2010-09-11

Burning Korans


Socionomics informs us on the social mood, not necessarily how it will specifically manifest. Increased racial tensions or anti-foreign sentiment, however, means increased conflict with Muslims was extremely probable given the events of the preceding decade. The thoughts of the people aren't controlled by social mood, but their strength is enhanced by social mood. Korans have been burned in protest many times, only now is it becoming a hot button issue, as is the mosque at Ground Zero. Here's the Google Trends for quran burned and also in Arabic حرق القرآن الكريم. Is social mood in worse shape in the Middle East?

I think its a mistake to attribute this to xenophobia or bigotry, although those thoughts are certainly a part of the larger group. Instead, it is more likely a much deeper trend rising to the surface, that of the conflict between Islam and Christianity ever since the armies of Muhammad stormed out of the desert (a more recent analogy may be the Cold War, when anti-Communism was attributed to xenophobia). Whereas anger and opposition to Japanese business in the 1980s and Chinese currency issues today may be wrapped up in some shallow xenophobia, the religious and cultural conflicts emerging are part of an older and deeper trend. Samuel Huntington's 1997 Clash of Civilizations explained the coming change in the world order. It is likely that the conflict going on today will not disappear when the social mood shifts, only the tone and form of the conflict will change.

No comments:

Post a Comment