Posted on 04/24/2002 11:19:51 AM PDT by swarthyguy
What an irony! Even as the tirade against "Islamic extremism" continues from different parts of the world, those very spots are seeing the rise of extremist politics. The latest victim is France, under threat from the fascism of Jean-Marie Le Pen. He has called into question the hypocrisy of the French electorate who it is clear pay lip service to the form of ostensible liberalism but in reality are becoming increasingly right-wing and extreme in their politics. For some of us this has been clear for a while now - what with the intolerance shown to Muslim girls covering their heads to school as against Christian girls wearing the crucifix in their necks in school, and the general anti-Islamic sentiment that found an easy outlet post-September-11. Yet the facade of a liberal, "secular" France continued till the Le Pen success in the first round of the French elections. Amongst other things, Le Pen is known for his anti-Semitic remarks including declaring the Nazi gas chambers as a mere "detail of history"! He is also strongly anti-immigrant and a committed racist. Imagine the global hysteria if in a similar election Maulana Fazlur Rehman had achieved the same sort of success! We would have been branded all manner of obnoxious labels and sanctions of multiple kinds would have been threatened!
Nor is this the first instance of extremism succeeding at the polls in Europe. There is Mr Joerg Haider in Austria and in Denmark the extreme right-wing People's Party is part of the ruling coalition. In Norway also, the extremist Progress Party is the second largest party in the country. So, Le Pen is only the latest addition to this rise of political extremism in the non-Muslim world.
There is the long-standing figure of Mr Vajpayee - reflecting the rise of militant Hindu extremism which has been showing its true colours, since his rise to power in India, by killing minorities (Christians and Muslims) and burning their places of worship. The massacre of Muslims in the state of Gujarat was the natural progression of this extremism as it continued to be tolerated both by the Indian leadership and the international community. And now Mr Vajpayee himself has lost the image of being the acceptable face of the Hindutva creed, not only by his continued acceptance of the Modi government in Gujarat despite the clearly established complicity of Mr Modi with the Hindu murderers, but also by his tirade against Islam in Goa on 13th April. It was in Goa that he declared: "Hindus stay in millions but never hurt other's religious feelings. But wherever Muslims are they do not want to stay peacefully... . It is happening in Indonesia, Malaysia, everywhere. They (Muslims) stay by threatening and frightening others."
Of course, had Mr Vajpayee not used the word Muslim, his description fits the Israelis to the tee! For this is precisely what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians since they terrorised them out of their land - aided and abetted by the West. And now under the ultra-Zionist, Mr Sharon, Israeli extremism is at its peak. But the history of this extremism goes back to the origins of the Israeli state. The first Israeli Prime Minister, Ben Gurion stated in 1948: "We must do everything to insure they (Palestinians) never do return" and he assured his followers that the Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and the young will forget." But just in case the young did not forget, Zionists like Sharon felt it necessary to kill them all. As Sharon stated, in an interview with General Ouze Merham, in 1956: "...I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. ... With one hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian woman is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do."
True to his word, Sharon has continued this policy whenever he has had the chance. And he has the US to shelter him from international censure. After all, as Sharon told Peres on October 3, 2001 - according to a report on Kol Yisrael radio - "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that ... I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America and the Americans know it." While many may debate this assertion in the US, the fact is that presently, in the face of the massacre at Jenin, two US senators have ironically introduced a bill to declare the PLO as terrorist and have their funds frozen in the US!
Nor is it just the rise of extremists in the non-Muslim world that is extremely worrying. There is also a pervasive extremism prevalent at the level of state and society in these countries and most of it is directed against the Muslims. In fact, official acceptance of violence against Muslims has allowed the extremists to act with impunity. The carnage in Gujarat is only one such example and Jenin is simply another addition in what has become common place after 9/11. While the world supposedly watches intently the trial of Pearl's killers in Karachi, has anyone followed what happened to the British soldiers who shot dead a pregnant Afghan woman in a cab in Kabul? Well, nothing except their transfer back to Britain. And soldiers represent the state so obviously the message from the British state was - and probably still is - that it was okay to kill Muslim civilians in Afghanistan. After all, the US forces had done the same with no expression of regret. As for the massacre of POWs at Qila-i-Jhangi, the irony is that Amnesty International - that proclaimer of the high moral ground - had managed to get in and produce a report which showed that it was clearly a massacre with the dead prisoners still having their hands tied behind their backs but the bosses of this NGO will not allow the report to be published. They are still "going through the process" as one Amnesty person explained to a group in Peshawar! Ultimately, these reports will come out but the delay is damaging.
In the US itself, there is a systematic targeted harassment and often killing of Muslims - including children - with little being done against the perpetrators. The present US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, is himself a Christian fundamentalist who referred to the US Supreme Court as a "robed elite" that "have taken the wall of separation built to protect the church and made it a wall of religious oppression." In the course of his political career - he lost the senatorial race in Missouri - he has attacked Black Americans and other segments of American civil society.
As non-Muslim extremism rises, the most shameful aspect is those in the Muslim world who have been either willy-nilly or deliberately co-opted to keep quiet on the issue of the basic rights of the Muslims. For instance, the HRCP, like the Government of Pakistan, has an obligation to ensure that the Pakistani prisoners in Kabul and in Guantanamo Bay are given due legal process - in the case of the latter, the example of Nuremburg and The Hague should be cited - yet so far they have not so much as whimpered on this subject. Why? Because they find the creed of these prisoners unacceptable, or because of the pressures of donor funding, or perhaps a combination of both?
The silence and self-imposed helplessness of the Muslim world has led the Muslims to become attractive targets of the growing extremism in the non-Muslim world - both at the level of the state and civil society. The greatest irony is that the only place where extremism is not flourishing in any form is in the Muslim states where obscurantism is a minority creed. Fifty-seven years after countless Muslims died to defeat the rise of fascism in Europe and Japan in World War II, Muslims are now confronting new forces of fascism that are on the ascendancy in the non-Muslim world from Europe to Asia.
The writer is Director General of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad
Now as for financing terrorists? But this isn't anti muslim, this is anti terrorists. I'd have a serious problem is it were Episcopalians acting as terrorists.
Stop targeting civilians and maybe you clowns would get a little better press. Keep targeting civilians and you will all be targets.
Here is an example of verbal extremism from the extremists on the left.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Oppressive, dictatorial control.
Liberals advocate the centralization of government, conservatives do not.
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