Forget history. Forget those once great empires. Forget religion. Think unemployment.
In the past 30 - 40 years the world has seen an upswing in terrorism, and mostly surrounding Islamic states. We're all well aware that Islamic means religious zealots and Holy Wars but is this indeed the case? Most would say yes, but I am going to provide a counter claim as to why this has happened.
For many years a lot of Arab states existed largely in peaceful harmony. Sure they had goes at fighting each other from time to time but largely that was it. So when did the change occur? Well as I see it the arrival of colonialism, and with it democracy, brought a change in ethos. The Western World arrived on a lot of territories in the Middle East and brought with it means of governance, education, work ethic (read employment) and some sort of stability. But what the western world also brought was Business, Big Business, and primarily in the Oil Industry (read raping a countries natural resources). For years those countries allowed this to happen but eventually colonialism withdrew and these countries were left to fend for themselves, with the exception of the Oil industry, where companies (Business) had an iron grip.
And with that colonial withdrawal also came governmental instability and many countries resorted back to primitive forms of governance, be it tribal or religious. And many education facilities suffered and business suffered. And out of that came unemployment. Having once been busy, many now had idle hands and idle minds and the only two things holding them together were sectarian religious ties and tribal affiliations. It's fair to say tribalism gave birth to the likes of the Taliban and ISIS but more importantly a lack of work lead to idle hands and idle minds being brought together to be fighters.
And fighters needed a cause. Any cause as it transpires. The West was an easy target on two accounts.
Colonialism they hated, and of course the West being mostly Christian. Yes I did say forget history, but as in all conflicts history drives ideals. Muslim separatists remember the past, the deep past, but they also remember the recent past, so a no brainer then. The question though is do they have a vision of the future? I suspect not. The Taliban maybe (an Islamic state of Afghanistan) and also maybe Hamas (autonomy of a rightful Palestinian state free from their perceived enemy) but ISIS??
ISIS reflects tribalism of the deepest kind, but they are more than that (from all reports). As I see it ISIS are not solely an off shoot branch of Islam but more a partisan group of Islamic mercenaries hellbent on fighting anyone for any reason. Beaten out of Syria they could have just disbanded and gone home to the herd of goats, a wife or five, and dusty poppy fields. But there is the crux of this issue. There really isn't any of that at home any more, Idle Hands, Idle Minds, Rebels for No Cause. Fight for the sake of fighting and not for any productive outcome. Once they win their current fight (or lose it) they will appear somewhere else.
So how to solve the Islamic Worlds unemployment crisis? How to get fit young men doing good for a good cause? How to bring back western ideals into the Islamic fold? I think the person/people (UN perhaps) that come up with a workable solution will have solved one of the worlds longest running ills. And don't get me wrong, it's not just an islamic thing either. The western and eastern Worlds have seen their fair share of mercenaries/terrorists (some fighters in Islamic terror groups are from both).
In closing, perhaps there are just too many people on this planet and this scenario above is the result of good healthcare, money and food production. And it won't go away. In fact if you do revisit history you know tacitly it WON'T go away.
