Queen Rania: Let’s Drop The First ‘I’ In ISIS. There’s Nothing Islamic About Them

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/03/06/queen-rania-isis-islamic_n_6781160.html?ir=Australia

Posted: 07/03/2015 LONDON — Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.

She was speaking with Huffington Post Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington as a part of The WorldPost Future of Work Conference.

Here is an extract of what Queen Rania said in this interview in March. For the full interview please go to the above links:

“Queen Rania said she thought there are different reasons people join ISIS, including desire for a sense of belonging, for adventure, for a job and/or for the religious rhetoric. She said she sees it as a pyramid:

At the top of the pyramid are those who actually generate that ideology, and I think they’re the worst. Fanaticism and extremism exists in every religion but it always remains on the fringes. And I think what makes it drift to the mainstream is the fact that they were supported. Some did support them with money, and they provided them with the infrastructure, which allowed them to then spread that ideology a lot more.
At the middle of the pyramid are those who … [believe] that there’s a political injustice. That they don’t have a stake in their own societies. That there’s no justice. And I think at the bottom of the pyramid are those who are probably uneducated and suffer from poverty and unemployment, and they are the most vulnerable. Apart from those on the top, it’s vulnerability that makes people fall prey to their kind of rhetoric.
Because there are different reasons why people join, she said, the fight against ISIS needs to be undertaken at different levels — including militarily. “But this can’t just be won on the battlefield,” she said. “At the heart of this war is ideology, and you cannot kill an ideology with a bullet. You can only kill it with a better idea.”

I think this pyramid of reasons is very well explained. Last night we opened a bottle of red wine. I had been a hot day. Our room temperature was still 27C. Our motto was always to drink red wine at room temperature. What if the temperature was well above 20C? I urged Peter to keep the opened bottle in the fridge. This morning I happened to notice an article about red wine in the Huffington Post. Here you can read it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/11/19/red-wine-room-temp-sensor_n_8595676.html?ncid=edlinkauhpmg00000001

Among other things they say in this article: “Red wine drinkers, prepare to have your minds blown — when a winemaker says you should serve at ‘room temperature’, they’re not talking about the temperature of an Australian room.

The antiquated term dates back to medieval French drawing rooms which were about 14-16˚C and the average Aussie living room is closer to 20˚C.

So basically our wine-drinking habits are the European equivalent to drinking warm beer.”