The Clash thesis [that the planet is at war along "West" vs. "East" or "West" vs. "Muslim" lines] isn't just wrong. It's dangerous. A replication of Cold War theology, it obscures schisms and considers Religion, capital R, a synonym for ideology. It reduces actual lived religion to official doctrine, and it paints conflicts of many factions, splitting not just along religious lines but also along racial and political and historical fractures, as simple dichotomies, leaving the public with a knowledge gap as big as the hole at Ground Zero -- or the crater created by one American fascist's truck full of fertilizer in Oklahaoma City.
-IseFire
