans and Asians similarly are mostly going about their business of killing each other. Which is why we don't hear much about them.
But just because you don't see them in the headlines doesn't mean they're not out there.
3) While most terrorist organizations at the moment are islamists, this has a lot to do with the political process through which the terrorist label is applied. For example the Lord's Resistance Army (a bunch of supposed Christians in Uganda who like ISIS are also into beheadings and child sex-slavery) were never labeled terrorists.
In Central Africa anti-Muslim Christian militias, the have recently destroyed pretty much all the local mosques, committed numerous atrocities and driven out large parts of the local muslim population. Also not terrorists. Because they have no desire to kill Europeans in Europe. (To be fair though, there's also opposing Muslim militias there. It's a mess.)
And it's not like socialist and anarchist terrorism is completely gone. It's just that Greek radical anarchists firebombing luxury car dealers doesn't really grab our attention anymore. To put it bluntly, these days if nobody dies, nobody cares.
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You address this pretty well in point 3 above, but it is worth noting that, even though it's far from a comprehensive or exhaustive list, but of the 50 or so groups identified as Terrorist Entities on the Public Safety Canada website:
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/nt...-ntts-eng.aspx
at least 40 of them are Islamist, so ... there is that.