Posted on 10/30/2003 2:56:09 PM PST by Davis
On Friday, October 16, in the new Federal Administrative District of Putrajaya, Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, gave the opening address to a summit meeting of the 57 nations comprising the Organization of Islamic Conference. The speech is rambling and extremely stupid.
Its principal theme appears to be the lack of unity among Muslim nations and indeed of Muslims. So many sects, so many different interpretations of the Faith. It is a pep talk of sorts that attempts to rally the participants to confront the "enemy," the "detractors and oppressors of Islam."
Mahathir is vague about who this "enemy" is. Sometimes it appears to be Europeans, the Christian west, sometimes Jews. But of course, it makes no difference since Mahathir declares that all world powers are ruled by Jews who "invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others."
This is head-rattling stuff. Mahathir is saying that but for Jews' cleverness, the world would be able to perceive that Jews ought to be persecuted. For what? Other than for being Jews, he doesn't say.
Along his loony way, Mahathir is quite complimentary to Jews. He declares they have survived 2000 years of pogroms not by armed resistance but by thinking. Get the picture? Moish says to Abe, "Here come the Cossacks to pillage, rape, and murder us. Let us out-think them." Abe: "Let's hide in the woods." Moish: "Good idea."
Mahathir is accounted a moderate Muslim. This may be true. It depends on whom you are comparing him with, Gaddafy, Mullah Omar--perhaps. He does decry the backwardness of Muslims, their lack of competence in science, technology, their inability to produce weapons of war–-the ignominy of having to buy warships, tanks, rockets, and bombs from their detractors and oppressors. All this is in preparation for a continuation of war on the West suspended since the Moors' defeat by Ferdinand and Isabella at Granada in 1492.
Mahathir denies that the backwardness of Islamic nations is attributable to Islam. True, it's the one thing they have in common, and maybe those Muslim clerics who seek a return to the time of the Prophet and proclaim that anything worth knowing is contained in the Koran do bear some responsibility, but still he proclaims himself an Islamic fundamentalist. He does observe that the Muslims slept through the Industrial Revolution. But it never seems to cross his Islamic brow that science and technology flourish under freedom, that it is the keystone of prosperity.
Mahathir asserts that Islam is not opposed to modernity and he implores his colleagues at the conference to get with the program. According to news accounts, the assembled monarchs, crown princes, emirs, ayatollahs, generals, and dictators responded to his exhortations with applause. They could select from the buffet of contradictions Mahathir spread before them only those things they want to hear. It's not their fault nor their faith's fault that they're humiliated and dishonored. It's the Jews' fault, It's the Europeans' fault.
In the West, Mahathir's speech was roundly condemned. Even Paul Krugman, the Princeton astrologer and twice-weekly columnist for the New York times declared his speech "inexcusable." This didn't prevent Krugman from excusing Mahathir and declaring the cause of Muslim enmity towards the United States and the rational world as deriving from US foreign policy. "Thanks to its war in Iraq and its unconditional support for Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low."
Do you hear? "Squandered post 9/11 sympathy." Krugman says it's George Bush's fault
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