WHY are so many Muslims so enraged by a handful of cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper? It’s not enough to point out how the governments of Egypt, Syria and Iran are stoking the protests in a cynical ploy to deflect Western pressure for democratic reform and to curry favor with Islamic radicals. Their strategy wouldn’t be so successful if it didn’t resonate with deeply ingrained attitudes among the Muslim multitudes.
When propaganda, poverty, ignorance, and the absolute conviction that your way of thinking is correct and everything else is $#!% collides, you have something along the lines of the Cartoon Jihad (or Fundamentalist Social Conservative Christians), in which the ignorant, the desperately poor, the intolerant, and the heavily propagandized kill, burn, and destroy in the name of the Religion of Peace©:. Then again, what could one reasonably expect from countries which know nothing of the rule of law and tolerance for those who happen not to share their narrow cosmological and ideological viewpoint?
If you were to look critically at those nutjobs fully engulfed in the Cartoon Jihad, you’d likely find a recurring theme. No doubt that theme would involve a high degree of resentment, jealousy, and a world view heavily based on state-administered propaganda. This view of the Western world has been so thoroughly inculcated in Muslims that people you wouldn’t normally suspect of swallowing such ignorance and propaganda- intellectuals and academics- are faithfully and vehemently parroting the party line. When normally intelligent, thoughtful people swallow this crap, can we be surprised when the rest of the Muslim world is en fuego?
I got an earful of those views last week in Kuala Lumpur while attending a conference sponsored by New York University and the Malaysian Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations. The ostensible subject was: “Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?” We never did answer those questions, but the infidel attendees did get a red-hot blast of indignation from the Muslim participants, who hailed not only from East Asia but also from Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
Even though all of the Muslim delegates were intellectuals, activists, politicians and other movers and shakers, they resonated with the rage of the dispossessed. With considerable justification, they fulminated against the backwardness of the Islamic world compared to the West. With considerably less justification, they blamed their frustrations on the West.
If only I had a ringgit for every time some delegate complained that the plight of the Palestinians showed the world’s anti-Muslim bias.
The plight of Palestinians shows the world’s anti-Muslims bias? That’s one of the oldest canards around. Look, all you have to do is to compare and contrast the progress made by the Israelis vis-a-vis Palestinians since 1948. Granted, it’s not an “apples and apples” comparison, strictly speaking, but there are some hard and fast realities.
Though Israel was outmanned and outgunned after 1948, they persevered, and they worked to remake a harsh, unforgiving environment into something habitable, hospitable, and reasonably profitable. Over time, they have achieved a high level of prosperity through dedication and hard work. The Palestinians? They have whined and moaned about their “plight”, and instead of taking the initiative to improve their own situation, they have sat on their collective ass and expected the West to provide for them. Accordingly, Palestinians still live in abject Third World poverty because they collectively possess a Third World mentality. Palestinian poverty is largely a function of a lack of will among the Palestinian people and their leaders. They have no one to blame but themselves for the fact that their economy is a basket case and their political leaders are inept, self-absorbed cowards devoid of any definable leadership skills and moral courage.
One attendee even had the gall to claim that Israel is allowed to violate U.N. resolutions while no Muslim state has that luxury — at the very moment Iran is thumbing its nose at the United Nations! This was coupled with ritualistic denunciations of other anti-Muslim offenses — from the real (Russian repression in Chechnya) to the farcical (a Pakistani academic blamed the CIA for creating Islamic fundamentalism in his country).
I realize and understand that most Muslims are reasonable, caring people. But when you have educated and allegedly sophisicated maroons making statements containing not a shred of demonstrable fact, you’ve got to wonder if the inmates really aren’t running the asylum?
When educated people espouse such lunacy, can it be any wonder when everyday, rank-and-file Muslims begin killing, burning, and looting in the name of The Religion of Peace©?
Naturally the United States got scant credit (except from one Bosnian) for repeatedly waging war to free Muslims from oppression. Instead of being thanked for saving Muslims from genocide in places such as Kosovo, the United States was denounced for committing genocide against them.
Other complaints abounded — the global financial system is biased against Muslim countries such as Indonesia (which was hurt by the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis); the propagation of knowledge is dominated by American universities such as Harvard and Yale; the U.N. Security Council has no permanent Islamic member; and on and on.
Oh, and they left out that Jews enjoy drinking the blood of Arab children (as an aperitif??)….
When ignorance and prejudice are firmly ensconced in the ethos of a religion, how can good and decent people combat it? The reality is that we cannot, because fear, ignorance, hatred, and reaction trump reason and reality any day of the week. It’s easier to react based on emotion that it is to calmly consider why your world is such a f——d up mess. And it’s easier to kill and destroy than it is to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of making your world a better place to be.
Until, and unless, Muslims lose the whiny “woe is me” victim mentality, they are destined to live in abject poverty, with leaders more concerned with their own enrichment and self-aggrandizement. Their situation is largely of their own creation, and the solution is largely within their grasp. If Muslims want their situation to improve, if they want to have the respect and assistance of the West, then they need to begin acting as if they deserve it. From where I sit, if Muslims considered the Cartoon Jihad an appropriate reaction to anything that happens to offend their sensibilities, then they can continue to live in abject Third World poverty.
The West could best show it’s resolve and revulsion by disengaging from the countries of the Muslim world until they show themselves worthy of our assistance. Once they demonstrate a willingness to live by the rules of civilized peoples, we should spare no expense in assisting them. Until, and unless, this takes place, any foreign aid money that is spent in these countries is being wasted.
It’s very simple: if you wanted to be treated as full members of the civilized world, ACT as if you are members of the civilized world. If you continue to allow hatred, ignorance, and xenophobia rule, you have no right to complain about your “plight”. Get over yourselves, stop your whining, rioting, and destroying, and take some responsibility. If you can do that, the West will fall all over itself with aid and assistance. If you cannot, y’all can rot in whatever your version of Hell happens to look like.
