Marcus Tanner
Thursday 2 October 2014
... One chicken-and-egg question thrown up by this mayhem is whether religion is a cover for other motives (in which case the “messages” of the various holy books are virtually irrelevant) or whether the gorier passages in the Bible and the Koran have given people who might have behaved differently a real inventive to turn on their neighbours. If the latter is true, religion is not just an excuse for violence; it’s a key ingredient. Those familiar with Karen Armstrong’s earlier books will not be surprised to learn that she looks coldly on the simplistic but fashionable view that belief in God is the principal factor in a host of wars, past and present. For a start, she doubts the usefulness in this debate of terms like “religion” or “belief”, because the meaning of these words over time has mutated almost beyond recognition ...
The greatest Muslim empire in history, meanwhile, that of the Ottomans, happily accommodated a wide range of religious difference during some periods and was murderously violent towards religious minorities at others. The point here is that these upsurges in violence rarely had much relation to religious activity. When the Ottoman Empire felt politically and militarily confident, it was usually fairly tolerant. When outside powers closed in, it became more suspicious of, and violent towards, potential enemies within.
This is a long, detailed book that tries to cover too much territory ...
Those most interested in the author’s views on events in the Middle East may wish to fast-forward to the last third, when Armstrong argues persuasively that politics rather than faith is the root cause of much of the recent carnage in the Muslim world. She believes several states that the British and French imperialists established after the First World War are now imploding. These entities, she writes, have never made much sense to people with little sense of nationality. Resting on force, their collapse brings pandemonium with it. A book to annoy neo-cons and liberal interventionists the world over – as Armstrong no doubt intended.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/fields-of-blood-religion-and-the-history-of-violence-by-karen-armstrong-book-review-long-detailed-9770608.html
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