TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
- (december 2007)
Islam's moderates.
The world is spending most of the decade watching in disbelief as Muslim
"extremists" engage in ever more barbaric behavior.
The most notorious are, obviously, the suicide bombings and the beheadings
in Iraq and Afghanistan, that display a degree of brutality that makes Hitler
look reasonable. Then there are the attacks against schoolgirls in Afghanistan,
guilty of wanting to get an education, the attacks on girls in Iraq, guilty
of not wearing the veil. There was a death penalty for a Muslim guilty of
converting to Christianity. Politicians and intellectuals of non-Muslim
countries have been routinely threatened of death because of something they
said or did. In november 2007 a girl, victim of a gang rape, was sentenced to
200 lashes because she invited the rape by traveling in a car with men who were
not immediate relatives (the Saudi law forbids this). You don't have time
to absorb one of these shocking news than another one comes around: weeks later
a British teacher was arrested in Sudan because her schoolchildren named their
toys Mohammed. Extremists immediately demanded that she be executed for such
a grave offense.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra alone about 40 women have been murdered, decapitated and mutilated, their bodies dumped in the garbage, because they were dressed in Western clothes or did not wear a headscarf
Whenever something like this happens, the media tell us that the vast majority
of Muslims are "moderates" who do not approve of this barbaric extremes.
The media tell us that Islam is a religion of peace and that Muslims want
to coexist peacefully with the rest of the world.
We know that millions of Muslims take to the streets the moment they feel
that someone has offended "their" prophet or "their" holy book
(note the word "their": they behave
as if everybody should respect whomever they deem to be a prophet).
We would expect that the same masses of "moderate" Muslims would be motivated
(even more motivated, actually) to defend the reputation of their prophet and
their holy book and their religion when "extremists" tarnish it.
What is more serious: that one (one) Danish cartoonist made fun of Mohammed or
that little schoolgirls are killed and tens of women are murdered and mutilated?
We would expect that millions of moderate Muslims would not have any doubt.
The question is simple: where are these moderates? Where are the millions of
Muslims marching in the streets to protest the flogging of a victim of rape?
Where are the millions of Muslims marching in the streets to protest the
beheadings and the suicide bombings in Iraq?
Where are the millions of Muslims marching in the streets to protest the
persecution of writers?
Where are the millions of Muslims marching in the streets to protest the
jailing of a teacher?
Where are the millions of Muslims marching in the streets to protest the
killings of little Afghan schoolgirls and Iraqi women?
George W Bush keeps telling us that Islam is a great religion that has been
hijacked by a few extremists. What exactly has been hijacked?
(See also Not Islamic fascism but Islamic denial).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (september 2007)
Osama Bin Laden's great idea.
To anyone used to anti-American rhetoric, Osama Bin Laden's speech of september 2007 bears striking similarities with two notorious anti-USA propagandists:
Fidel Castro of Cuba (whose lengthy speeches pivot on precisely the arguments
used by Bin Laden against the covert activities of the USA government and
the flawed capitalist system) and Noam Chomsky of the USA (whose books analyze
how Jewish lobbies and multinational corporations drive the USA's foreign policy).
Osama Bin Laden's past messages were heavily religious in nature, continuously drawing
from the teachings of Mohammed in person. Now he sounds more like a left-wing
politician than an Islamic fanatic. His references to Islam are purely
marginal, basically the equivalent of idiomatic expressions.
This latest speech to the world by Osama sounds like a speech meant for
the Western audience, not for the Islamic audience. As the influence of Al
Qaeda spreads around the Islamic world, Osama seems more focused on the
Western world. He shows little interest for gaining recognition in the
Islamic world (a goal that is clearly achievable) and a lot of interest for
gaining respect in the Western world (a goal that is virtually impossible).
It sounds like he is out of touch with the state of public opinion in the
world, although he is obviously well-informed about the domestic and foreign
politics of the USA.
Sometimes it sounds like Osama Bin Laden attacked the USA almost by accident,
as a mere corollary to a different kind of war (a religious civil war against
the un-Islamic tyrants of the Islamic world) and now that he is, willingly or
unwillingly, at war against the USA he is trying to find the rational
justification for that war. And the best justification he can find is not
in the Quran but in the books and speeches of communists.
Osama Bin Laden may be less stupid than his victims think. He may have correctly
realized that the Cold War may be over but anti-Americanism is stronger than
ever. Every single argument used by the Soviet Union and its allies against
the USA remains very appealing for millions of anti-Americans all over the
world. While they would be embarrassed to embrace communism after it failed
so badly, in practice they agree at least with the picture of the USA that
communism painted in its heydays. In a sense, there is a large audience ready
to accept a (political) prophet who announces that communism was wrong but
communism's view of the USA was correct. Even the most famous of all Popes,
John Paul II, saw it that way. Such a "negative" ideology of purely anti-USA
sentiments, not necessarily tied to an altenative, would unify the Western
European masses that march in the street against globalization, the Islamic
masses that burn USA and Israeli flags in the squares, and even the USA
masses that protest against the war in Iraq.
A purely "negative" ideology (an ideology that opposes something without
hailing something else) has a great advantage: one can just criticize.
No need to propose and defend an alternative. That's where communism lost,
in a sense. The alternative ended up being worse than the capitalist democratic
society. Coming up with an alternative that works and that would be accepted
by those different segments of the human population is a challenging task.
Indirectly, Osama has realized that one could forge a broad "coalition of
the willing" opposed to the coalition of the willing that Bush tried to put
together in 2003. While Bush's "will" was not shared by many people, the
will to oppose the USA government is shared by millions of Europeans, Chinese,
Africans, Latin Americans and even USA citizens.
Osama may not succeed. But someone else (who doesn't have blood on his hands)
may some day take the idea and run with it.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (august 2007)
For how long will we tolerate the Saudi?
Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for a jihad against the infidels, and notably
the USA. One of their followers, Osama bin Laden, eventually organized a group
that did just that, first in Africa, then in Yemen, then in New York and
Washington.
Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for a jihad against the Shiites, whom they
consider heretics. This has led to the massive carnage in Iraq, as "heretics"
are even worse than "infidels" in fundamentalist Islam.
(See for example this article).
There is little doubt that the Saudi clerics are to Islamic terrorism what
Adolf Hitler was to nazism. Bush's USA is living in denial of the obvious
truth. Maliki's Iraq is less oblivious to the truth, but is powerless against
the super-armed Saudi neighbor. How long will it take for the USA to realize
that Iraq and the USA face the same enemy?
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (july 2007)
Hypocrisy in the Islamic world.
In 2001 a poll asked Muslims around the world if they supported suicide
bombers. From Lebanon to Nigeria a huge percentage replied "yes".
In 2007 the same poll (scroll down) asked them the same question: the vast majority
answered "no".
What has changed? Did Bush's policies change their mind? Did Islamic clerics
suddenly realize that the Quran is a book of peace?
No, what has changed is that these days Muslims are the main victims of
suicide bombers. The sins of the fathers are falling on their children,
and the most gruesome invention of Islam is now killing Muslims around
the world like flies. Hence, suicide bombing is no longer cool. But let the
world remember that it was cool when it only killed non-Muslims.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (April 2007)
The nuclear race in the Middle East.
In a region in which honor prevails over everything else, the mere suspicion
(largely shared by all Arab countries) that Iran is preparing a nuclear weapon
has unleashed a rush of adrenaline as rivals scramble to boast of their
own nuclear programs. Turkey is about to inaugurate its first nuclear plant.
The son of Egypt's dictator Mubarak has announced Egypt's grandiose plans
for nuclear energy. Saudi Arabia has proposed a regional plan.
Libya's dictator Qaddafi must be baffled: he voluntarily surrendered his
nuclear program to the USA and Britain, and now finds himself surrounded by
countries who are rushing to achieve nuclear competence.
It is no mystery that the real goal is to be ready to build a nuclear weapon,
should Iran do so first.
The West, enslaved by Middle Eastern oil, seems powerless to stop this nuclear
race. But then perhaps it makes no sense anymore than two of the nuclear powers
are small obsolete European nations (France and Britain) and that none of the
emerging powers of the Middle East has gone nuclear. Why should France have
the nuclear bomb and Saudi Arabia not have it?
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (March 2007)
The Arab League against Iraq.
The Arab League defined "illegitimate" the USA "occupation" of Iraq,
and has repeatedly implied that the Iraqi government is also "illegitimate"
since it operates under foreign occupation.
The reason the Arab League calls "illegitimate" the democratically elected
government of Iraq is simple: they are all dictators, who have not been elected
by their people. From their point of view the Iraqi elections (not the Iraqi
civil war) are a scary event. They want to erase the notion that democratic
elections are needed to legitimize a leader.
Al Jazeera is the ideological arm of the Arab League. It was Al Jazeera that,
from the beginning, depicted the USA as the invader/occupier, not as the
liberator. Al Jazeera has repeatedly focused on the minor deficiencies of
the Iraqi democracy while always ignoring the colossal aberrations of
the other Arab regimes. If the slightest irregularity is found in Iraq, it
makes the headlines on Al Jazeera. If Saudi Arabia or Egypt persecute the
opposition, Al Jazeera finds it perfectly normal. When the Egyptian government
was under pressure because of a ferry tragedy that cost the lives of 1,000
people (and showed the incompetence of the authorities), Al Jazeera distracted
the Arab world with the news that a small newspaper in a small Christian
country had published some cartoons that made fun of Islam's founder Mohammed.
By consistently attacking Iraq and consistently defending the other Arab
regimes, Al Jazeera is de facto encouraging Arabs to become suicide bombers
and "insurgents" (i.e., anti-democracy fighters).
The Arab League has a vested interest in causing the downfall of the
democratically elected government of Iraq.
Al Jazeera is their main tool.
It is the Arab League and Al Jazeera that have created the Iraqi civil war.
They are creating insurgents, suicide bombers and militias.
The USA does not see its enemy even when it's standing right in front.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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