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The problem, as has been stated, is extremism. Islam for a long period had tolerated other religions in their territories. The fact that the afgan statues and the egyptian tombs(pyramids and sphynx) has been in muslim controlled lands for a really long time, without being destroyed is testament to that. Why all of a sudden the desire to destroy these things?

GG

 generalgrog wrote:
The problem, as has been stated, is extremism. Islam for a long period had tolerated other religions in their territories. The fact that the afgan statues and the egyptian tombs(pyramids and sphynx) has been in muslim controlled lands for a really long time, without being destroyed is testament to that. Why all of a sudden the desire to destroy these things?

GG

It's easier to make your citizens ignore the problems within their own borders if they have an external object to hate. I:E other religions, Terrorism, the West, the East, Communism, Democracy, The U.S, , Etc

As someone has already said this guy is about as Muslim as Phelps is christian.

On a random but still related note (sort-of) Islam was popular enough that when the mongols took over the adopted the religion.

Dear USA,

Hey, remember when you made us give Egypt back?

You're welcome.


Regards,

Britain & France

I dont think anything will come of this, most Egyptians are very focused on their national identity being culturally Egyptian rather than Arab

 Grey Templar wrote:
AFAIK, Christianity wasn't ever a dominate religion in Egypt. Certaintly not at a point where it was in power.

Much of Egypt was Coptic Christian until around 700AD, when muslim invasions eventually resulted in conversions, funnily enough for tax reasons more than anything.

Well if one theory is correct then the jihadists really have their work cut out for them...

 RossDas wrote:
Well if one theory is correct then the jihadists really have their work cut out for them...

Spoiler:

Egyptians really loved their cats...

If the pyramids are destroyed by the Jihadists in Egypt then these guys and gals are going to be pissed when they come back and find their parking spaces missing.....

Palindrome wrote:
The big differnce between the Afghan Buddah statues and the Egyption monuments is that Afghanistan is effectively a medieval theocracy with a weak, or even no, central government. Egypt is a relatively developed democracy with a new but authorative government.

Nothing is going to happen to the Pyramids as it will cripple the Egyptian economy and politicans hate to be poor.

Not even that. Agghanistan is effectively NOT a country at all. Before the Taliban the tribal warlords ran everything and now that the Taliban are gone, they're running it again. They're very much like the ancient steppes peoples today.2

AFAIK, Christianity wasn't ever a dominate religion in Egypt. Certaintly not at a point where it was in power.

It was in the major population centers, but Islam showed up pretty fast and took over. There are still Coptic Christiansand they make a sizable minority in Egypt.

There are active worship communities of pretty much ALL the old faiths. Just a little harder to find after the Christians tried to light everyone on fire.

Forgive me if treat worship of Bas and Osiris as seriously as I take the Church of Body Modification and Jedism. That said, there are so few worshipers of such faiths that saying they don't exist might as well be true (and I'm unaware of ANY active worship of ancient Egyptian religion. Hellenistic Egyptian does exist).

 LordofHats wrote:

Not even that. Agghanistan is effectively NOT a country at all. Before the Taliban the tribal warlords ran everything and now that the Taliban are gone, they're running it again. They're very much like the ancient steppes peoples today.2

its not quite as simple as that, before the Soviet invasion there has always been a central government. It was never very strong and a prominent feature of Afghan histroy is civil war but it was always there. It is undoubtably a very tribal society but it is still a recongisable country.

After 1992 and the withdrawl of Soviet troops was when the warlords really took control.

Palindrome wrote:
It is undoubtably a very tribal society but it is still a recongisable country.

Only because we slap it on a map and call it a country. It's like Sudan or Chad, or Somalia. A government none of the people care about isn't really a government anymore than the Principality of Sealand is a country.

Afghans call themselves Afghans so they seem to think that its a country.

Thats more of an ethnic destinction then one from a source of national identity.

The Afghans have been around a lot longer than Afghanistan.

EDIT: Of course, we're ignoring that someone can identify with a national identity while not recognizing the authority of a government. Go ask the Pakistani's about it.

 LordofHats wrote:

 kronk wrote:
If you removed the Pyramids and the Sphinx, all you'd have left is a gak-hole.

Uh yeah this. The Egyptian ruins, idols, and monuments, IS Egypt's tourism industry, a huge part of their economy and their history.

That 'Mujahidin' goon can't stand the revival of 'a religion that should be long-dead'
It is said that the cult that worships Egyptian old gods exists on earth. members are usually comes from either North America, Europa, or Australia. The Great Pyramid of Giza has a shrine of what they called 'the holy cosmic ray' thing.
I don't say Islam is bad. actually the religion bourne from the needs to improve arabian public morality in the mid 600th century. The violences done by the self-proclaimed 'Holy Warriors' actually bourne from White Imperialism. Throughout history Egypt was ruled over by several nations, (Makedonians/Greeks brought by Sikander -> Romans (Actually brought by invitations of Cleopatra) -> Wendels -> Arabians -> Turks -> French (briefly, Napoleon brought French army there on a behest of the Directorate, reasons of the expedition is unknown) -> British) the most successful conquerors are Arabians. much of modern egyptian cultures are bourne from Arabs and Islam itself and egyptian folks found out it was a good thing to them. it is much a wonder that during the Middle Ages up to the Napoleonic Wars. Islamic rulers never mess up with 'old gods' for some reasons. I don't know if they believes that the 'idol of false gods' are actually cursed or possed by a group of powerful Genies so they left that alone.

That article in the OP was really dodge in the way it tried to tie the majority Freedom and Justice Party to the Salahfi Party, and in turn to the nutbar who wants to blow up the Sphinx.

Seriously, the Freedom and Justice Party are ultra-conservative, but that's what you expect in a conservative country. Trying to make out they're anything more than that just sounds like a bunch of butthurt Americans sad they lost their man in the region.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 generalgrog wrote:
The problem, as has been stated, is extremism. Islam for a long period had tolerated other religions in their territories. The fact that the afgan statues and the egyptian tombs(pyramids and sphynx) has been in muslim controlled lands for a really long time, without being destroyed is testament to that. Why all of a sudden the desire to destroy these things?

GG

There's a hundred year trend towards increasing conservatism in Islam. Stuff that people didn't even register as wrong suddenly becomes an all important issue.

Add in the Taliban going through one of their attention seeking phases and suddenly happening upon the idea of blowing up statutes to piss of the world and make the rest of the world return to the negotiating table, and suddenly an idea is hatched in the mind of every nutbar extremist.

Not that there's a sudden desire to destroy the Sphinx, this is really just the claims of one crazy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats more of an ethnic destinction then one from a source of national identity.

It's not an ethnic distinction. There's a wide variety of ethnic groups in the country (fighting between those groups is one of the problems). Being an Afghani citizen and an ethnic Pashtun or Hajik is a pretty common way of thinking of oneself.

Not to mention people probably wouldn't notice if you blew the sphinx up. You'd almost have to fix it before you could cause any more damage.

 LordofHats wrote:
Only because we slap it on a map and call it a country. It's like Sudan or Chad, or Somalia. A government none of the people care about isn't really a government anymore than the Principality of Sealand is a country.

That's a slightly odd way of looking at it. I mean, people only care about their government in terms of what their government delivers to them in roads, education and all that. And when the Afghani government has such a woeful record in delivering those things, the Afghanis are only responding as you'd expect.

National identity is something entirely different. Think about the US, and how much the people there rag on their government, but at the same time express pride in their country and in being Americans.

 sebster wrote:
the Afghanis are only responding as you'd expect.

Sorry to be pedantic but an Afghani is the local currency, the locals are Afghans

I hope this isn't a sign that we're going to see a repeat of the Luxor massacre which saw nearly sixty tourists dead, as well as others.

Some of..........."edit"