We
know that the structure of contemporary media has an appetite for news stories
but the implied moral horror in western news stories behind reports of the displacement
of hundreds of thousands of Kurds from northern Iraq and Syria and the mistreatment
of those unable to escape Islamic State forces has created some surprise in our
office. Those who remember the graphic depictions of barbarities by both
sides during the Second World War in central Europe documented in the Laurence Rees BBC series The Nazis: A Warning from History, 1997, know that similar inhumanities
were committed in Europe as recently as the 1940s. Is there no limit to the
hubris of the western world?
In the West we may be appalled by the depth of hatred (and bloodshed) between Sunni and Shia denominations of Islam but this conflict is not dissimilar to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants during the Thirty Years War, 1618-48 when large armies roamed Europe and brought untold misery. In the Christian Bible (New Testament) there is a comment on who should 'throw the first stone'.
In the West we may be appalled by the depth of hatred (and bloodshed) between Sunni and Shia denominations of Islam but this conflict is not dissimilar to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants during the Thirty Years War, 1618-48 when large armies roamed Europe and brought untold misery. In the Christian Bible (New Testament) there is a comment on who should 'throw the first stone'.
Contributor
Geoff Williams. Sempringham eLearning Office
