The Bloody Borders Project
Baron Bodissey and Dymphna of the Gates of Vienna have created a new blog. Called 'The Bloody Borders Project', it tracks Islamist violence across the world, and presents it on an interactive map. It is already up and running with blood - excuse the phrase, but the figures and the spread of the incidents are extraordinary.
Dymphna describes the project here.
4 comments:
More useful would be a map to track all violence in the world. If you truly believe that Islamists are the worst perpetrators of violence in the world then prove it by comparison.
As it is, this just sounds like a scheme to pander to people who want their prejudices confirmed.
The point is not so much the quantity of violence as its aim. There is a (smallish) group of people whose declared aim is the destruction of the West. That in itself is no big deal; there was a far bigger group with the same aim 17 years ago. The trouble here is that a very large number of people with a similar sense of grievance to that of the smallish group above, and a comparable difficulty in dealing with the modern world, is ready to explode, to behead or just intimidate at any moment. Some cartoons are published in Denmark; some churches are burned in Nigeria, or an embassy in Damascus, or a government is cowed in the UK.
A prejudice confirmed again and again ceases to be a prejudice.
A prejudice confirmed by biased evidence is still a prejudice. If you're really so sure these people are the greatest threat in the world then prove it to me by showing that no-one else is killing as many people.
Once again, it is not the number that is important. That is why the information on The Bloody Borders Project is on a map: to show the geographical spread of a violence that has a single source: (radical) Islam. That is the striking feature. Now you could object that more people die of road 'violence' and over a greater area than that inspired by Islam. True, but irrelevant. Road accidents are merely a consequence of modern life, and not a conscious revolt against it.
But, as I said before, it is not only the numbers and the geographical spread that are striking; it is the aim. If we were to judge by numbers alone, what would we make of the situation in Europe in 1938? What was responsible for more deaths in that year, Franco's Nationalists or Germany's Nazis? The former, surely. But who was more dangerous? The Nazis, because of the resources they had, the position in Europe they occupied and because of what they intended to do.
Now, as it happens, I don't believe that Islam is a danger to match that of the Nazis. I believe it is a result of economic and cultural backwardness that will eventually be resolved within Islam. What concerns me more is our reaction to it and our weakness in defending the system that has given us so much.
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