Sunday, January 18, 2015

Religion does not represent violence


The first Muslim lawmaker in the states, Andre Carson commented on recent radical Islamic violence in the name of their religion saying that “certainly doesn't represent the [Muslim] religion” on Friday. He said “It's not any different than those who claim to be Christians or Jews or Hindus and commit atrocious acts”. He is a member of Democratic Rep. and this comment raised criticism from conservatives. Conservative publications gave him question about ties between him and Islamist groups. However, top Democrat and New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, vice-chairman of the Democratic caucus, claim that these comments “offended” him in a letter to members.
            Although it is true that recently radical Islamic groups have attacked others by using their religion as an excuse, such as the terrorism in France. However, as he said, there are many Muslims in the world and not all of them are in radical Islamic group. They are just small member of all Muslims. So I think we should not have stereotype that Muslims are radical and the cause of terrorism. This time we tend to have the image that Muslims are bad, however, even Christians had big wars because of their religion for a long time ago. Before we have stereotype about certain religion, I think, we should learn, understand their religion. Moreover, radical Islamic group just might take advantage of their religion to make an excuse to attack others. I do not know the specific reason, but we should not condemn other religions even its believers are terrorists. For example, if the group that caused terrorism in Paris were Christian, how do they think about terrorist? Do you think they condemn Christian? I can say “No”. Just because they are Muslims and they say used their religion as a reason why they attacked, we do not have right to condemn their religion. We should understand and learn about other religions.



Ryota Taniguchi

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