Fundamentalism

The computer is being taken to be fixed this week, so I am doing this now so I don't have to fight with the townspeople and librarians at the town library, which censors everything anyway.

I may have bit off more then I can chew. Fact-checking is welcomed.

A number of countries have elected fundamentalist or nationalist (both) parties over the last year or so. India, Pakistan, Turkey all come to mind. In the U.S., the Christian fundamentalists have made inroads into the Conservative party here, the Republicans.

India has its BJP. They won big in 2002 in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. That state has been wracked by Hindu-Muslim violence.

The mission statement of the Party didn't work, but from reading the various commentary on it I got the feeling that this was a nationalist fundamentalist party. It scared me, because this following statement is one of their tenets.

On the nuclear bomb issue, the party's stand has been consistent and clear. It has always maintained that India should have the bomb.

This party is in power in India now. Next door is nuclear, unstable Pakistan. Pro-Taliban parties rose to power in their parlimentary elections. These two countries really don't like each other.

In Turkey, a secluar Muslim state, a not-so-secular party is now in power.
Iran is well-known for its fundamentalist roots, along with Saudi Arabia.
We can't forget the riots in Nigeria which happen all the time it seems, and the stonings, and the sharia laws.

I suppose my point is fundamentalism is terrifying to me. I've got nothing wrong with religion, but when people get that fanatical gleam in their eye, I want to start running. In the U.S. and other nations where Christianity is dominant, the Christian fundamentalists burn childrens' books like Harry Potter because of their themes of witchcraft (and they ignore the history of witch burning and torture too). They protest the teaching of evolution even though many many Christian sects have endorsed the idea. Some states even have Creationism as their chief and official scientific stance (Kansas comes to mind. . . maybe a couple more Southern states too). Islamic fundamentalists torture women and deny them rights. The craziest of them blow themselves up in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, malls, etc. There's even Jewish fundamentalists. I believe it was a Jew who murdered Yizak (sp?) Rabin, and I feel he was the last, best hope for peace in that blood-soaked land. Now, those political parties will probably control Israel, meaning more death. And there's Hindu fundamentalists who have the bomb, and despise their Muslim neighbors.

These trends, if you can call them that, scare me just a tad.