ENS703 11.3.2015 Jennifer McNamara Religion and politics Alicja Maria Mikolajczak Isis (Islamic state of Iraq and Syria) is a jihadist militant group in Iraq and Syria. It all started with Maliki the prime minister of Iraq eliminating all Sunni politicians in fear of another situation like the death of hundreds of Shias which was done by Saddam Hussein (Sunni) the former president of Iraq in the 20th century. Maliki was afraid of Sunnis gaining power over the country and using it against Shias. Once US soldiers and military were gone from Iraq, Maliki started silencing his political rivals who all happened to be Sunni Muslims. He also started arresting Sunni population and discriminating them, killing them. His paranoia and actions created the chaos and hate in Sunnis that they slowly started to awaken and striking on the streets. What brought all the desperate Sunnis together was the rest of the powerful men from Al-Qaeda who weren't killed or even captured. Which means they were already trained, they knew what they're doing with all the weapons and how to cooperate with each other. It all wouldn't have worked out in Iraq, but when these small group of people moved to Syria and gained a lot of trust and money from other powerful Sunni politicians of the neighbor countries. The most important part in here is the men, they gained lots of young and middle aged men who were desperate for their own rights, who realized that striking on the streets won't help. Those men realized that they probably need some kind of weapon to get going. At that point the group started growing and over-taking more and more space in Syria as well as the oil factories which made them independent from politicians. The main man who have had connections with Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the one standing behind all ISIS actions and plans. He was the one who planned all the suicidebombers and is the leader of ISIS. He also planned and moved all the men to Syria and took over all the biggest cities and oil factories. He gained a huge victory with taking over Syria. After that, the men moved to the 2nd biggest city in Iraq Mosul. Their jack-point was to free all the prisoners there but surprisingly to everyone even ISIS they took over the whole city. Therefore from that point it wasn't very difficult for them to take over other bigger cities in Iraq. While being in Mosul ISIS put on a Caliphat in Iraq. Al-Baghdadi was chosen it's caliph, which means he is the special chosen one in the name of Muhammad and the leader of all Muslim community. As for this matter we can assume that those conflicts are caused by religion. From the news that we have and from what we know. ISIS or it's leader have many times threatened the citizens of other religions in Iraq such as Christians or even Muslims who were against them. It forces those people to flee away from Iraq or Syria because it gets very dangerous, many people have died because of that reason. Al-Baghdadi claims and teaches other young men that every other religion except Islam is an offend to them and those people who believe in them are called infidels and sinners. Let's take this fact right here, in the year 2003 there were approximately 30.000 Christians in Iraq. In June of 2014 Christians were given a 24hour ultimatum. They could to convert to Islam religion or get killed. The rest of the people isn't sure but it was the number of 5.000-10.000 people that were left in Iraq. We don't know how many people were killed by ISIS members and how many people have actually fled. Now this number is only said about Christians, there have been many Shias and Kurds killed in Iraq and Syria as well. Iraq is being more or less ethnically cleansed. That is also another mark that ISIS is wishing upon is to cleanse America and slowly Europe of other religions. Based on the World's Magazine here is a piece of a speech that Al-Baghdadi gave as a Caliph in the month of Ramadan. “We will conquer your Rome. We will break your crosses and enslave your women by the permission of Allah, the exalted. This is his promise to us: He is glorified and he does not fail in his promise. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave markets.” The speech went on and on, giving out a very scary message mainly to Christians. That's not the first time where a leader of some sort of party claimed that there is a better race/religion than the other one. We can take Hitler for an example, where he idolized Arians and dissed Jews. Which led to Holocaust and a death of innocent 7 million people. Although in Hitler's case he was afraid of Jews spreading out and wanting to take over the world, he had that idea that Jews were planning that after they've been forced away by Romans. Or the idea of Europeans finding America for the first time and forcing or mostly killing away the localsIndians in order to take over the newly found land. That's another case though. We're dealing with a hatred against other religions by Islam believers (ISIS!!). It went from Sunnis rebelling or fighting for their own needed rights to a brainwashing the locals and killing/threatening people of other beliefs. The most important part here is that Iraq and Syria and other Muslim countries are countries capable of human rights. The question here is, should we mix together politics and religion? ''Religious freedom means not only preserving basic human dignity, preserving our freedom of thought and conscience and belief, but it also presumes that questions about God and about eternity and about our purpose in life matter, and people should be free to explore them both privately and publically. People should be free to explore those things without fear of government interference and without the jihadists.''(Mindy Belz, Oct,15.2014). As said before, all of those Muslim countries are a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Religion shouldn't be in any way mixed in the political matters. Religion is something very personal and shouldn't be idolized or forced on someone with a threat of their death. It is a personal choice where politics and politicians are chosen of a group of citizens of the country and it is connected to each of the citizens not looking at their beliefs. So there is less discrimination in there. Of course, the beliefs shouldn't be limited but respected, but so should be the choice of the religion. It feels as the religion has way too negative impact on the society and citizens if it is mixed with politics, as it happened in Iraq in Syria. Although not everyone lives badly there and are terrorized of ISIS. There are many people in Bagdad and other cities that haven't been captivated by ISIS. People there live normal good life as people in London, Poland or Seattle in US. When asked if they're not afraid of bombardings or attacks the answer was ''Your only hope is that if a bomb goes off, it’s far enough away, or it’s close enough that you’re gone quickly.'' (PBS, 11.03.2015) Their life just spins on enjoying what they have and are happy with that. The fear is there but it's not the 1st thing they think about. Now, as we know Iraq's and Syria's government is very bankrupt and helpless in the case of ISIS and the only help there is is from America and other neighboring countries. There are American soldiers in Baghdad that have brought up their old troops and places they've been at almost 10 years ago. Without America's help Iraq would have been under full control of ISIS, the central soldiers and military is not very good in Iraq and the government doesn't have enough of money to invest into a good training and military. Here I have an interview with a Pakistani Muslim to see what he as a Muslim has to say. Q: Do people in London and Pakistan comprehend/treat religion in different ways? A: Yes very differently Pakistan pretty much revolve politics around religion. Whereas London, since there is such a mix of religion, importance is subjective to individuals. So religion is not too important in London. Q: Do you think we should mix religion and politics together? A:I personally think politics and religion shouldnt mix, laws like dont discriminate against others in terms of religion is fine but not decide every policy to fit a certain religion. Q: Do you think there are extreme people in each religion? A: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/rise-of-isis/how-saddams-formersoldiers-are-fueling-the-rise-of-isis/ http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110502134950AAak90k http://www.biography.com/people/saddam-hussein-9347918#decades-of-conflict http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.binladen.denial/index.html?_s=PM:US https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/resources/interviews/13790-iraqi-vice-president-on-sunnioppression-nouri-al-maliki-and-sectarian-division http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/12/31/374071914/there-and-back-again-for-u-s-military-iniraq
