The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Jewish World Review ^ | 12/02/08 | Melanie Phillips

[Alia]

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.

For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos ...

Despite the fact that Western citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place.

Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion.

Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq — which many assume is the motive for such attacks — why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station?

And why was an obscure outreach centre geared to Jews marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

But because we don't understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this — or something even worse — occurring; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many obdurately deny — that a war is being waged against civilization.

It is both global and local. It is not 'our' fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances — Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya — merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all 'unbelievers'.

[bert]

Hey melanie...... now that you are awake, why have you been asleep for the 15 years?

There have been lots of incidents you apparently either dozed through or happened while you were in middle school

[Alia]

Thank you, skimask. Really, what the author is saying: we should just “talk”; as tho no talks have been happening. This is the equivalence of early 70s feminists asserting one could/should “talk a rapist out of raping you”. I often wonder about people who write as this Rabbi has — has he ever been the target of a bully? Personally? Obviously, to me, not.