- (december 2010)
Heroines of Somalia.
Somalia has de facto fallen into yet another brutal Islamic dictatorship.
Islamic intolerance is on the rise everywhere, from Europe (where educated
intellectuals are no longer free to mock religion lest their entire country
becomes a target for "terrorists") to the USA (where it is now de facto illegal
to say anything in any way critical of Islam), but nowhere as much as in
Somalia. The "Party of Islam" (Hizb-al-Islam) has turned Somalia into the
most orthodox Islamic lands in the world.
In 2008 in the small town of Kismayo
a 13-year old girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, stood up and denounced the
men who had raped her. She was quickly accused of "adultery" for having sex
with married men and condemned to death by stoning.
On October 27 a huge crowd of about 1,000 faithful Muslims
assembled at the local stadium to witness the stoning.
Dozens of men indulged in throwing stones at a child who was half buried in
the ground.
Both the three men who raped Aisha and the men who stoned her to death
remain free and probably enjoy the protection of the (Islamic) law.
(See the Amnesty International report).
In 1983 Hawa Abdi founded a hospital near Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia,
that during the civil war grew to become the core of a large refugee center,
providing food, lodging and health care to almost 100,000 people.
The fact that such a facility existed and, worse, it was run by a woman,
did not escape the extremists.
In may 2010 the Party of Islam broke into her compound and destroyed her
hospital.
(This has so far a happy ending because the local people got so upset that
she eventually got back her hospital and the Party of Islam even apologized
to her).
Thankfully the north of Somalia has successfully repelled attempts by Muslim
extremists to install the same kind of religious dictatorship. It is ironic
that the international community does not recognize the independence of the
two countries in the north of Somalia (Puntland and Somaliland) despite the
fact that they are much more tolerant and peaceful than Somalia itself.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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- (June 2006)
Somalia again.
Ask Osama, and he will tell you that it all started in Somalia, not in
Afghanistan. It was in Somalia in 1992 that George Bush senior's soldiers
were massacred by Somali militias and the survivors ran away like rats.
Osama learned an important lesson: that the USA was as vulnerable as the
Soviet Union. Years later two USA embassies in nearby Kenya and Tanzania
blew up. A few years later two much more famous buildings, located in downtown
New York, were blown up by the same organization, Al Qaeda. But it had all
started in 1992 with the defeat and humiliation of the USA in Somalia.
In June 2006 the Islamists of the Union of Islamic Courts led by Sheikh Sharif
Sheikh Ahmed took control of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
(See Islamists take control of Somalia's capital).
They defeated warlords that were supported by the USA to fight off Islam's threat. The Islamists won and the USA allies lost.
As Afghanistan is coming into increasing danger of anarchy after a brief spell
of pseudo-peace, and Iraq is plunging every day into deeper chaos with civilians
slaughtered by pretty much every group that has weapons (whether USA soldiers,
government troops, Shiite militias or Sunni suicide bombers), one has to wonder
if the fall of Mogadishu may be a sign that the Islamists' determination to
fight their religious wars to the end is going to win in the long term just
about everywhere they decide to fight. Short of exterminating the entire
population of an Islamic country, there seems to be virtually no way to end
a conflict against Islamists. They seem to be able to find new recruits at
will (often thanks to their victories that make them look more appealing
than the wimpy troops of the government and of the Western powers). And the
promise of paradise for the martyrs is appealing enough for people who are
living in the hell created in their lands by Islam.
One wonders if the USA and NATO will eventually do what the warlords of
Mogadishu did: get tired of endless fighting against fanatics who will never
stop fighting, and just move elsewhere hoping that the Islamists will be
content with today's prey. Churchil's famous metaphor about appeasement to
nazism (trying to be the last one to be eaten by the crocodile) still applies
though. Islamic revolutions are rarely confined to a territory: by their own
nature (and by the word of the founder of Islam) they are bound to expand
beyond any borders.
The fall of Mogadishu is likely to be not an end but a beginning.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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