TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
- (december 2010)
A problem that the whole world shares.
These were the headlines of Associated Press on December 25.
"Multiple explosions in central Nigeria killed 32 people and six others died in attacks by Muslim sect members on two churches" (Later the figure was revised to "more than 80" killed)
"Suspected Suicide Bomber Kills 43 in Pakistan"
"Dutch authorities have arrested 12 men of Somali origin they believe were about to carry out a terrorist attack"
All over Europe the newspapers had been reporting for a while about a threat of Mumbai-style bombings.
Meanwhile, the main story on Russia Today was: "Afghanistan's export of mass destruction - Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of heroin". And
the Jerusalem Post had an article titled "Kassam lands near Ashkelon" (a rocket
shot from Gaza narrowly missed an Israeli town). The Philippine Inquirer had
a front-page article about Rose Baranda, a businesswoman abducted by the Abu Sayyaf group, and the Bangkok Post had a front-page story on a Thai vessel with 27 crewmen seized by Somali pirates.
Three days later the BBC headline was "Danish police foil terror plot to attack newspaper" (Muslims wanted to kill as many people as possible in retaliation for the publication of comic cartoons about the founder of Islam).
The following day the headline of the Egypt Daily News was:
"Church Bomb Kills 21 Wounds 79 in Alexandria".
A few days later the widely-read newspapers run by Pakistan's mainstream religious organizations applauded the murder of Punjab's governor Salman Taseer,
who had campaigned to ease Pakistan's blasphemy law (according to which you
can be killed if you are found to have "offended" Islam);
while his killer was showered with rose petals as he appeared in court.
On the eve of the Coptic Christmas, Islamic websites both in Europe and
Middle East published church addresses in Egypt and Europe and encouraged
Muslims to attack Christians.
The litany continued into 2011. On the 24th of january Russians were paralyzed by the news that dozens
of people had been killed by a suicide bomber from the Caucasus at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.
On the 25th of january the headlines on Pakistani newspaper "The News" were: "Lahore blast toll rises to 13" referring to attacks by Sunni extremists against Shiites. And on the 2nd of march Pakistan's only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated.
It should be obvious what these headlines have in common, but it is politically
incorrect (and even deadly dangerous) to say it: Islam.
The Islamic world is at war with everybody everywhere. In fact, if one could
remove Islam from the world, this would be the first time in history that there
are no major wars: the powers are not at war against each other, there are no
major civil wars left, there are no border wars anywhere. This is the first time
in more than 1500 years that there is no war in Europe. It is the first time
since the Mongols that that there is no war in non-Muslim Asia.
It is the first time in history that Latin America is not ruled by brutal dictators.
It is the first time in history that sub-Saharan Africa is not engulfed in
wars and/or ruled by genocidal dictators.
All the trouble is related to the Islamic world: Islamic fanatics in the West,
Islamic secessionists in Russia and the Philippines, Islamic terrorists in the
Middle East, Islamic militias in Somalia and Sudan, etc. And there are countries
that are officially "Islamic republics" and "Islamic kingdoms", i.e. religious
dictatorships, a fact that might even be worse than violence.
We haven't heard of a Jewish suicide bomber or a Christian militia or a
Buddhist secessionist group or a Hindu republic or any kind of kingdom in ages.
Muslims are proud that their religion is pretty much the only religion that is
on the rise: all other religions are declining. Islam is also the only religion
in which religious crimes have dramatically increased.
One must be deaf and blind not to see the correlation.
Yes, Islam is the only religion whose following is increasing, and it is the
only religion that is still causing so much trouble in 2010.
The problem will not be solved until both Muslims and non-Muslims admit what
the problem is. You cannot solve a problem if you deny that it exists.
As long as one billion people believe in the letter of the Quran, the problem
will only get worse. Just like it was when one billion Christians believed in
the letter of the Bible (or, worse, in what the Pope said).
I don't know what the solution is, but i know that it will not be found until
both Muslims and non-Muslims recognize that there is a problem.
Wars in Europe ended when religion decayed.
The last major conflict in Western Europe was in Northern Ireland, between
Catholics and Protestants. The most troubled region of Europe until recently
has been the Balkans, where you can tell someone's nationality just by asking
him what god he believes in.
The place with the greatest number of conflicts in history is Palestine,
where three religions "meet".
Religion is the problem, not the solution.
P.S.
Instead it is scary how quickly we are moving towards an Islamic dictatorship
in cultural affairs even in the West. In december 2010 the Wikipedia article
on Feminism mentions
Mohammed (the founder of Islam) as "one of the world's first feminists".
It would be laughable if it weren't insulting to the women whom he personally
raped, including a child. Read the Quran and judge for yourself how many rights
he granted to women: the right to obey and shut up. That's what "feminism"
means in the Quran and in the Hadith. Women's rights in the Arabian peninsula
ended with Islam.
Mohammed was as much feminist as Hitler was a friend of the Jews.
And that's just one of the many episodes of pro-Islamic disinformation that one
finds more and more often in the non-Muslim world. It is not the non-Muslims who
make progress in uprooting Islamic religious superstition but
Islamic religious superstition that is slowly forced into the non-Muslim world
as historical truth.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (september 2010)
Some Muslims never miss an opportunity.
A small obscure Christian church in the USA had decided to burn the Quran.
It's a small church,
and it's a perfectly legitimate act (we burn books every year, many of them
much better books than all the religious books combined). Just like with the
cartoons published by a small Danish newspaper, that's enough to send thousands
of Muslims in the streets of the world to burn USA flags and promise to behead
anyone
remotely connected to the event (basically, all non-Muslims of the world),
starting, as usual, with the president of the USA (even though he happens to
have condemned the burning of the Quran).
Within a week of the planned burning (that never took place) already two people
had died in riots in Afghanistan and a dozen in Kashmir.
The hundreds of millions of "moderate" Muslims do not condemn any of this.
We have seen this movie countless times before.
The fact that this is just a small church and does not even reflect the beliefs
of its small community (let alone of the 300 million inhabitants of this nation,
let alone of the 6 billion non-Muslims of the world) seems to be irrelevant.
This is, after all, just a small episode blown out of proportion by the media.
Whereas in Saudi Arabia it is *mandatory* to destroy any Christian, Hindu,
Buddhist, etc holy book and, alas, the Islamic world seems to approve of this
law (or, at least, it never protested against it). In fact, displaying a
non-Muslim religious book in Mecca carries the death penalty.
And this is instead a fact that the mainstream media carefully ignores.
The burning of a few copies of the Quran by one Christian fundamentalist
is a small
insult to a religion (and perhaps to both religions); but what about the destruction of the two giant Buddhas
in Afghanistan? Wasn't that a much bigger insult to a religion? How many
Muslims were and are protesting against it? Not one, as far as i know.
And isn't the law of Saudi Arabia banning non-Muslim books a much bigger
insult to all religions of the world?
A Muslim leader in New York, Feisal Abdul Rauf, said that burning the Quran
would be a disaster because it would strengthen the radicals. But that's
precisely the problem: if you burn the Gospels of the Buddhist scriptures
or the Vedas, nothing happens. Christians, Buddhists and Hindus would simply
ignore you and mind their own business. The fact that millions of Muslims would
turn radical because someone thinks the Quran is junk is pretty alarming.
The civilized world needs to make it very clear that we all have the right
to think what we want of any religious superstition. It's them (the Muslims
who are outraged by Quran burning) who turn this into a clash of civilizations;
in fact, they turn it into a clash between civilization (Hindu, Buddhist,
Christian, Shintoist, atheist) against a backward society that has archaic
values (call it "Islam" or call it whatever you like).
We have seen this movie countless times before: 1. Muslims decide what is
permissible and what is not; 2. The rest of the world is intimidated into
behaving the way Muslims want them too; 3. Regardless of what the world does,
thousands if not millions of Muslims still proceed to stage violent riots;
4. Silent hatred against Islam increses worldwide.
These Muslims are the very reason that the world is becoming more and more
hostile against Islam. Otherwise people could care less about what Muslims
believe or don't believe. Every year there are many more people in Russia, China,
India, Africa and Latin America who burn the Quran without any media coverage.
And there will be more after each and every such demonstration of barbaric
behavior by rioting Muslims. Those images broadcast worldwide
of those men running and shouting like rats through the streets of Afghanistan
are the best propaganda tool for all anti-Muslims of the world.
Moderate Muslims (that very silent majority) should take to the streets to protest against
those protests, not against the burning of the Quran or the Danish cartoons.
Last but not least,
Muslims don't realize that this Florida priest may be their best friend:
start burning the Quran and you'll probably solve half the problems that
still plague the Islamic world, a region that has been passed by Latin America,
the Far East, India, China (all regions that used to starve) and will soon
be passed by black Africa too if it doesn't get rid of its archaic beliefs.
The rest of the world is progressing precisely because it has left religion
where it belongs: in churches and temples that are emptier every year.
Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, wrote that
"the very idea was so offensive". Dear professor, you *are* the problem.
You are offended by an act that didn't even take place but not offended by
the thousands who burned USA flags and effigies of the USA president: what
makes you think that a book on an ancient superstition of the Arabian peninsula
is more "sacred" than a national flag or a national figure (whether American,
European, African or Asian)?
What is offensive to modern civilized people (in China, India, Russia, Latin America, Japan, Europe and the USA) is that someone thinks that burning a
superstition is offensive.
What is offensive to us is the high degree of illiteracy and poverty
that parallels the high degree of mosque attendance in the Islamic world.
That's where the clash of civilization (between Islam and everybody else) begins.
If more people burned their religious books (especially the Quran), a lot
of problems would be solved overnight (especially in the Middle East) and
we would all live in a more peaceful world.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (march 2010)
Swiss intolerance for Islam.
In november 2009 Swiss voters voted in favor of a law banning the construction
of any new minaret on the soil of Switzerland. This was indeed an embarrassing
moment in "free" Europe. The Islamic media worldwide have been publicizing the
news for months, as an example of an anti-Islamic attitude in Christian Europe.
In december Al Jazeera also widely reported that Christians marched in the
streets of Poland to protest against the construction of a mosque.
AL Jazeera forgot to mention that the total number of protesters was 150 out
of a country of 38 million. Al Jazeera also carefully omitted showing the signs
carried by the protesters, signs that were simply demanding
the same kind of religious freedom in Islamic countries.
First of all, it is amazing how good the Islamic world is at terrorizing
the world. The moment a minuscule news like this starts traveling around
the Islamic world, thanks to the tom-tom of millions of Muslims sitting at
a cafe or traveling in a crowded bus, the whole population
becomes a potential target for terrorist attacks. I am sure that the average
Muslim who gets excited about this Swiss law is not a direct sponsor of
terrorist groups. However, the hysterical reaction by millions of ordinary
Muslims has the net effect of motivating and galvanizing terrorists who are
desperately looking for popular causes. And the ultimate effect is that
nobody in Switzerland will feel safe for a long long long time when they
see an Arab walking among them.
Second, there are millions of Muslim immigrants in Europe, including Italy
(the capital of the Christian world) and including Rome itself.
What are the chances that one (just one) Christian emigrates to an Islamic
country and builds a Christian church? When is the last time that this happened?
There are 214 mosques in Italy (the homeland of Catholicism), and the largest
one is in Rome, the holiest city of the Catholic Church (i believe the
mosque in Rome is actually the largest in Europe).
Any Muslim (and any Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, etc) is welcome to Rome, and any
Muslim (and any Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, etc) is even welcome in the Vatican
(the house of the Pope).
Millions of non-Catholics visit the holiest Catholic city every year.
As far as i know, Muslims can enter any city in the world of any religion.
On the other hand there is no Christian church (not a single one) in the entire
Saudi Arabia, there is no Hindu temple and there is no Buddhist temple.
Worse: only Muslims are allowed to visit two of its largest cities, Mecca and
Medina.
About two million Catholics live in Saudi Arabia but they are even forbidden to
pray in public: it is illegal to worship any other religion in Saudi Arabia.
No books of any other religion can be published or sold in Saudi Arabia.
It is this double standard that creates anti-Islamism in Europe. Many Europeans
are aware of this double standard and react by saying:
"All Muslims should be forbidden to worship their religion in every country of
the world until the day that they allow non-Muslims to visit all their cities
and to worship non-Muslim religions."
It sounds like a very legitimate demand.
Switzerland (and all other countries of the world) has no problem with other
religions: Switzerland (and all the other countries of the world) has a problem
with a religion (Islam) that always seems to apply a double standard.
Islam invokes the right to worship Islam in non-Islamic countries but forbid s
others to worship non-Islamic religions in Islamic countries.
Mecca is the greatest example on Earth of religious intolerance. Every other
case of religious intolerance in the world is negligible compared with Mecca.
Before we criticize Switzerland, let's make sure we criticize Saudi Arabia
100 times more: Switzerland does have Muslims, does have mosques and does have
all sorts of non-Christian temples, whereas Saudi Arabia only allows one religion.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (january 2010)
Dubai's troubles.
Dubai World announced a huge debt that marked a dramatic reveral of fortune
for one of the richest city-states in the world. While its immediate cause
was certainly the financial and real-estate crisis that has hit several
institutions around the world, there is also a political backdrop to it.
For many years now (and particularly after the USA imposed tighter sanctions)
Dubai has played the role of financial hub for Iran. It is impossible to spend
a weekend in Dubai and not meet Iranian businessmen. They are literally
everywhere. Iranian oil is shipped out of Dubai, and cash is flowing into Iran
via Dubai. Bankers in Dubai get rich thanks to Iran. This was tolerated by
the Bush administration the same way they tolerated a lot of contradictory
policies around the world, preaching democracy in one place and supporting a
mad dictator in another place. The new USA administration is continuing the
foreign policies of the Bush administration but does not have the same
personal connections to the Arab sheiks. Abu Dhabi, on the other hand,
is relatively free of contacts with Iran. It has always been administered in
a more "rational" manner than Dubai. The Abu Dhabi sheik has invested in
culture, not in spectacular skyscrapers. Now that Dubai is in trouble,
nobody is coming to its rescue... except Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is slowly
acquiring a larger and larger share of Dubai's business (including some of
its most celebrated pieces of real estate). The loser in the Emirates is Iran.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2009 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (january 2010)
Obama's Islamic wars.
(Note: This article was submitted to Al Jazeera's blog but immediately removed by the Al Jazeera editors/censors)
Al Jazeera is widely publicizing the five Obama wars in the Islamic world:
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen. This is the old theory that
there is a USA/Israeli conspiracy to destabilize and destroy Islamic countries.
Al Jazeera omits facts that would help Muslims put these events in context.
Which non-Muslim country has killed the largest number of Muslim civilians
in the last 25 years? By far Russia (Afghanistan and Chechnya), although
probably not as many as Saddam Hussein (a Muslim) killed when he was running
Iraq (500,000 only in the war against Iran).
Which non-Muslim country has suffered
the largest number of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists? By far India,
followed by the Philippines.
The USA has had only one and Israel very few after the second intifada.
(I am not counting Islamic countries themselves, otherwise number
one would be Pakistan, followed by Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Indonesia).
Which non-Muslim country has had the largest riots by a Muslim minority in
the last few years? Nigeria, then China, then Thailand, then France.
Which non-Muslim country is most boycotted throughout the Islamic world?
Israel, followed by Denmark.
Which war between Muslims and non-Muslims has killed the largest number of
people in the last 20 years? The civil war in Sudan
(more people were killed in Sudan than in all of the other wars of the Islamic
world combined).
I could go on. Al Jazeera misleads its audience by presenting a picture in
which the USA is at war with the Islamic world, when in reality the problem
extends from Russia to China to India to Europe to Africa. There is hardly
a place with a Muslim minority that is not experiencing trouble with Muslim
extremists. Last but not least, the USA has a tough confrontation with
North Korea (not Muslims), including thousands of troops ammassed at the
border, and has more troops in Colombia (not Muslims) than
in Yemen or Somalia.
Al Jazeera, though, is a good example of the kind of anti-USA
propaganda that is widespread throughout the Islamic world, and in particular
in the Arab world: it depicts the USA, and only the USA, as fighting against
Muslims, and only against Muslims.
Welcome to the real world, Barack Obama.
(See my article Obama's Cairo speech: wishful thinking at its worst).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2009 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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